I Called My Son Samuel 6

"We're not going to baptise your son," said Barry.
"He's five years old.  He wouldn't understand," said James.
"What does he need to understand?" asked Pastor Boris.
"Anyone who is baptised must understand what it means to be born again," said Barry.
"If you baptised the devil, he understands what it means to be born again.  He understands and he shudders."  James looked puzzled.  Barry looked confused.
"Well," said James.  "If I baptised the devil, he wouldn't be a mature Christian."
"Do you have to be a mature Christian before you get baptised?  Surely it's something that happened, in the Bible, to people who had just heard the good news."
"You must have your heart right with God," said James.  "If I baptised the devil, his heart wouldn't be right with God."
"A tiny little child wouldn't understand the good news," said Barry.  "That's why we don't believe in infant baptism."
"On what grounds do you refuse to baptise my son Samuel?"
"On the grounds," said James, "that anyone who is baptised must understand the good news and must have their heart right with God." 
"James, I'm his father.  Samuel loves the Lord and believes in Jesus with a passion.  You can't judge him and say that he doesn't have a heart that's right with God."
"He's too young.  He wouldn't understand," said Barry.
"If you sat down and spoke to Samuel.  If you asked him questions about his faith.  If he gave intelligent answers to those questions."
"Yes," said James.  "Then he would understand."

Barry and James came into the living room at the farm and sat down to interview Samuel.
"Hello," said James.  "We've been sent here to talk to you about baptism."
"Yes," said Barry.  "To see if you can understand what it is all about."
"I do hope that you decide that I can be baptised," said Samuel.  "I do so want to leap out of the water full of the Holy Spirit and start praying in tongues, as has happened at other baptisms I have seen."
"Look Samuel," said James, with a look on his face half way between mockery and laughter, "have you ever really repented of your sins?"
"I pulled my cousin's hair once and I made her scream.  I felt very bad about that.  I ran away into the street, fearing that I would be punished.  My parents and my uncle came looking for me.  I still feel upset about it.  She's a pretty cousin.  But was there ever a sin that the blood of the lamb could not cleanse?"
"Samuel," said Barry.  "Can you tell us why you want to be baptised?"
"When I think of what Jesus did for me, why don't I give him my life in return?  All of it?"
"Samuel," said James, "if you were baptised, what would it mean?"
"It's like taking a bath.  Washes away all your sin.  Gets all the dirt out of your soul."  James and Barry looked at each other, puzzled and amazed.  Barry came running out of the room to tell Pastor Boris.
"Pastor Boris, Samuel can be baptised.  He must be baptised straight away."

After the Sunday evening service had finished, James and Barry together led Samuel down into the river where Samuel was to be baptised.  The congregation were gathered around them.
"Before we baptise Samuel," said Pastor Boris, "does anyone have any words of knowledge?"  
"The moon has gone orange," said Bob.  "It is a sign.  There will be an exceptional prophetic anointing on Samuel.  He will have a prophetic ministry like no one who has ever lived."
A shooting star appeared in the sky.
"Samuel will be our shooting star," said Charlie.  "All the nations of the world will see him.  He is not the Christ but has come to prepare the world for the second coming of Christ.  Samuel will be a famous man of God all over the world and Jesus will come again in his lifetime.  The world will be ready for Jesus to come again because of Samuel's ministry."
"Samuel will build the church of Jesus better than she's ever been," said Maria.  "He will make such a good leader of this church.  Is he going to be leader of this church when his father dies?  No.  We will not have to wait that long.  Just wait until he graduates from Bible College and university.  Samuel will be recognised as leader of this church in his early twenties."
"Samuel," said James, "do you accept Jesus as your personal Saviour and intend to follow him as Lord all the days of your life?"
"I do," said Samuel.
"Upon your own confession of faith," said Barry, "we now baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."  They lowered Samuel into the water.  When Samuel came out of the water again, his hands were together in prayer and he was praying enthusiastically in tongues.
"Oh, what tongues," said Angie.  "Have you ever heard anyone pray in tongues like that?  I think that Samuel has an exceptional anointing."

