About 15 minutes into the sung worship at the start of the service, I prayed a “blanket” prayer over everyone in the congregation who had a physical need, illness or injury. I then asked whether anyone had been healed. Four people immediately came forward and each had an impressive story to tell.

The first man, Bill, said that when he was a military accountant, he’d been “kicked out” of a helicopter in a training exercise in Northern Ireland in 1977. He had protested to the instructor that because he was an accountant he was exempt from jumping out of helicopters, but his appeal had been rejected, hence his being “kicked” out! And that as a result of injuries sustained during his fall, he had had pain ever since down one side of his body. He told us that the pain had entirely gone, which was remarkable given that he’d been in such discomfort for 36 years!

Then a man called Simeon told how he had suffered a dislocated shoulder. He went into quite a lot of medical detail about how it kept popping out and told us about an operation he was due to have. He said that all his shoulder pain had gone, and that he’d been healed.

Then there was a young woman who was healed of a running injury.

Finally there was a young man called Nathan who came on stage carrying a plaster cast. He waved the plaster cast around above his head. All his friends had written on it. He told us that he’d arrived at the church meeting with his arm in the plaster cast as a result of a fall. The breaks were to his arm and wrist. Anyway he said that because he’d been healed, he’d taken the plaster cast off, and that all the pain had gone. I spoke to Nathan’s Dad afterwards and he told me how shocked he’d been to see such a dramatic healing.

I then did a talk presenting the good news especially to those who are new to church, after which I gave an opportunity for people to respond who wanted to become Christians for the first time. Eight people did so.

I then had lunch with my hosts, Dan Hudson, (one of the elders at Kings Church, Edinburgh) and his wife Julie & their children, Jack, Sam, Evie and Ben.

As I write I’m now flying BA back to Heathrow, and looking back on this morning, it was great to see the whole downstairs of the King’s Church’s venue (formerly Viewforth Parish Church on the edge of the city centre) totally full. Last week they raised £55,000 to convert the large balcony area into accessible seating. Pastor Matthew Clifton-Brown told me that Kings have 20 medical doctors in the church, and 10 other academics who have PhDs.

Comments

comments