Christmas Storytelling 09

Prayer/ Worship @ Tim & Anna's!!

Frances Bardsley School, Praying Again...

(From Phil)

A few weeks ago, I helped my friends from re:generation church host the third prayer space in Frances Bardsley School for Girls in twelve months. I confess I'd been worrying that familiarity with the creative prayer space 'format' would mean that the students were less interested and less engaged... I needn't have worried...

Read more at http://toggietales.typepad.com/toggie_tales/2009/12/frances-bardsley-school-praying-again.html#more">

Feeding the 5000

If you are free on Wednesday 16 December from noon to 2 pm, come to Feeding the 5000, a Free Lunch in Trafalgar Square, London - all made from ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted. Invite all your friends! For more, go to http://www.feeding5k.org

Kit Kat to become Fairtrade certified

Today it will be announced that Nestle's Kit Kat is to become a Fairtrade certified product. Baby Milk Action is keeping up its boycott and encouraging others to "buy products from companies with positive business values, not just token initiatives". The Fairtrade Foundation welcomes this as a breakthrough for cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire. There is a similar welcoming statement from a government minister reported in the Guardian. It seems this is likely to be a contraversial one!

UNSEEN TRAFFIC

Transition Podcast Part 1

Check out Niall's language skills from about 0.40 ... very impressive!

Unseen Traffik

Let's all go...

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

Read the rest of Phil's reflections on our 49 hours of prayer over on his Toggietales blog.

Miranda's Art House

Miranda's just started posting some of her amazing art-work onto a blog. Go have a peek... Miranda's Art House. It would be great if we could share our creative expressions some more? :)

49 hours of prayer...

Here's the ROTA;

Friday 23rd
midday-1pm Phil T
1pm-2pm Phil T
2pm-3pm Tim H
3pm-4pm Tim H
4pm-5pm Jamie P
5pm-6pm Helen N
6pm-7pm Megan T
7pm-8pm Rachel G
8pm-9pm Rachel G
9pm-10pm Mark C, JJ, Paul C
10pm-11pm Ian N
11pm-12midnight Amy R, Alex H, Lisa W
Saturday 24th
12midnight-1am Miranda H
1am-2am Miranda H
2am-3am Miranda H
3am-4am Mandy W
4am-5am Mandy W
5am-6am Caroline S
6am-7am Caroline S
7am-8am Marcus G
8am-9am Marcus G
9am-10am Neil G
10am-11am The Newmans
11am-midday The Toggies
midday - 1pm Richy
1pm-2pm Sue & Drew M
2pm-3pm Mikki H
3pm-4pm Angela B
4pm-5pm Angela B
5pm-6pm Clare N
6pm-7pm Sarah W
7pm-8pm Megan T
8pm-9pm David N
9pm-10pm David N
10pm-11pm Tim H
11pm-12midnight Ian N
Sunday 25th
12midnight-1am Rosi & Jon B
1am-2am (part 1) Phil T
1am-2am (part 2) Phil T
2am-3am Emma T
3am-4am Emma T
4am-5am Phil R
5am-6am Emma T
6am-7am Anna H
7am-8am Dewi W
8am-9am David N
9am-10am Sarah G
10am-11am Sarah G
11am-midday Phil T

More photos...

Rosi and Jon hosted our latest 24-1 prayer, from midday on Saturday until midday Sunday... in a tent/gazebo in their back garden. :o)

As a local community we've been trying to develop a daily, weekly, monthly rhythm of prayer.
+ Daily, wherever we are, and with whoever we find ourselves, we pray the Lord's Prayer... many other Boiler Room communities and 24-7 friends also do this.
+ Weekly, we pray on a Tuesday evening, mostly round at Rosi and Jon's, and there's no particular theme or leadership to this... we just come together and pray and see where it goes.
+ And roughly monthly, we pray 24-1, more recently joined by friends from other churches, which has been encouraging. Our hope is that we can grow this to 48 hours soon, and maybe to a full-on 24-7 week by the end of the year.

This was the first time we'd prayed for 24 hours outside... but Rosi and Jon created a beautifully inviting, inspiring tent/gazebo space, full of fabric and sheets, string and sticks, cushions and blankets. There were pictures of close friends who are serving Jesus around the world, and pictures of local schools that we have some connection with... all kinds of things to reflect on, and pray about. As always, an hour in the prayer space wasn't enough...

Megan booked herself in for an hour slot on Saturday afternoon and then persuaded Poppy and Angel to join with her. They loved it, writing their prayers on cardboard and post-it notes.

