The Jesus People: A special Enquiry

Chronicle and Echo/September 14, 1982

A Baptist chapel at Bugbrooke, near Northampton, is the hub of a religious community whose members model their lives on the way Christians lived in the First Century AD.

The 500-strong Jesus Fellowship are regarded as a race apart by many of their neighbours.

They live communally, and frugally, they don't follow fashion - yet they have a large empire of country houses and thriving businesses.

There is much ignorance - and suspicion - about the 'Jesus People,' fuelled by stories of conflict between young people who devote their lives to the Fellowship, and parents who resent the hold the Fellowship has over them.

Elders of the Jesus Fellowship invited the Chronicle and Echo inside their community, to see how they live and what they stand for.

Our investigation, together with other independent inquiries, forms the basis of a major series of articles starting in the Chronicle and Echo on Friday.