New hunger fuelling spiritual warfare

As a Royal Marines Padre, Christopher Shimmen is seeing God move at every level of the military. Here, he shares five stories of people he’s seen impacted by the gospel.

At the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre where I’m based, we’re witnessing an incredible new hunger for spirituality and the Christian faith.

We’ve seen many, many recruits and other personnel ask for Bibles, so much so that we’re running very short of them.

We also baptised 26 recruits a couple of months ago and church attendance is growing.

I had been scratching my head about this, asking what was happening, then a few things came together to explain it.

I was sent an article from a newspaper about Generation Z.

It branded them “the spiritual generation”, observing a real shift in people being hungry for spirituality and the Christian faith.

While discussing this at a meeting, one of the commanding officers said he had heard the same sentiments expressed on Radio 4.

Then I was sent some data from the Bible Institute on the increase in church attendance and hunger for spirituality.

As you likely know, they are branding this “the quiet revival”, and I realised: we’re seeing this real time in the military.

One day, I was having an initial conversation with three of the 26 asking to be baptised and said, “Guys, why do you want to be baptised?” One answered that atheism and humanism don’t provide the answers they’re searching for deep down, but the Christian faith does.

story continues …