Senior Welsh clergy and police call time on binge-drinking
by Jenna Lyle
Posted: Thursday, November 20, 2008, 9:54 (GMT)
Senior leaders in the Church in Wales and the Welsh police force are uniting in a campaign aimed at overturning the nation's binge drinking culture.
The "Enough is Enough" campaign will target all areas of excessive drinking, from out-of-control revellers in city centres at the weekend to those who enjoy one too many bottles of wine in the evening at home.
The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan will lead the campaign together with the six other Welsh bishops and the four chief constables of Wales.
People concerned about how much they drink will be invited to make a pledge online to cut down the amount they drink and to stop before they have had too much. After signing up, they will receive a card to remind them of their commitment and give them support against peer pressure.
Dr Barry Morgan stressed that the pledge was not a challenge to give up alcohol altogether but to give up binge drinking.
"Alcohol isn't the problem - it is our attitude to it that counts," he said. "Drinking can be an enjoyable part of our social life but not when we abuse it - harming ourselves and others.
"The challenge is to change our own thinking and the prevailing culture and attitude in Wales which equates a good night out, or even a good night in, with drinking to excess.
"This is what needs challenging and this is why we are saying Enough is Enough."
Enough is Enough, to be launched today at Cardiff University Students' Union, will see the widespread circulation of posters and leaflets highlighting the damaging effects of excessive alcohol consumption and the huge toll binge drinking takes on people, their families and friends, and society as a whole.
The campaign is being backed by Cardiff University Students' Union and the Licensees Forum, and supports the Welsh Assembly Government's Substance Misuse Strategy.
The launch will be joined by South Wales Police Chief Constable, Barbara Wilding, who said, "The aftermath of binge drinking can be clearly seen during the early hours of any Saturday and Sunday morning in A&E waiting rooms across the country, but perhaps more worrying is the fact that in the run up to Christmas and the New Year these waiting rooms will get even busier.
"When people drink to excess they are far more likely to be involved in an accident, or assault, commit a criminal offence, or make themselves sexually vulnerable.
"Something quite clearly needs to be done to change the 'culture' that exists in Wales where drinking to excess is widely accepted."
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Added: Friday, November 21, 2008, 22:28 (GMT)
“Oh! men and brethren, what would this heart feel if I could but believe that there were some among you who would go home and pray for a revival – men whose faith is large enough, and their love fiery enough to lead them from this moment to exercise unceasing intercessions that God would appear among us and do wondrous things here, as in the times of former generations.” - C. H. Spurgeon
Have you forgotten Knox? Have you forgotten Revival, the Lewis Revival? The Mary Peckham (below) will be participating in a Revival Conference in Greenock next week (11/25-11/27)- Town Hall. Because my heart is breaking over the Body of Christ in Scotland, here is a reminder of culture change.
Daily Reading for November 19, 2008 - REVIVAL - By Hester Rendall
I wish I could transport all of you to the Island of Lewis. When I was there about five years after the revival in 1953 the Spirit of God on the Island and the awareness of God on the Island were still there. It wasn't worked up by man; it wasn't hyped in a church, God hovering over a community. It was God sovereignly coming in answer to the prayers of His people, hovering over the community so that even men who had been fishing out on the waters far from the shore and coming back in who didn't know anything about God's Spirit moving in the churches didn't know anything about what happened, but as their boat came closer to shore the Spirit of God brought conviction to the fishermen on the boat and they got saved on the boat before they reached land.
We trivialize the work of the Holy Spirit and we call evangelism revival. It's not! Revival is different! Something about it, that once you've been involved in that you're never the same again, and nothing ever quite satisfies.
The meetings, the prayer meetings, it was all in Gaelic of course and I didn't understand Gaelic. I had to learn a few words in sheer self-defense. The prayers would go on twenty minutes, half an hour. Nowadays if people did that sort of thing everybody would get up and go out. But God was there and the prayers though they were long seemed about two minutes. I remember Mary Morris (now Peckham) nudging me one night, the prayer didn't start 'til 10 o'clock and she said, "It's time we went home." I said, "We only got here." And she said, "It's 3 o'clock." And I knew I hadn't fallen asleep either.
There was such a sense of God. Sometimes a person was afraid to lift their head. God was there. We can talk about it all we like. We can sing about it all we like, but there is nothing like the actual awareness of God coming. We'll never be satisfied until it happens. It'll cut through all the other cotton-wool and it'll cut through all the other fraudulence in our evangelical church going today. It'll bring us to our knees, but I warrant it'll change everything.
May the Lord have mercy on us. He never does things exactly the same way every place, but may He do something for us that will cut through all of this and give us to see God.
Hester Rendall nee Dougan (living) - Influenced under ministry of Duncan Campbell, worker with Faith Mission, ministers under CRF with husband Dr. Ted Rendall, past president of Prairie Bible Institute.
Joan, WA, USA
