For Sale

Today the estate agent came to write down particulars about the flat and to take photos. After he had finished, up went the board outside. The other board is for our neighbour who is also selling - but his has only one bedroom while ours has two. So now we are officially selling our home and only hope that it won't take too long before someone wants to buy it - and we can move to wherever God has prepared for us. Exciting but a bit scary. I guess it's all in His hands and in His timing.

Prayer for your town/city

Yesterday I read an article in the April-June edition of Prayer magazine about Rev. Jerry Bowers for the US. He spent the first part of 2007 in the UK. He has a heart for unity among churches and corporate prayer. He says:

We add prayer to the programme of the Church, but we really should be adding Church to the importance of prayer. Jesus Christ said, "My house shall be a House of Prayer".

Pastors, you are not called to your congregation but you are called to your city. Jesus Christ will hold you accountable for your city. For you to see change in your city, you must pray with other pastors.'

You can find out more about Prayer magazine by clicking on my list of links.

Busy

I haven't blogged for a while. I've been busy travelling to Birmingham for prayer days at the World Prayer Centre. We are also hoping to move house so I have been cleaning, sorting and decluttering to get the house in order. It's amazing just how much stuff we hoard! Last week we had a consultation with a financial advisor to discuss our financial state. We have now had 2 evaluations on our present property and hoping for another on Monday. Then we'll decide which Estate Agent will sell our apartment. We feel that all this is in God's timing so we are trusting Him for our new home.

Marc's blog

Marc van der Woude has a quote from Brother Andrew on his blog. It says:

If your vision doesn't scare you,

then both your vision and your God are too small.

He also mentions a book called 'Jesus has left the building'.

I just keep thinking about it!

More travels

Last Saturday I spent in Birmingham in the heart of England, gathered with about 2000 other Christians to pray for our nation. It was a very blessed day with great worship and lament for these islands. One quote that stayed with me, when talking about the gospel being more than meetings was '2000 years ago the Word became flesh and we've spent 2000 years trying to turn it back to words.' As Martin Luther said 'a heart curved in upon itself is sin.'

After the gathering was ended I continued north to stay overnight with a friend - Sally Ann. She had been asked to take a prayer team to Newcastle and as I was born and brought up in the area, she asked me to join her, along with Val, a scottish woman who is currently living in the Midlands. So Sunday morning we travelled further north.

We spent the next three days in meetings and prayer-walking. It has been said that Newcastle has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and people travel from long distances for one-night stands. We learned of sex slaves who have been smuggled in from eastern Europe and saw a building that exhibits pornographic and obscene art. It is considered to be a city in renewal with many building projects but we discovered statues of gods along the riverbank. Paul's words were continually with us as we prayed - 'Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.' (Ephesians 6:12)

I know that meeting together as a Body to worship and encourage each other is important but when you see things like that, you realise that the majority of people are not going to come to church looking for God. We have to take the gospel to them. Yet so often we spend a much greater percentage of our time doing things connected with the activities of the organised gathering than seeking and praying for the lost. These prayer teams give me a glimpse of God's heart and a determination to not make an idol of the organised church set-up and all that goes with it. Going to church on Sunday is not the culmination of my Christian life. Prayer walking softens the ground for the seed of His word to take root and grow and I hope He gives me many more years of travelling and praying and walking the land for His Kingdom's sake.

France

I have just returned from a trip with a prayer team to Lille, France. We went only for a long weekend (travelled there Friday and returned Tuesday) but managed to pack quite a lot into our 3 days there. On the Saturday we went to a small church to pray for them as they were leafleting the area for a special musical evening this coming Saturday.

Prayer together before we went out.

What no-one knew was that in the area we were going to hand out leaflets, there was a street market that day. They are held only a couple of times a year. I guess God wanted to arrange a conversation with someone who doesn't live around there and so otherwise would not have

been in that street at that time.

Walking, praying and Liz conversing with passers-by.