Emma and I booked the 12 midnight until 2am slot, which we unexpectedly shared with a large number of flying insects, hovering and buzzing around the hanging torchlights. Lovely.

It was wonderful and provocative and challenging to be praying outside... with the cool night air on our faces, with twinkling stars (and a few planets) filling the dark skies, and with the constant hum of traffic driving around the ring-road and the shouts and screams of drunken clubbers heading home... this was, and is, Romford. And it needs Jesus...

Here are a few of the themes and thoughts that different people offered during the reflection time we had together at the end of our 24-1, just before our Sunday-lunch community meal;

* Tim's 'question strips' hanging in the small tent - who are you jealous of? who are you angry with? etc. - provoked some honest reflection
* Ian felt God speak to him as he prayed through the dawn-hour, 6am-7am, about this being a 'new day dawning' for our community life together
* Phil R wrote something for us based out of Psalm 42... "Today is the day, now is the time. Today is the time to rise up... time to run in new paths..." (there's more of this if you'd like to read it)
* a few people felt that we needed to both protect and deepen our relationships, and love and trust in one another
* others talked about us being confident in who we are, and in our identity together... like Joshua and Caleb, we may see 'giants in the land, and battles to fight', but we need not fear, because Christ is in us and with us. It is time to 'cross over'...
* Pat explained that during her hour she'd texted about 20 friends to ask if they wanted prayer, and about 12 had replied. She prayed specifically for them, and has kept the texts to continue praying through the week. (What a genius idea?!)
* she also said, through some tears, that God had spoken to her when she spotted Lewis' scribbled picture, which Ian had labelled "China... fill her sails".

Lewis had been scribbling on some paper with a fat red pen (some went on the paper, and some onto his legs. Ha ha). When Ian saw it he thought it looked like a Chinese banner, with a kind of pictorial text... and then he felt inspired to write those simple prayer-words, "China... fill her sails". A few hour-slots later, when Pat read it, God spoke to her about the young women that her mother had discipled many years ago in China - some of them have been writing to her, to express their gratitude and to tell their ongoing stories of faith.

I am often amazed at the ways God draws on the most unusual and seemingly random happenings to speak with us. Maybe God tries to do it far more than we realise... maybe I just don't 'listen' very much.

Anyway, it's been a beautiful 24 hours. I can't wait for the next one.

~Phil

Cadbury's Dairy Milk goes Fairtrade

You should be able to see these in shops very soon. Cadbury's Dairy Milk is now Fairtrade. Other Cadbury products are due to become Fairtrade soon.

FB Prayer Room

US Billboards Attack Prayer: Pete Greig Responds

Published: July 7th, 2009

Prayer is pointless! At least, according to a massive billboard campaign launched on 1st July in five American States.

Hot on the heals of the recent atheist bus campaign in London, these new billboards, sponsored by the American Humanist Association, read: “WANT A BETTER WORLD? Prayer Not Required!” and they’re being erected this month in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Idaho, and Arizona (where churches prayed continually throughout last year). But before we pack up our 24-7 Prayer Rooms, shut down this site and wave goodbye to thousands of years of Judaeo-Christian conviction, let’s just think about this claim a little…

In America the vast majority of people pray – even on the West Coast where, according to Gallup, 25% of the adult population is now either atheist or agnostic. Meanwhile in supposedly secular Europe, 60% of people pray regularly and in London that figure rises to a whopping 73%. These statistics alone eloquently challenge the premise that prayer is a waste of time.

In my book God on Mute, I describe an old Russian Orthodox believer, called Anatoly Emmanuilovich, who was persecuted all his life by the Secret Police. In a letter from prison he testified that: ‘The greatest miracle of all is prayer. I have only to turn my thoughts to God and I suddenly feel a strength which bursts into my soul, into my entire being…. It is not psychotherapy, for where would I, an insignificant, tired old man, get this strength which renews and saves me? It comes from without and there is no force on earth that can even understand it.’

When I read testimonies like this one, I wonder what is achieved by attacking something as wonderful as prayer. Why would anyone spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to convert people to the terrible news that we are merely highly evolved animals marooned on a giant rock, spinning meaninglessly in space, doomed to a purposeless existence, without moral consequence and without recourse to any higher power, meaning or hope? Why didn’t they just throw a massive party, or buy millions of mosquito nets for Africa, or install a wall of plasma televisions at every morgue in the country?

