49 Hours of Prayer

"Even though I was there on my own, it felt like others were in the room with me. I wasn't alone. It just felt like this was my turn to speak up and pray." Richard

Last weekend, our strange, borderless, spiritual family sprinkled around the Romford area embarked on 49 hours of non-stop prayer. We intended to do 48 hours, but we'd picked the weekend when the clocks were going back... again! Anyway... it was fantastic.

Friends from eight different churches joined... or perhaps I should just say, friends from eight different expressions of our one church joined in together? Whatever... it was exciting and it felt significant that people who 'do church' in different places were passing the 'baton' of prayer back and forth, through the days and nights... praying for one another as one took over from another.

We built a river out of various fabrics and shells, mirrors and pebbles across the middle of the prayer room... it meant different things to different people - baptism, the flow of Holy Spirit's life through their lives, refreshment, cleansing, and for many it represented the River Jordan, the place where the Israelites crossed over from the desert into the promised land.

We explored and reflected on and prayed into the Exodus 33 passage, and considered what it means for us to choose to 'cross over' with God's presence marking our lives.

For many of us, the question was a personal one... what does it mean for me to fully cross over with God's presence marking my life? And yet it also had significance for our spiritual family/community life together, which we are continuing to explore.

After completing the 49 hours, many of us gathered round at Sarah and Dewi's house for our fortnightly community meal, where we broke bread together and reflected on what had been 'resonant moments' for us. Here are a few of the things different people said;

• 2 Corinthians 6, in The Message... "live life expansively!"

• Matthew 13. The opposite of faith is fear. We need to be free of fear

• "I was really encouraged by all the names on the list, people from different churches. I crocheted a woollen chain to represent our connectedness. We still need to work at it, speak well of each other..." Emma

• "I really needed to feel, and really felt, at peace. God is my refuge and strength, therefore I will not fear." Mikki

• "I brought a boiled egg to eat for my breakfast, but then felt like it represented new life. We need God to break the hard bits, the shell of our hard behaviours, so new life can emerge. There are things that inhibit us from being who we are meant to be... as individuals and as a community." Anna

• God was speaking through the children. Esme drew a house and asked Ian to write, "Jesus says, Help people come into my house."

And me, I found myself thinking about all kinds of things, situations where I want to fully cross over into all that Father has called me towards, formed in me. And I found myself thinking about the river... about that which stands in between me and where I belong. Circumstances... my own fears... my stubborness and selfishness... my insecurities... and maybe some external things as well. After all, the Bible tells me that I have an enemy who will try everything to keep me grumbling in the desert. And I scribbled this on a big sheet of paper...

"Whether Jesus miraculously parts the seas in front of me... or re-arranges the molecules so that I can walk on the surface of the water... or even if I have to endure the waves and swim across... I want to cross over with him."

Comments

[Carla]

Lovely to see how you guys pray together. I always enjoy the reports :)