We are creating a new opportunity for worship, prayer and encounter with God.
Join us on the 4th Sunday of every month from 7:30pm for our worship and prayer evening.
You can expect space and time in a safe relaxed atmosphere with an encouragement to listen, experience God’s presence and pray for our world. This starts Sunday 25th Sept.
One of the things I (Ben) keep hearing again and again, in conversation with many of you and as I read and learn about breakthroughs in mission and disciple-making, is the importance of praying.
‘The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.’ James 5:16
More and more of us are learning that time praying together is essential if we are to see personal renewal or change in our community, our town or our world.
‘To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world’. Karl Barth, quoted by Pete Greig in Red Moon Rising.
I want to invite you to start September joining with others in Kairos for 24 hours of prayer. The network team are setting up a prayer room at Westcliffe Hall so that we have a space with ideas, prompts and resources to help us pray as a whole church. All we need is for you to come and join us!
Our prayer room will be running from 5pm Friday to 5pm Saturday. There will be prayer prompts based around the parable of the sower helping us to pray for good soil in this season.
Come for an hour or more at any time of the day or night. Why not book in a slot with 1 or 2 others so you can come together?
Book a slot in the prayer room here
We will start our 24 hours of prayer together with 3 hours of Pray – Eat – Pray.
5-6pm Pray: Creative prayer for all ages. This will be a fun way to engage with prayer either on your own or as a family.
6-7pm Eat: We’ll eat together. Come and have Friday tea with friends.
7-8pm. Pray: We’ll continue for another hour of gathered prayer and intercession.
Join us to pray then eat, or eat then pray – or all of it! You can just turn up to pray, but please let us know if you want to eat with us by Tuesday 6th September so we can get enough food. Prayer like this often feels like a sacrifice before we do it but a privilege once we’re there.
Don’t miss out on this opportunity to pray with us and see what God does!
Book a slot in the prayer room here
Let us know you’re eating with us on Friday 9th September
“Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” Matthew 13:8
This Lent I sense a call to dig deeper. Back in October we started to imagine what it would look like for God’s word to spread and flourish around us as a church. Since the New Year we have been asking God to teach us to pray. We have made some good steps forward and, amidst all the uncertainty and unease that is around us, it is time to dig in: to ask that we, and the people and places God has put us, would be like good soil bearing a good crop.
How might God be inviting you to dig deeper over the next 40 days?
Dig deeper into the bible. Find some time each day to read a short passage of scripture. Let it read and challenge you. Ask God to show you something from what you are reading each day.
There are lots of great bible plans and notes out there. I plan to use Lectio 365 and LICC’s Simple Rule journey this Lent. If you arene’t sure what else to use why not join me with one of those plans?
Dig deeper in prayer. Build more space for prayer on your own and with others.
Pray indoors and outside. Pray that God’s word would find good soil. There are lots of ways to pray. If you are not sure where to start you could try this:
Sit with God in silence for 5-10 minutes, perhaps repeat a phrase from the bible or short prayer to yourself in this time: eg. ‘May I be good soil’. After a short while say the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. Pause over at least one phrase and use it to add your own prayers.
Dig deeper into fasting. Fasting is giving up something that we enjoy or sustains us in order to focus on God. It creates a bit of weakness in our lives and is a way of allowing God’s presence to meet us.
What might God be calling you to give up regularly over the next few weeks? How might you join with others in fasting as well as prayer?
Dig deeper and share. Good soil produces a crop, more seed to sow. How could you share what God is showing you or doing in you with others, both Christians and people who wouldn’t yet describe themselves as followers of Jesus?
Don’t try and dig deeper in all these areas all the time. Rather ask “What’s next Lord?” and ask Jesus to show you where to dig deeper this Lent.
Last Sunday Jen spoke on the next phrase of the Lord’s Prayer – Your kingdom come, your will be done. You can download the talk here or listen below. The reading was Luke 4: 14-21
A short video from Ben from last Sunday reflecting on the link between prayer and peace and offering a very simple creative prayer act.
Join us for an hour of worship and prayer. Time to receive and release God’s presence as we relax, worship and pray together. All are welcome, no need to book.
We’ve been thinking about how we practice the Rhythms of Grace in Lockdown. In our last post we explored Generous Blessing. Today Helen helps us think about Receiving and Releasing God’s presence.
“Jesus breathed on them and said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” John 20: 22
We celebrated Pentecost last Sunday – the moment that marks the beginning of the church. This moment is marked not by teaching or a new idea, or by service of others or by a public announcement, but by a powerful encounter with God in a hidden place.
The best way that God could think of to start the church was for the disciples to receive His power for themselves, then go out and share that power with others.
Centuries on we are a people who are still called to receive and release the Holy Spirit in the same way. We do this through worship, prayer, listening and ministering to others.
We want to be able to regularly breathe in and out, to spend time letting God’s presence pour into us and speak to us through worship, prayer and listening. We also want to be comfortable being ‘naturally supernatural’ and looking for opportunities to share the Holy Spirit with people around us.
This might look different right now to what we’re used to. Perhaps there are new ways God wants to show us of how to dig in and access his Holy Spirit for ourselves. I’m finding myself a bit stuck in just praying and worshipping in front of a screen right now! It’s wonderful to be able to do that with others, but I think God is calling me to look for new ways of finding him in my everyday life. What about you?
Likewise, maybe we are used to being able to pray and lay hands on each other in person which obviously isn’t an option at the moment. What are the ways we can use to still pray with each other in 2s and 3s, or as a community? If you are able, meeting up with another person and praying at 2 metres apart might be possible, or if you are dropping shopping or other things off to someone perhaps you could pray for and with them as you do that, or perhaps pray with someone over the phone? These things may feel a bit awkward at first but it’s worth pursuing them.
Finally, are there ways you can be praying for people who don’t know God’s power in their life? When we receive God’s Spirit we are empowered to share Him with others. What ways have you found to do that recently? What are you seeing God doing as you connect with those who don’t know Him yet? Do let us know – we’d love to share those stories to encourage the rest of the church!
Praying you’d know God’s presence with you in whatever your life looks like right now.
love, Helen.
From Acension day (Thursday 21/05) to Pentecost Sunday (31/05) we will be joining thousands of other Christians praying for people to come to know Jesus throught Thy Kingdom Come. We believe prayer is powerful and something anyone can do.
We’d love you to join us praying “Thy Kingdom Come” this year. Here are 4 ways you could be involved:
Book an hour or more in the 24-7 Harrogate Prayer Room and use the resources there to pray for our town.
Download and print a Thy Kingdom Come Prayer Journal and or one of the family resources and make some time each day to pray either on your own or with your household.
Connect with a Kairos Community on Sunday 31st May as they pray together in the morning – we’ll share more information about this at the Gathering this Sunday
Join Kairos, along with Harrogate Vineyard, St Lukes & St Johns and St Marks or a half hour of prayer at 6pm on Sunday 30th May. We will broadcast this on our Facebook and Youtube pages. Watch a short promo below:
Ben continues our look at Jesus’ Resurrection Appearances in John and chats about the ways God is calling us to dig deeper into prayer during this season.
Join us every Sunday at 10:45am on Facebook.
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