Monday 28 September 2009

Norman Grubb at Hour of Power

Norman Grubb excerpt from Hour of Power. Click to view. There are other excerpts here.

I don't want to make too big a thing of this, especially considering the era this was taken from. Perhaps enough years have passed to make the comment that I believe this is such a perfect example of the two religious realms.

Over on our side of the Pond, Robert Schuller sort of represents here everything we English do not like about American religion. This is not to say the guy was not sincere, and would have been totally unaware of how he was representing it. Just as the famous voices behind Pathe news from 50 - 60 years ago would be equally shocked to hear how we send them up now.
Robert is the suave American Media machine gloss finish to Norman's rather bumbling English eccentric Professor brainstorm. From a "finish" point of view, to use the word in a French polishing kind of way, Norman has none at all. But the complete lack of veneer and the evident bubbliness and ease of his relationship with God was really speaking to Robert here.
I would say, my generation...and I would include my friend Mike Thom, my German friend Martin Franke, Christine's Life-Joints before she met me, Terry and Eileen Rous...
we're all of an ilk. We want God even if that means being chucked out of slick network setups.
In fact the total irony of my life is that virtually the same leadership team who prophesied what follows over my life when I joined them, were the same to jettison me 10 years later for following this path. The Word that came was this " Put away the High-mindedness. Do not follow what appears to glitter. Here I will put your feet back in joint.....(and much more)"

Sooner or later we have to choose to be just us. If people don't like it, well that is their problem.
If I am not dynamic enough, well let God fill me with His Word and gift me with His anointing, but I definitely am not going to fake it. If my bearing and lack of suaveness is no good for an American TV studio, well like Rory and Wendy on God TV , I'll believe for my own studio, or go on theirs.
I believe if we bravely face our own lacks, and understand we are containers and can do no more than contain Him, while still meditating on the Promises in His Word, those words themselves become steel on our insides.

Hard to imagine from this clip isn't it that this 91 year old led people to God in the trenches of World War 1, set up the fore-runner to all University Christian Unions, set up Inter-Varsity press, helped pioneer and lead WEC (Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade), first in Congo, then its expansion to every continent,set up Christian literature Crusade, wrote the official Rees Howells Biography, and the CT Studd (WEC founder)biography, wrote and pioneered teachings on the clarity of Christ as Us in Our Form. Finished his final all summarising book "Yes I am" a few years before this broadcast, carried on a huge correspondence ministry sharing these truths with many high ranking individuals in the States and all over the world, and ended his life raising up a small group to share these things ahead of time, affecting the lives of such English ministries as Maurice Smith and Peter Parris and many many more.

In the end, what do you really want with your life on earth? Do you want to be known? Or do you want to be recognised in heaven for being somehow linked into the chain of events that populates half of heaven itself?

No comments: