12th April, 2007

JOHN McNEIL

The best thing that could happen to Christians in the Western world is a good dose of persecution, according to a pastor who was at the heart of a significant revival among the Gypsies of Britain in the early 1990s.

Roy Warren - now based in Ashburton on New Zealand's South Island where he does consultancy work for the Baptist Union of New Zealand - says too many Christians put church in a neat box.

“I think self-indulgence is a big problem in our Western culture. I am all for people enjoying themselves, but I think they become drunk with it.” - Roy Warren

“If revival came, it would be an inconvenience to them, they would not be happy with it,” he says.

“For me, revival is where God moves in such a way that he changes communities. It’s not a case of more people going to a church - that’s renewal.

“Revival is changing cultures and whole communities. In the Gypsy revival in England, their communities were dramatically changed.”

The revival there began when six men returned to Britain having been converted at a Gypsy crusade in France. Two went to the church Warren attended, and his pastor asked him to run a home group for them.

“I was on a spiritual sulk at the time because I had just lost my job as training and development manager for a large construction company working on the Docklands project and couldn’t understand what God was doing.”

Warren went the next week to the caravan of one of the leaders, where about 10 people were gathered. Four or five were saved.

“I just shared the Gospel, and they received it. When I went the next week, there were more than 20, and half of them were saved. The week after that it was packed out, with 40 Gypsies.

“Within a month we had 100 converts. What was happening on our doorstep was happening with the other four Gypsy men throughout the country.”

Within a couple of months there were nearly 1000 converts, and in three years the number swelled to more than 23,000. Today there are more than 20 Gypsy churches, with another 20 satellite churches, which are marquees accommodating up to 100 adults as they move around.

“I could tell you stories where we baptised in water over 100 Gypsies in a skip. We had nowhere else, so we filled this rubbish skip with water, and I and an associate baptised nearly 100.”

Warren estimates that the movement now has grown to nearly 40,000, out of a total British Gypsy population of around 200,000. “Those figures are fairly fluid, because it is very difficult to verify due to the nature of the Gypsy culture.”

He says revival has significantly changed their culture. Within the first two years there were more than 200 weddings.

“They pay tax now. They have 60 to 70 what they call “preacher men”. Not everyone is allowed to preach, you have to prove yourself. So for three years a gypsy man has to prove that he makes an honest living, that he is upright, that he doesn’t get drunk. It’s a blessing to see how they’ve matured so quickly.”

Warren says he’s aware of prophecies that revival will come to New Zealand but he takes them with a pinch of salt.

“I think self-indulgence is a big problem in our Western culture. I am all for people enjoying themselves, but I think they become drunk with it.”

However, on the positive side, as he travels around the country helping to equip people for evangelism he is seeing a growing desire for God’s word.

“There is a famine of the word. When I talk to Christians generally, they say it is hard to go to a church where the word is really upheld and delivered under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with sound theology. That’s not just in the Baptist Union. I meet people from various denominations.

“As people receive the word, they will become more proactive, and as the church becomes more proactive in its mission, I can see things will change.”

Published courtesy of Challenge Weekly, New Zealand's independent and non-denominational Christian newspaper (www.challengeweekly.co.nz).