Archive for Prayer
An aid to waiting on God
Posted by: | CommentsLast night we met for the prayer evening. It was a really good evening and it was a shame that so many people were unable to be there.
One of the things we did last night was a guided time of meditation and prayer, which i will give you an opportunity to do here.
Firstly i would like you to choose one of the following. There is no magic here – it is just to get you to choose something without knowing before hand what the subject will be.
Firstly, read the bible verses that you see. Then before you go any further take a couple of minutes to quiet yourself and ask for God’s guidance and wisdom. Ask God to help reveal to you a deeper meaning to the verses you see.
Perhaps you could take one a day and spend some time with God in a different way this coming week
If you would like to please leave a comment on how you found this.
Creative Prayer with the teens at St. Bartz 2007
Posted by: | CommentsAs i start to prepare our Youth retreat trip to St. Bartz this year I started to think back to last years experience which was such an amazing time. One of the highlights for me was during the middle evening when we provided space for the teens to pray. Now i don’t know about you but the experience of getting teens to sitting in a group and pray out loud has not been a good one. Which is why using creative ways works so well. This was the case last year when to their astonishment the young people prayed for well over 45 min. How did they do this, and stay in relative peace. We put on some very chilled music and made 4 different stations for them to approach in their own time:
Station 1:
At this station, thought of an aspect of God’s character that they want to praise him for – for example, loving, forgiving, just. As they prayed, they cut out letters from the headlines to create that word and stick it onto the sheet.
Station 2:
At this station, the young people wrote the things that they want to thank God for on strips of paper, and then make them into paper chains. Creating a chain of thanks.
Station 3:
We wrote Dear God… in large letters. Put post it notes and white board markers nearby. At this station, the young people thought of something they wanted to ask God. They then wrote a word (or even whole prayers) or drew a symbol to represent that thing
Station 4:
At this station, the young people had tie to sit and think about things that they need to confess to God, (this happened in a small prayer room off the main meeting room), writing them in chalks on the boards as they prayed. Then once they had prayed, they wiped the slate clean with the cloth as a way of receiving God’s forgiveness.
This material was taken from Energize, a fantastic resource.
I can only hope that i can provide something similar this year.
Latest Prayer Request March 2008
Posted by: | CommentsI have tried to give a general overview of a few things that are happening soon, so that you can be praying for those situations. If you have any questions please ask by clicking on the comments link at the bottom of this article.
ALF
Next week we are starting the next part of ALF “Who is Jesus?” Starting 16th March
The aim of the session is to help the children to see that Jesus is God’s rescue plan and that, only because He died on a cross and was raised from the dead, people can have a friendship with God.
Teens
We are not following any set plan but are continuing to show real truth to them through the bible and what Jesus has to say. In all of this we are helping them to see how the bible can still be relevant today.
Tot’s & Toys
We are going very strong here with one of the mums now occasionally helping with coming up with the resources for the craft activities.
Also please pray for continued opportunity to support the mums. Also we now have a couple of dads that are coming along. Please thank God that I am there; because of this they feel comfortable and welcome to actually be there with a group of mums.
Bumps 2 babes
We continue to add numbers to this group again. Please pray that we are able to make good decisions for the future of this group.
Holiday’s
Yet again we are taking over the converted chapel called St.Bartz in Barcombe near Lewes in East Sussex. We will have the the entire center to ourselves and have a whole programme of activities lined up for the young people to do.
Because, apparently, the young people are getting older, we now have greater numbers in the age bracket able to go. In total we could have close to 20 young people.
We will of course be taking the younger ones to Jr SOLID this year. In the 7 – 11 age bracket we will have about 5 children.
With all of these things I will of course be providing updates so come back and find out what is happening.
Creative Prayer – The Lords Prayer 4
Posted by: | CommentsThis is the last in the series of re writings of the Lord’s Prayer.
Lord,
You will always be my God, and I pray that every one will turn to you and then you will be happy, and whatever plan you have for us will work out.
Let the world become like heaven.
Give us the strength and everything we need each day.
Forgive me for what I have done wrong and I’ll try to forgive those who are nasty to me.
I ask you to push the devil away and not let him touch me, or put pictures in my head.
Creative Prayer – The Lords Prayer 3
Posted by: | CommentsAnd on we go… This is the third in our mini series of Re workings of the Lords Prayer.
Our Father in Heaven,
May Your name mean “perfect” and be the perfect example.
Let the earth be filtered to purity so that Your kingdom will once again be perfect.
Provide us with what is necessary so that we are not exposed to greed,
Only forgive us when we are prepared to forgive others.
Veer us from all sin and demons.
Amen.
