24-7 Priorities
Wed 3 July 2019
Wed 3 July 2019
This two-week rhythm of meeting up is feeling good. Not too long to lose a sense of continuity, although I suppose if you can't make it one time, the four-week gap would feel large.
We are joined now by 8-10 people who weren't with us on the discernment journey, but are now very much committed to the vision of the house of prayer.
We have been going for 6 months now. We've had 605 visits to the prayer room, by a group of 140 people from 28 local churches. And there were 211 drop-in visits. Thank you hosting team!!
The Lord has been encouraging us to see that He is pleased that we are steadily gaining momentum and sticking at it. We recently had a word that the pilot light is on. There is a small fire burning and not going out. It is ready for when the Holy Spirit moves more and then the flames of God's presence will burn brighter.
We are on a path to become recognised as part of the 24-7 prayer network. We will still be independent and pursuing God’s will for us here in Southampton, but also part of the 24-7 family. Jill Weber spoke about this recently as starting out as friends and then recognising our family likeness and embracing one another as family.
The 24-7 "family likeness" is expressed as 3 priorities, each with 2 practices that live out those priorities.
The three priorities are 1. Authentic: being true to Jesus; 2. Relational: being kind to others, and 3. Missional: being loyal to the Gospel.
Today we look at the first of these, authenticity, being true to Jesus, further sub-divided into Prayer/Worship and Creativity.
In the life of Jesus: prayer was his life-line to the Father; He did and said what he saw and heard the Father doing/saying; He withdrew to solitude, especially at key moments (start of ministry; choosing team; Gethsemane, etc), and spent lots of time teaching his followers to pray, emphasising it was vital to their lives of ministry.
Jesus wanted his followers to have a relationship with Father to sustain them after He left us. He showed us that our relationship with Father is central and crucial. If Jesus needed it, how much more us!
For us too it keeps us close in relationship to God (Our Father, intimacy etc). God says we are a priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2), living stones, being built into a spiritual house, to represent people to God, and God to people. We need to pray in order to be this.
What is our emphasis/practice so far, and how do we measure up to what 24/7 advocate? We thought about our rhythms of prayer. 24-7 are looking for regularity, commitment. Here is what we are doing at the moment:
24/1: participation
Our 2-weekly community gatherings
Our prayer partners (daily)
Other church-based prayer initiatives, or para-church (church leaders, half nights of prayer).
We have a version of the Lord's prayer, customised for Southampton, and we are suggesting that everyone incorporate it into their daily rhythm of prayer somewhere:
Our Father in heaven
Thank you for your faithfulness over the years, in protecting us, supplying our needs, and favouring us with your presence.
As your people in Southampton, we honour you.
We long to see your Kingdom come in greater power.
Let your will be done in Southampton as in heaven.
We ask you to supply everything we need.
We are sorry for where we have not trusted you, and followed our own way instead.
Please forgive us, as we forgive those who hurt us or let us down.
Do not allow us to be led astray, and dwell in our city so that works of evil are undone.
For you are King over everything, nothing is impossible for you,
You will never, ever fail.
Hear and answer our prayer, in Jesus’ name.
We also have a keenness to try different types of prayer (worship, praise, contemplative/reflective, confession, declaration). And within our community there is a keenness to learn how to grow in prayer (e.g joining in with 24-7 at Ascension or the guided prayer at Easter run by New Community Church). Others of the group went to Spring Harvest this year because the emphasis was on prayer, and Pete Greig was going to be there!
We thought about our current practice and realised that we are:
Giving everybody the encouragement and opportunity to express their contribution - leading parts of our evenings, setting up the prayer room, representing SoHOP in other places, moving in the prophetic, offering new ideas. Also taking responsibility, hosting, etc..
There is so much experience and creativity in this community (1 Cor 12; Romans 12; Ephesians 4).
If you feel there are things we are not yet doing suggest them. If your gifts are not being used, let the leadership team know.
We prayed for one of the community who was going in for a serious operation the next day. It was good to hear her testimony of how God has been dealing with her fears. Another of the group shared how her greatest fear was of coming out of anaesthetic. She had an operation earlier this year and came round singing "Bless the Lord o my soul" and then "I'm no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God". Later the consultant told her they really enjoyed her singing!.
In June there was been some concern about knife-crime and gangs in the area near our prayer room. The police applied for a section 60 authority, which means they can stop and search anyone - this only happens when there are serious concerns for safety.
We are going to walk through the section 60 area on Monday 8 July, praying for God to protect young people, and for the gangs to be dissipated. There will also be opportunity to stay and pray in the sacred space for people not up to the walk or preferring to pray there.
We will take some seeds to scatter in the area, symbolising God's planting of peace and the fruit of the Spirit.
Kathy had a significant time praying last week in the prayer room and felt God clearly say to go and pray in some locations around Weston and Sholing. We will be organising these via email with the prayer community.
Things are happening in addition to each week's 24/1.
For example, at the end of June we were visited by 3 lovely people from Bath. In Bath they are praying once a month in every ward - Christians from different churches get together and meet to pray, deliberately avoiding meeting in a church. Last month they had a week of 24/7 prayer that went on into a second week and they are now thinking about getting a prayer room running. Jill Weber was visiting them at the start of their week and suggested they meet up with us, so they did! Kathy and Richard met them at the sacred space and showed them the prayer room and we prayed together. There were tears as we felt God's presence with us.
Richard reported back from the South Coast Prophetic Gathering that was on Sat 22 June. This was a case of "Jehovah sneaky" as Jill Weber put's it - Richard was not intending to go, hardly even aware it was on, but then his son asked him to do the PA as there was no one else to cover it.
There were friends from Portsmouth and Fareham houses of prayer and a great mix of church leaders and prayers. It felt really significant. Like God is getting us to see ourselves in the context of what He is doing along the south coast.
One of the people there had a picture of SoHOP and Portsmouth House of Prayer:
The prayers that were lifted up went up like water goes into clouds to heaven. What was lifted up to heaven in unity came back down from heaven like healing rain. Golden Rain. I saw the words in the rain - love , hope, peace, joy, healing, forgiveness, freedom, victory etc falling down on the cities and changing the atmosphere in those places. Sense of unity and working together. Like a storm these clouds of prayer travel across the nation.
Chris Wickland from Living Word church in Fareham was one of the speakers. He had a prophecy last November about God's heart for the UK, warning of difficulties ahead, but explaining God's heart to bless our nation again. It is sobering, especially if like me you’re not used to hearing people give a prophetic message from God about events that are yet to come, but it is also very encouraging and will help us prepare and respond to the events that are shortly to occur in the UK.