Prayer Lines Launched

We were on zoom again this week. 18 members from 13 locations. The technology held up most of the time.

PAuse

Kathy led a lovely exercise, listening to what God was saying to us as we considered Psalm 48:10 starting with just "Be"

• Be  [pause, listen, make notes]

• Be still [pause, listen, make notes]

• Be still and know [etc]

• Be still and know that I AM

• Be still and know that I am God

Prayer Lines

We have the phones, publicity has started, the first two requests have come in on the city prayer line.

We prayed about the technical issues of group texts and the difference between SMS and MMS... 

We shared ideas about how to get the word out, especially to the NHS about the NHS prayer line.

Praying for the church

We checked in on how it has been going praying for the churches. Thinking about if we have been, what helped us to do that, and what is God saying. And if we haven't been, what might have helped.

These are some suggestions from the group about what is helping us pray:

• Reminder on phone

• Returning to daily rhythm if it gets disturbed.

• Kneeling to pray 3 times a day. Actually kneeling, like Daniel did:

  • But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God. Daniel 6:10

• Specific things to pray about - a specific church, or location, or churches we have prayed for in the past.

• Using scriptures: Isaiah 62, Isaiah 60, Isaiah 54

• Daily prayer time with connect group, zoom call at 6.30pm

• Knowing people who are church leaders and hearing what it is like for them

And what we are hearing God saying:

• Praying for church leaders (particularly) – for wisdom to know how to lead their churches at this time, but also for the fire of God to come and reignite their hearts with passion for Him.

• being in the wilderness is an OPPORTUNITY, to pause, hear God and be led into something new. 

• God is orchestrating a shake up of the church, calling us to do things in a very different way

• for church unity, for the community to see the church acting as one

• Is 60:1-2 – “Arise shine for your light has come” – a sense of God’s glory resting on the church. Following on the Ephesians passages  (1:22-23, 2:21-22) – that we are Jesus’s living stones in our communities.

• Is 54:2-3 – a time for churches to expand their tent pegs. A sense of God blowing away structures and the “traditions of men”. Purification by God’s fire.

• In Exodus, God was saying - "let my people come and worship me in the wilderness" - this wilderness season is about finding Him again and worshipping him.

Actions

Richard to send out some specifics to pray about, probably based geographically, on different days.

Easter

We made final plans for a prayer walk at dawn on Easter Sunday. Some of us are planning to go out at sunrise, prayer walking our locality. Christopher (Land) is going to put some words together for us all to use as we do this.

All submissions to Chris by the end of Good Friday. He will email to community on Saturday afternoon/evening.

NOTE - to experience going from night to day, you need to be outside before 0530. Here is some advice on seeing the dawn from the Graves To Gardens project.