Creative Prayer – The Lord’s Prayer 2
Posted by: | CommentsFollowing on in our short series of the Lords Prayer this is the version that Jess wrote. During the evening we looked at the Lord’s Prayer verse by verse and almost word by word, to try and understand it’s meaning. In no way are we pretending to have fully understand everything about it but these versions did help us to get to grips with how it can be relevant in our lives.
They became more personal prayers then just our own direct translation.
Dear God,
You will always be my father and I always glorify Your name; and to me Your name will always be holy.
May all the people in the world hear your word and follow your example, so heaven would be a place on earth.
Give us things and wisdom that we need to follow You,
Help us learn to forgive other peoples wrong doings,
Because then you forgive us and keep us away from the bad things that Satan tempts us with; to make our relationship crumble.
Creative Prayer – The Lord’s Prayer 1
Posted by: | CommentsA little while ago we looked at the Lord’s prayer with the teens. Their task was to take the prayer and rewrite it in their own words. This is the first of those from Sam:
Lord may Your name always be Holy
You live in Heaven where we will meet You in Your kingdom, where we’re meant to be.
Do what’s best for us,
let the good from Heaven be here on earth.
Give us our basic needs so we can survive and do Your will.
Forgive us what we forgive others,
And support us through our constant battle with Satan; don’t let him get his way!
It was a real blessing to have the Lords prayer come alive in their own words. More to follow soon…
Creative Prayer with the teens
Posted by: | CommentsHad amazing fun this morning praying with the teens. We had what probably turned out to be close to 40 mins worth of creative prayer. We started here with this load of material:
Then the results were like this:
Gods love for us.
Speaks for itself 
Gods Gifts
We had no idea what was going to be created or where we were going with it but this was a time of prayer that really had some meaning.
An Evening for prayer
Posted by: | CommentsO.K. one more thing before I go: We had a really excellent evening of prayer this evening.
Various things were prayed about but what struck me was how Tony started the evening. He broke down Matthew Chapter 8 and pulled from it what we could learn from it. From there we used this as a starting point of prayer.
The lessons we could see from it are:
Jesus is not repelled by anything of me Matthew 8:2-3
Jesus is concerned for those connected with me Matthew 8:5-13
Jesus is concerned for all my smaller aches and pains Matthew 8:14-15
Jesus is not limited by the size of the need Matthew 8:16
Jesus has the power to change every situation Matthew 8:23-24
Jesus is far more powerful than satan Matthew 8:31-32
By no means is this any sort of definitive list of the things that you could learn from this chapter, but it is a starting point of seeing how Jesus want to interact with our lives.
Day of Prayer
Posted by: | CommentsI have just returned from Dave and Gail’s house where there were a variety of us who met for a day of prayer.
The day was titled Impacting the Community – Growing the vision and was separated into 3 sections that i have listed below. We have tried to give a sense on what was being prayed for in each of them. Please use this as prayer fuel for yourself in the coming weeks and months.
1. Existing activities:
These include two toddler groups, the baby group, tea and toast, the Haven, and family breakfast and also our long standing input into Millview.
Many of the groups are nearly full and we need to know future direction.
Quality contacts are important – good relationships and an opportunity for God to impact people’s lives.
New opportunities that will arise.
2. Resources:
Building, people, funding and new opportunities are all a part of this.
A Church building?
It looks possible we won’t have the Freight House from the end of the year:
Is this God’s prompting for us to move on?
Do we need our own premises or do we look to hire elsewhere.
Do we want a building for a church?
Do we want a community facility that also serves as a church?
The right people
People with a vision.
Available people – volunteers.
Employed people.
Releasing those not yet in the church for God’s purposes.
Resource and Opportunity
Release of finance
Community funding sources
Faith in giving.
God’s surprises.
Release of practical provision
Use of other’s resources
Use of other’s services
Opportunities revealed
Open doors into the community.
Open doors into places/people of influence/provision.
3. Favour and success:
Implementing God’s agenda in God’s way.
God moving in ways that differ from the past.
Changing our perception so that we don’t see church as a stockade to hide in, instead each being secure in God, looking outwards.
It may be less tidy (like a loaf that initially has slices cut from it, then chunks torn off and then crumbs left) – but will be more organic.
Faith is key – the assurance that God is doing things and is on the move.
God can bless and provide in the wilderness and the barren place. It’s about God’s ability, not the circumstances.
We can struggle to accomplish things ourselves or we can allow God to move – which is much easier!
God is growing our faith.
Some of our long-held dreams/visions/aspirations will bear fruit as the life of God is applied to them.
Final thought – God is on the move. We may see evidence of his success sooner than we think.