The church had a double decker bus parked on the high street in Bournemouth on a Friday night.  A young man in a smart leather jacket with a red tie stood in the street outside holding a Galaxy tablet.
"Don't go into that bus," he shouted.  "They put psychedelic drugs in the food."  A long queue of people appeared along the street, waiting to get into the bus.  Matthew was standing next to the man, wearing his army jacket, the uniform of Piddledon Farm Community Church.
"Where are you from?" asked Matthew.
"A very big online newspaper.  Blogspot.  My name's Jonathon Johnson.  You might find some of my work if you search for me on Google."
"Blogspot is twenty hundreds technology," said Timothy.  "If you're in your thirties, you've got a Twitter account.  If you're middle aged, you're on Facebook.  Anyone who uses Blogspot has been on an outing from an old people's home and visited the BBC Learn How to Use a Computer Bus."  Matthew came back on to the bus.
"Can I have a cup of tea?" he asked.
"You can in a few minutes," said Rachel.  "We've never been so busy.  Why do so many people want salad sandwiches?"
"They think you've sprayed something on the lettuce."  A young man with a wooly hat and gloves sat next to his girlfriend at one of the tables on the bus.  He put down his ham and salad sandwich and started clapping his hands together violently.
"Is this what it feels like to be on spice?"  Stanley walked out into the street with a huge bowl full of chocolate covered raisins.  A man came up to him and scooped as many of the chocolate covered raisins as he could into his hands.
"Benzodiazepine," he shouted, forcing them into his mouth.  The man with the Galaxy tablet took a photograph.
"What's happened?" asked Rachel.
"That man outside," said Matthew. "He told everyone you put drugs in the food.  Mr. Smarty Pants, Smarty Suit, who thinks he's a journalist just because he bought a Galaxy tablet from Cash Converters."
"Are you talking about me?  Piddledon Farm Community Church, we intend to close you down."
"Who's we?" asked Matthew.  "The royal we?  Jonathon Johnson and who else?"

Pastor Boris was preaching on Sunday morning.
"Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as they did at Meribah, and 3,000 died in one day.  The Lord was angry with that whole generation.  We don't worship statues today, we don't make little figures out of wood and worship them.  We worship money.  That is an even worse form of idolatory.  The Lord is angry with our generation.  So the Lord declared on oath in his anger, they shall never enter my rest.  That whole generation of people died in the desert.  Only Joshua and Caleb entered the Promised Land.  Community is the Promised Land.  Some people only get half way.  Some people are like the trans Jordan tribes who found some fertile grazing places for their cattle on the wrong side of the Jordan.  They never entered God's rest.  Maybe I'll just stay on the outside of this church.  Maybe I'll just help to cook the Sunday dinner or put out the chairs on a Sunday morning.  Moses said to the trans Jordan tribes that they could go back to their fertile ground and graze their cattle but only after they had finished fighting in battle.  Does that describe you?  Do you think you can help the church fight the battle and then go back to your comfortable grazing places?  Then the trans Jordan tribes built an altar but there was no sacrifice carried out on the altar and there were no priests.  Your life will become a monument to something that was once so powerful but now is powerless.  Is that how you want your life to be?  You keep your army jacket in the cloakroom of your expensive house and say to your children, look at this, and be reminded of when me and your mother were missionaries, remember that we once walked the walk instead of just talking the talk.  Remember that we used to do battle with the church instead of just buying the latest Christian books and watching the God channel.  Community is the Promised Land.  Will you come and join your brothers and sisters living in community, or will you spend the next forty years walking around in the desert?"  The congregation began to sing.
"Community, community, it is the promised land.  Community, community, but few can understand.  Community, community, to some it is revealed.  Community, community, and then their hearts are sealed."

There was a leaders' training day at the farm.  Samuel was there.
"Hello Samuel," said Matthew.  "What are you doing here?  Did you get lost on your tricycle?"
"No.  I am very concerned about the demographic problem in the British church.  So many people in it are over 60.  The average human lifespan is 89, an unimaginable amount of time and you'd think that was long enough for anyone to live, but it still creates a problem.  By the time I am your age nearly all the Christians in this country will be dead.  I am here to train to be a church leader.  I am badly needed."
"I was talking about the demographic problem in the prayer meeting last night," said Stanley.  "When ever Samuel says something very clever, he's actually just repeating something that he's heard."  Magnus was carrying two suitcases.
"Are you carrying all your possessions in two suitcases?" asked Matthew.
"No.  One of these suitcases belongs to the man who shares a room with me in the cupboard under the stairs.  I have all my possessions in one suitcase.  If you have two suitcases full of possessions, you stole one from the poor."
"Why are you carrying a wooden board?"
"I sleep on a wooden board on a Wednesday.  This is a decent piece of wood.  None of your modern chipboard rubbish.  The medieval monasteries had shipping quality oak."
"Magnus, can you explain to me why you sleep on a wooden board on a Wednesday?" asked Stanley.
"My doctor told me I couldn't sleep on a wooden board every night or I would damage my back."
"You haven't quite got it," said Stanley.  "Magnus, I'm asking you why do you sleep on a wooden board at all?"
"Two thirds of the world's population don't have a comfortable bed.  So neither do I.  If you don't deprive yourself of a comfortable bed, how will you be able to deprive yourself of other things?"  

