Recognise what God is doing

The theme this week was Recognising and responding to what God is doing.

Food

We all brought some food to share and laid it out buffet style and sat down at tables together. It's a great way to start the evening.

John 9 - the man born blind

In preparation for this week, we read John 9 where Jesus healed the man born blind.  In our reading we were looking for how each group reacted to the miracle: the blind man; disciples; friends and neighbours; Pharisees; parents; Jesus. And we thought about what we could personally identify with in each reaction.

We are reading this to help us better recognise the work of God and respond to it, rather than come at it with our own baggage. These are all the players in the story and how they respond to what God was doing:

• Jesus: saw the blind man and took the opportunity for healing. Everyone else saw their own agendas in it.

• Disciples: more interested in the spiritual state of the man who was blind and explaining why he was blind. Not moved by compassion and faith.

• Neighbours: so used to cultural norms, even though this amazing miracle had happened, they couldn't really accept it. 

• Pharisees: only interested in upholding a system of religion and control and using their power to keep that religion and system in place. So they wouldn't see the miracle for what it was.

• Parents: fearful; worried about what would happen if they admitted this miracle had happened.

• Man himself: realised who Jesus really was.

This is what we did:

1. [5 mins] Read the story again and ask yourself where you are in the story. Write down your thoughts.

2. [2 mins] Admit where you are. See what obstacles are in the way of you truly seeing the works of God and joining in with them. Write down any obstacles that you think of.

3. [3 mins] Confess those obstacles to God and listen to Him for what he says about that.

These are some of the responses shared by the group:

• some of us did identify with some or all of the groups.

• there is grace on this journey as we learn to see what God is doing and join in

• tend to minimize what God has done for them or others, for fear of upsetting people

• seeing the issue, rather than the person - no one (except Jesus) cared about the blind man.

• identifying with the blind man - feeling my way around in the dark. Lord give me the eyes of Jesus please!

It is only by recognising our limitations that we will be able to see. Again, it is our dependence on Him that is going to get the job done. 

Feedback on the rhythm of prayer

Feedback on morning and evening prayer. In groups we asked each other how we got on  and we tried to recognise what God is doing through this.

We noted the following:

• most people found it easier to pray in the morning than the evening

• some thought it might be helpful to have set prayers - flexible but focussed 

• this is a point of connection for our community, joining us together as a group

• lifting my vision from my own world to the city (watchmen on the walls)

• building a spiritual city wall

• warming us up

• making prayer a part of our lives

• in the John 9 reading, Jesus said "we must quickly carry out the tasks assigned to us" - in our rhythm we are going to hear from God what our tasks are...

• spending more time with God

• praying more widely and for more people

• praying about specific justice situations and recognising an answer

• rhythm needs a structure, not just of time, but of content

• becoming more aware of God all the time

• finding what works for us - no legalism

In discussing what to do next we said things like - 

• set prayers (liturgy) would be helpful

• focus for the day would be helpful

• could we pray for one another?

We decided to

1. Carry on praying morning and evening

2. Use the Lord's prayer as liturgy

3. Focus on young people.

4. Ask God what he wants us to do to develop our rhythm of prayer.

Recognising what God is doing - our wider community

It is interesting that this week Kathy and Richard have recognised something that God is doing regards the House of Prayer. There is a wider community out there, people who are following along with us and wanting to be involved, but can't come every week. We are sending email updates out to a mailing list and getting really encouraging replies and comments back. There has been a suggestion that we have a prayer meeting  from time to time to include those who feel they are on the journey with us.

So we are proposing to have a prayer meeting on Wednesday 23 May - we are just checking the date before confirming it.

Looking ahead

When we did the prayer activity on Psalm 84 last week, Sarah had a picture of a blank map - the territory is as yet uncharted. How true! We have been charting the territory bit by bit each week, and it has been a joy to see God reveal some of the map as we go.

We are beginning to look a bit further ahead and map out some of the things we know we are going to be doing on the timeline:

• Our discernment process will be guided by the book Pursuing God’s Will Together by Ruth Hayley Barton. You don’t have to buy the book, but if you are interested, please do. 

• Also the practices of what have become called boiler rooms in the 24-7 movement. See www.24-7prayer.com/boilerrooms

• We also have a handbook on cultivating houses of prayer from our 24-7 training in February, by Jill Weber. See jillweber.com

• We want to draw on the experience and gifts of the group. We have asked Fran for a prayer activity next week and she is going to do something on liturgy. (Interesting that liturgy was suggested by a few people this evening!)

• Fasting has also been mentioned as something to look into. We asked for 2 volunteers to each do a short report on fasting and how we might go about fasting in the HoP. For Wed 28 March. 

Next week the focus is Becoming a Community and we will be refining our prayer rhythm (and praying together!).