The Russian novelist Dostoevsky argued that, ‘without God there is no morality’. Think about it! If there’s no God, there’s no such thing as the ‘better world’ to which the billboard aspires. In purely evolutionary terms, a serial killer is merely proving his supremacy over weaker individuals and asserting his right to dominate the gene pool. And even if there was meaning and morality in a godless universe, unless humanism can change hearts, restore marriages, break addictions, heal painful memories, rewire motivations, erase guilt, inspire great art, and ignite vision the way that Jesus Christ can, its utopian ambitions are naïve to put it mildly.

When it comes to social transformation, atheism’s track record isn’t good. In fact it’s downright terrible. In Cambodia, the atheist dictator Pol Pot killed more than a million of his own people in four years. In Russia, Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions – yet he failed entirely to make things better. Meanwhile, Jesus who never hurt anyone and who centered his whole life in prayer, instructing his followers to ‘always pray and not give up’ (Luke 18:1), has changed billions of lives down thousands of years… unquestionably for the better.

As we celebrate the holidays, let’s make the most of moments of leisure to enjoy God’s presence and to re-align ourselves with his plan for a better world. Whether it’s expressed in whispered words of gratitude lying on a sun lounger, or singing our hearts out in a 24-7 Prayer Room, let’s continue to pray like it all depends on God and live like it all depends on us. Why? Because YES we want a better world but NO we can’t wish it into being, and we can’t think it into being, and we can’t rebrand it into being, and we certainly can’t work it up by trying our hardest to be nicer little ‘humanisms’! The better world we long for cannot be found in the mirror. That’s why we ask Jesus Christ to displace our selfishness and sadness with his unparalleled grace and joy.

The world got a little better when the Roman Empire ended its ritual of human sacrifice, an event that can be traced back to a 24-7 Prayer Room in Jerusalem in AD33. The world got a little better with the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, an event that can be traced back to a 24-7 Prayer Room in South-East Germany in 1727. The world also got a little better with the rise of the American Civil Rights Movement, a great consensus that can be traced back to a 24-7 Prayer Room in Azusa Street, Los Angeles in 1906. Yes we want a better world, and yes, that’s why we pray!

It has been true for millennia that the laboratory for all positive social transformation and spiritual formation has always been the place of persevering prayer. One day, according to our scriptures, even members of the American Humanist Association will join us in confessing Christ, acknowledging that the hinge of history is the bended knee.

Prayer Room@St Edwards School!

Nice one Phil!!

Many months ago, we talked about developing a regular 'rhythm of prayer'...
+ a daily rhythm, praying the Lord's Prayer wherever, and with whoever, at 12 midday every day,
+ a weekly rhythm, every Tuesday evening for an hour or more... mostly at Rosi and Jon's house
+ and a monthly rhythm, praying 24 hours (24-7 style) over one weekend every month.

Not to replace our own personal prayer lives, of course. And not to replace the time we pray with partners, families, friends. The opposite in fact... praying regularly to help us learn how to pray... and how to live out Paul's challenge, to "pray continually". I heard someone this weekend end say; "Prayer have legs. 9 time out of 10 they're your own."

Jesus disciples would have prayed probably every day of their lives, and yet they saw something in the way he prayed, in the way he addressed and knew 'Abba' that made them realise how shallow and lifeless and powerless their own prayers were. And so they asked him, "teach us how to pray?"

John Wesley said that we learn to pray by praying. We have often said that we want our lives to be marked, stained, woven-through, fragrant with prayer. If you're like me, you'll be aware of just how shallow, lifeless and powerless your own prayers are. So let's learn how to pray by praying.

Let's set our watches/phones for 12midday... (I've ended up praying the Lord's Prayer with some surprised people!)

Let's set aside Tuesday evenings for prayer at Rosi and Jon's. No agenda, just prayer...

And let's bring it all together every month by 'praying continually'. Rosi and Jon and us at 40 Kingston are happy to host these 24-hour sessions - we've booked in the first weekend of every month for the foreseeable future, so from 12midday on Saturday 4th until 12midday on Sunday 5th July, the prayer room at 40 Kingston Road will be open.

I'll send a rota later this week - please have a think about when, and with who you'd like to book some hour-slots (I think we're going to have to jump to 24-2s pretty soon). And just so you know, some other believers, friends from other churches have been asking, and some would like to come join with us too... let's welcome them warmly and pray together. :o)

The Lion's Mane! (Taken from Lounge gig)

WEAVING OUR COMMUNITY!