Pastor Boris stood behind the microphone.  An overhead slide appeared on the wall behind him on the subject of, 'The Great Unchanged.'
"The Great Unchanged are those who have heard the word of God but have never really lived it," said Pastor Boris.  "They have got half way into the kingdom of God.  They have the Holy Spirit in a weakened form, like a vaccine that stops them catching the real thing.  They have been born again but are spiritual babies."  Another caption appeared on the screen.  'Compromised Christians.'  "Christians are compromised in so many ways.  They are useless.  They'd rather have an extra hour in bed than get up to read the Bible and pray.  They have sexual thoughts before they get married.  They watch the wrong kind of programmes on television and become confused about their morals.  Their conscience becomes insensitive.  As a church leader, your job is to hit them with a big stick."  Pastor Boris took the big stick that he used to open the rooflights in the hall.  He slammed it three times on the wooden table.  "They are spiritual babies.  What do you do to very young children?  You beat them, you inflict pain on them, until they learn.  Christians must learn not to be compromised, not be useless.  You must hit them, you must bully them, you must intimidate them, until they submit to your authority and finally learn to submit to Jesus."  He picked up the big stick and put it back into its resting place on the wall.  "Don't be afraid to hit them too hard."

Pastor Todd stood in front of the microphone.  "People think I'm insane because I believe that one day there will be hundreds of community houses.  Brethren, I would be insane if I believed that.  I don't believe there will be hundreds of community houses.  I believe there will be millions.  In thirty years time, there will be millions of community houses all over the world.  The Christians in this world will soon realise how weak and useless their churches actually are.  The non-Christians in this world will soon realise how lost and hopeless their lives are without Jesus.  They are on a path that leads to prostitution, drug addiction and suicide.  Your mind has a God shaped hole.  You are restless and terrified until you are able to fill that hole.  The non-Christian cries out for something to fill the emptiness that they feel inside.  This is the first wave of church planting."  A map of the UK appeared on the wall behind Pastor Todd.  "In the first wave, we will plant a community house in every major city of the UK.  In the second wave, each of those churches will plant 200 community houses of their own.  In the third wave, each of those 40,000 community houses will send someone to plant a community house in a major city in another part of the world.  Each of these 3 waves of church planting will take 10 years."
"Who will lead these churches?" shouted someone.
"The homeless people you meet in the streets.  They will lead these churches.  God will do something powerful in their lives and within a year, they will be pastors with their own churches.  I need some volunteers.  Who will plant a church in Brighton?"  Someone put up his hand.  "Thank you, Norman.  Who will plant a church in London?  Thank you, Stanley."  Pastor Todd picked up his Galaxy tablet from the table and wrote down who was planting a church and where.  For several hours this went on.  "Who will plant a church in Inverness?"  Mikey's hand shot up.
"I want to plant a church in Inverness.  I've never been on an aeroplane before."
"Why?" asked Pastor Todd.
"I'm a child of the seventies."
"Did your family leave the rat race?"
"No.  We didn't leave the rat race.  We just didn't have any money."
"So Mikey, you think you will be flying from here to Inverness."
"I certainly think it would be too far to drive."
"I agree Mikey, it would be much too far to drive."
"So am I going to catch a train to London and fly from London to Glasgow?  I'd get there in a day."
"No.  We are establishing a national network of churches.  Why don't you get the coach from here to London, spend a night with your brothers in London, get the coach from London to Newcastle, spend a night with your brothers in Newcastle, get the coach from Newcastle to Glasgow, spend a night with your brothers in Glasgow, and then get the coach from Glasgow to Inverness."
"It would take four days to get there and four days to get back.  I wouldn't have much left of my holiday."
"You think you are going on holiday, Mikey?  You're not going on holiday to Inverness, you're planting a church there.  You're going there to live."