Light 24/7

Hi All,
please find the blog for the new 24/7 event - "Light 24/7" here: http://light247.blogspot.com/

G

Prayer is the answer

http://www.htb.org.uk/ai_media/121

Putting the stuff about Alpha aside that we might disagree about, please heed Pete's words from 20mins onwards. This is definitely worth watching and yes, I will be getting in touch with the new Bishop of Durham to chat about prayer asap.

Hope everyone is having great summer holidays!

Gx

So, what's the point?

In the last couple of days, people have asked me the same question over and over: "so, how did 24/7 go?". It's a bit of a bizarre question in many ways - "well, we prayed a lot and tried not to leave too many people stuck inside or outside the prayer room at unearthly hours" (my apologies to those of you who did experience this...).

I feel like they're expecting amazing testimonies of the answered prayers, of miracles happening left, right and centre and of God doing awesome things in an amazing quantity for the time in which we prayed. I may be doing them a grave injustice, they may not have been expecting this, but I do feel under pressure at these moments to try and draw on the best stories I've heard from the last few weeks and bring them to the fore as the result of our prayer efforts. But this seems to turn the whole thing on its head. Obviously we have been praying for the impossible and believing that God can do it, but it's not because we stay up all night that God might heal someone's foot, that's missing the point. Intercession and prayer is about more than that.

So often for me, prayer is about sacrifice and surrender. It's about bringing situations and feelings before God and accepting my inability to change them and asking for Him to do something. It's about growing in the depth of my empathy with the brokenness I see around me and growing in appreciating God's sympathy for that brokenness, for that mess. It's about identifying with God's anger towards sin and the evil in the world and yet still loving the people who are caught up and constrained to that. Prayer is about coming to know God in greater depth, in receiving His power to grow in understanding of how broad, long, high and deep His love is. It's about having revelation of the realities of God's word.

Now, that's not to say that God hasn't been at work in an amazing way over these last 3 weeks. One of the main problems is that I haven't heard all the testimonies! But those I have heard have been inspiring. Over 40 texts to text-a-toastie events where previously there would have been merely 20. Deep and serious conversations with people who previously avoided "God stuff". Stereotypical "lads" suddenly asking for prayer and revealing hidden hurts and issues and then asking for daily Bible texts with no obvious prompting. But doesn't God do stuff like this all the time? Isn't it just that we don't always hear about it?

I find that intimacy and intercession are so caught up that it's wrong to separate them. Jesus prayed to His Father in quiet secluded places all the time and also prayed in crowds for people to be healed. The disciples prayed together secretly for themselves, but also that they might proclaim God's word boldly that many might be saved. It seems that if we will humble ourselves and pray and seek God's face and turn from our wickedness, he will come and heal our land, but seeking His face in the quiet place speaks of great intimacy and personal transformation than a prayer movement shifting the nation, although it is in fact part of it.

So what is the point of all this praying? It is undoubtedly to ask that our nation might be changed, to ask that every single person in our university would hear the Gospel and that through hearing it, they might be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). But we must be careful not to live off of results. Not to get discouraged when we don't "see" anything or to think that it is obviously because of our efforts in prayer that more stuff is happening with the CU. We seek change and we have faith that it will come, but we must be content with the struggle and with seeking God in the quiet place, with finding our identity in our adoption as God's children rather than our effectiveness as missionaries. We go out from prayer, acting on God's word which inspired our prayers and seeking its fulfilment but we return to prayer to ground ourselves again in the knowledge of His sufficient love and grace.

So the point is this - more prayer. We may have finished this round of 24/7, but there are more to come. There are more journeys into the quiet place to be made, into the painful place of intercession, into greater revelation of God. And there are still a lot of people who need to hear about God's love and plan to heal and save the world. We need to pray more and to change our culture and unnatural situations around us and be changed ourselves from our own broken image into greater glory through prayer. Through conversing with our creator we will see Durham changed. My question is simply this - will we persevere?

A group of students in St John's college had just finished a week of 24/7 in the Epiphany term of 2010 calling on God for more prayer amongst the students - a greater passion and a house of prayer which they might use. When they finished, they felt that God was bringing this verse to mind.

"You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth." Isaiah 62:6-7

About a term later a house of prayer opened in Durham called Sanctuary 21. About a year and a half later, this verse became part of the motivation for 3 weeks of 24/7 amongst over 100 Christian students. Often it's bad to live off results for this reason alone - we may never see the results. But know this, they will reflect the Glory of God.

One

"My prayer is not for them [the disciples] alone, I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brough to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." (John 17:20-23)

This morning DICCU hosted a prayer meeting for some of the local church leaders. We had about 8 different churches represented in the room (who were invited on the basis that they had congregation members in DICCU) who spent an hour joined in prayer for the ministry of the CU. It was incredibly encouraging.
It was encouraging to see how we were being used by God to foster greater unity and love between the different churches in Durham.

