JESUS ARMY

The 'Jesus Army' is the outreach ministry of the 'Jesus Fellowship Church', an evangelical Christian movement based in the United Kingdom.

Contents

History

Beliefs

Criticism

References

External links

History

Originally based on a village Baptist chapel in Bugbrooke near Northampton. Its founder was the chapel pastor Noel Stanton who in 1968 experienced a profound and intense spiritual episode or 'Baptism in the Holy Spirit', see also Pentecost.
The church was affected by the Charismatic Movement in the late 1960s and early 70s and influenced by the Jesus People movement in the USA.

The Jesus Army is known for its street outreach and is particularly involved with many in need, including homeless young people, those struggling with drug or alcohol abuse, and prisoners and ex-prisoners. Like many other churches, it engages in frequent evangelistic activities in public places, often out-of-doors, seeking to spread the Christian gospel through relationship building and friendships which demonstrate what it considers to be the love of Jesus and a moving of the Holy Spirit. Around 600 Jesus Army members live in 60 intentional communities collectively known as "New Creation Christian Community". Within each "house family", members pool their income in a common purse arrangement (See Acts 2:44-47) in accordance to the calling of the Bible in Chapters 2 and 4 of the Acts of the Apostles. An additional 1,800 members live outside these communities and operate much like members of larger churches, such as the Anglican Church.

Beliefs

The Jesus Army upholds the historic creeds of the Christian faith. The creeds are a set of common beliefs shared with many other Christian churches (including Church of England) and are known as: the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed and the Nicene Creed.
The Jesus Fellowship's / Jesus Army's beliefs are documented in their pdf e-book "We Believe" [1].

Criticism

In the past, local Northamptonshire newspapers and the late Archdeacon of Northampton, Bazil Marsh, among others ([2]) have accused the group of being a sect ([3]) or religious cult ([4])
but members of the group have denied this ([5], [6]). They state that the Jesus Fellowship is a member of the Evangelical Alliance ([7]) - an umbrella group representing one million evangelical Christians in the UK, made up of member churches from over 30 different denominations, organisations and individuals. The EA in its formative years, particularly stood for the victims of Religious persecution and enabled evangelicals from different denominations to work together.
Jesus Fellowship is also linked to other churches and groups in the UK and elsewhere through the Multiply Christian Network ([8]).
According to newspaper articles from the 1980s, members of the Jesus Army communal houses were encouraged to withdraw from the world and cut off their ties with outsiders[9][10], except for the purpose of evangelising. It was also stated in newspaper articles that it was a policy of the group that community members must gain the permission of the group's "elders" before they got married[11]. As Professor Jeffrey K Hadden commented: "The Jesus Fellowship did not escape the muckraking of the tabloids." [12]
One of these houses was featured more recently in a Channel 4 television documentary, "Battlecentre", in 2001 (Production summary, Guardian Unlimited Reader Reviews, BBC interview with producer).

References

★ Cooper, Simon & Farrant, Mike (1997). ''Fire In Our Hearts'' (2nd edition). ISBN 1-900878-05-4. Northampton: Multiply Publications. Retrieved August 24, 2005.

External links

★ Official Jesus Army site - with video

★ New Creation Christian Community

★ Jesus Centres - Jesus Army Jesus Centres projects. Centres with care facilities open daily in cities and large towns

★ Promise House - a site about a Jesus Army community house in Coventry

★ RE:Quest - Case study on the Jesus Army on a Religious Education site

★ Northampton Chronicle and Echo - Search local newspaper for articles on the Jesus Army

★ Jesus Army Watch - includes extensive archives of press articles relating to Jesus Army

★ Profile of Jesus Army at University of Virginia - includes history, beliefs and membership statistics.

★ jeanni.org Networking for former members and those anxious about the Jesus Army

★ voidspace.org Imagine Paradise, a personal testimony