Something is stirring people’s hearts

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.

The stories I’ll share here are just a handful of what we’re seeing, but one thing they have in common is that it’s effortless: it’s not because of anything we’re doing. It’s as if something beyond us is stirring people’s hearts to seek faith and answers.

The students at a Bible study

We conduct a Bible study once a week and the attendance, engagement and hunger there is really growing. One recruit brought three of his friends along the other day, then the next day one came and asked if he could be baptised.

What’s amazing is that we’re not actively pushing anything – our role is to be here for people of faith and no faith, and we’re not allowed to proselytise. So we’re just being who we are, going about our business with our mandated lectures and church services, but people keep coming and knocking on our door.

The students at a lecture

I was delivering a lecture the other day on having faith. This could mean having faith in your comrades, your parachute when you’re jumping out of a plane, your leaders, your training team – we don’t position it as faith in a higher power or Christian God, although that’s obviously part of some people’s belief systems. That lecture wasn’t evangelistic in any way, but afterwards four recruits came to ask, “Padre, can we have a Bible please?”

The bereaved godson

Around ten years ago, when I was a civilian minister at Kensington Temple, I was asked to lead a funeral. A young former Royal Marine had tragically drowned and the family wanted a minister connected to the military to lead his service. I flew to Belfast, walked into their home, and as is the custom in many parts of Ireland, the coffin was in the living room with all the family gathered around.

They said, “Chris, can you say a few words?” so I took out my Bible and began ministering from the book of Exodus and on Moses, thinking on my feet to bring them something before we went to church. Fast-forward ten years and a troop commander knocks on my door and asks for a private word. He says, “You won’t remember me, but you conducted my godfather’s funeral. I was a young boy in that house when you took out your Bible and ministered about Moses and the Israelites. That day was a catalyst for me giving my life to Christ. I also petitioned to join the Royal Marines, and here I am today as a strong Christian and a captain, with deep aspirations to become a minister myself.”

The wayward marine

I used to be a Royal Marine instructor, taking recruits through their training. During that time, one of my former recruits, Sam, went off the rails in between tours and lived the “bootneck” lifestyle when not on operations. Later, when he’d come to the point where he realised that lifestyle was no longer filling a void, he left the military. He’d heard on the grapevine that I’d become a Christian and a minister at Kensington Temple in London. I must be honest here and say that I haven’t always been a Christian (I separate my life into BC Chris and AD Chris and let’s just say that BC Chris was a classic Royal Marine in every sense) so when this young recruit heard that Corporal Shimmen had become a Christian he said, “That’s impossible! I won’t believe it till I see it with my own eyes.”

He got a train down from the north, came to one of our services, and when we gave an altar call he gave his life to Christ. Today, he’s on fire for God and has just completed Bible college.

The military strategists

At a higher and more strategic level I’ve been doing some research around the spiritual component of warfare. I’ve been working with the Special Operations Forces Community in America and they asked if I would speak about my research at their annual conference three years ago in Washington DC. From that, I was asked to turn my talk into an essay which is going to be published as a chapter in a NATO-wide handbook on spiritual resilience. I was subsequently invited to speak at the Special Operations Force (SOF) Week conference in Tampa, Florida, (SOF Week is the flagship annual gathering for the global special operations community) which was attended by the King of Jordan and the US Secretary of Defence. I was quoted by a journalist there, on stating that “warriorhood is not an outer role but an inner spiritual achievement”.

This shows that across the highest powers of the military and in the media, the importance of the spiritual component of soldiers and warfighting is being recognised.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.