It was also exciting and encouraging to reflect upon how many different traditions and denominations are represented in DICCU and how these different Christians work together to pursue the salvation of their friends and fellow students. In the last few days I have been meeting with many different Christian students who are passionate about unity, who express a deep desire to see more Christians in Durham working together and loving each other with greater measure according to Jesus' words here in John's gospel.

So I've been encouraged and challenged. Encouraged to see the glory of God revealed in our fellowship and mission as a vibrant and multi-denominational CU and challenged to seek a greater depth of unity and to become one as God is one. Indeed, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35).

I wonder, if we knew the full extent of the Father's love for the Son, would we begin to comprehend His love for us, to whom He gave His Son? Would we then begin to understand the depth of His love for all mankind?

Lord God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, may we have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is Your love for us. May we, in considering Your nature of being love, surrender ourselves in humility to Yourself, to Your truth, to Your Church and to Your people. May we as Christians in Durham be one as You are one and may our witness of Love to each other point to You as Love itself.
Amen

A drop in the ocean - 24/7 UK

Check this out!

http://uk.24-7prayer.com/stories/200-uk-prayer-rooms-in-2011-we-need-your-help/

"Jesus wept"

Many of us will have read this verse from John (11:35) many times, and perhaps every time its brevity will have struck us. It is in fact the shortest verse in the Bible. Jesus is surrounded by a grieving family who have lost a recent relative and even though he knew that Lazarus would get up and walk out of the tomb in a spectacular miracle, the Son of God was still moved by the suffering and emotional turmoil of those who were there: "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled."

When Jesus encountered a leper in Mark 1:41 he was "filled with compassion" or literally "moved in his bowels". The graphic imagery alludes to deep a deep emotional reaction in the gut.

Paul also speaks of his compassion and heartache for the lost amongst his own race, the Jews - "I speak the truth in Christ - I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit - I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers" (Romans 9:1-3).

I recently discovered that a close friend is suffering from depression, that another friend has recently had an operation on a brain tumour. There was a testimony at our last church homegroup meeting of someone who was dragged off Kingsgate bridge by the police after she had been about to commit suicide. A student from my church had managed to stall her by talking of God's love until the police arrived. All around us there is pain and suffering, hurt and darkness. These things are not clichés that do not exist in the "bubble" of Durham. Often beneath the surface of those who are even very close to us are serious issues that God desperately wants to change.

It's ok to have an emotional reaction to seeing pain in others' lives. It's even ok to weep as we pray for them. The question is, do we understand the depth of God's love and His desire to change situations and bring healing and salvation? Sometimes we need help to stand in the gap between God and man effectively. Sometimes we need to ask for God to show us how to pray, to break our hearts and to repent of the indifference we so often feel.

Dear Lord,

Forgive us when, seeing pain and suffering in Your world, amongst Your people, we do not share in Your compassion. Would You change our hearts that we too would join in the Holy Spirit to intercede with groans that words cannot express. Would we love as You love, feel as You feel, intercede as You intercede. That the light and love of Your Gospel would break into people's hearts and shine powerfully, transforming lives and making brokenness whole. As we see the coming of Your glorious kingdom, when there will be no more tears, and Your righteous judgement would our hearts cry out for mercy and grace.

Amen

Day 2: ... the voice of prayer is never silent.

Day 2: There is something deeply moving about praying for someone you don't know, perhaps will never know. On the right inside the prayer room is a book which contains prayers from people who have in the last 33 hours taken time to seek God in the secret place, and it has been profound to join my own Amen to those of others who have also read and been moved by the intercessions and petitions of others. Gradually the room is coming Alive (excuse the pun) with colourful expressions of the thoughts and desires of those who have kept watch. But the encouragement has gone further than just those of us who have been in the prayer room. 24/7 UK have been in touch and are intending to put the launch video (see below) on their website, and I am currently in the process of registering the prayer room as one of over a hundred which are currently running 24/7 prayer campaigns around the world ("the voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies the strain of praise away", John Ellerton).

The Celts used to talk of "thin" places, where God's presence was especially evident and his nearness even closer than in other ordinary places. I can't help but feel that as we draw near to God in the prayer room, we will come to know the actual reality - He is a lot closer to us, than we will ever fully understand.
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12).

So as we seek the Lord together, may we continue to build one another up and encourage each other with our artwork, with our conversations and testimonies and with our prayers.

Dear Lord,
Please help us to understand more of who you are. Help us to draw closer to you through your Holy Spirit and the blood of your dear Son, and help us to draw closer to each other through that same grace which heals all relationships, with you and with our brothers and sisters here in this life.
In Your name
Amen.