Sunday morning, we returned to the small church. We were an international group as there were a number of South Koreans as well as the locals and ourselves. Some South Koreans are living in another area of Lille, training as missionaries and learning French. That weekend they were also visited by relatives who had travelled to see them. After the service we spent some time praying with individuals.

Laura and Mike pray with a local man.

On the Monday we visited an African community that had recently bought an old, broken down building and were repairing it to make a church for their community. We were able to spend some time with them, looking around and praying with them. Hopefully another team will be able to go out later to give practical help with the building and refurbishment.

What will hopefully be the new meeting place.

We went to a Creperie for our last meal together in Lille.

L-R: Me, Liz (who lives in Lille), Wes, Lesley, Laura, Mike, Margaret and Alan.

Turkish martyrs

I have been thinking a lot lately about the modern day Christian martyrs. We heard recently about three Christians who were tortured and brutally murdered in Smyrna in Turkey. It made me realise that my Christian commitment doesn't really cost me that much. I have never been persecuted or afraid for my own safety. Yet for so many around the world, this is the way they live all the time. You can read about the martyrs of the Smyrna church here

Living Christianity

Today I was reading the Inspire Magazine, and was very interested in an article about Mark Berry who is pioneering new kinds of Christian community, a sort of neo-monastic lifestyle. (You can read the article by clicking on the link to Inspire Magazine and then click on People.) There is a core group of seven but they are not about church planting or growing in community but just being church and sharing God with whomever they meet. They call it Safe Space. You can explore his blogspot on Mark Berry's Blog. Apart from his obvious passion for football, if you scroll down a bit you'll find some really thought-provoking meditations. There are also links to other pages of information about the community. For Mark and his friends, mission is not an activity reserved for certain times and places, but rather it's a way of living. And my spirit responds with a big 'Amen!'

Quote

I came across this quote today in a Sojourners newsletter. It's from Clare Short, Member of Parliament, who resigned from her former post as Secretary of State for International Development because of the UK's involvement in the Iraq war.

You can't take the evil of slavery out of the world and abolish it without making the world more just. You will never prevent people living in bonded labour or from getting caught up in sex trafficking while they are so desperate that they have no other choice but to sell themselves. As long as we in the West crave ever more excess, we conspire in their desperation, exploiting it and make ourselves sick in the process.

The Human Footprint

This afternoon I watched a TV programme I taped the other day. It's about the Human Footprint - in other words what we will eat, use, affect in our lifetime. It took an average person in the UK who supposedly lived 78.5 years. Apparently the average person in a lifetime would consume 15,951 pints of milk and each one of us would eat 4 cows, 21 sheep, 15 pigs, 1200 chickens, 13,345 eggs, 4283 loaves of bread, 2327 kilos of potatoes, 10,866 carrots and 5272 apples among other things. 95% of our fruit is imported and we throw away 8 and a half tons of packaging.

Starting from our earliest years we throw away 2 and a half billion nappies (diapers for our friends across the pond) as a nation every year and the plastic contained in them to make them leak free can take up to 500 years to decompose. We are responsible for more CO2 emissions before the age of 2 than someone in Tanzania in a life time.

The programme went on to give other statistics (that I won't bore you with) about what we spend on personal hygiene, clothes and household goods that we simply can't live without. Each person is responsible for 40 tons of waste to landfill sites and there are 60 million of us in the UK! We walk only 15,464 miles in a lifetime but drive 452,662 miles - the equivalent of the distance to the moon and back, using 135,950 litres of fossil fuel in our cars. That is apart from the 737 tons of carbon pumped into the atmosphere per lifetime through air travel.

At the end of the programme they said that memories and dreams are the most enduring part of us and left us with the question, 'What am I leaving behind?' A sobering thought indeed! Although much of what we do is necessary to our modern living and not everything is wrong or negative, the stark facts and figures did make me think about how much difference we can make in simple ways. As Christians we really have to take our stewardship of the planet seriously.

Friendship

I have just read a charming little story about a five-year-old girl called Tracey. She asked her Dad if she could play at her friend's house. She was told she could but had to come back home by a certain time. Off she went happy to be able to spend time with her friend. When the stated time came, there was no sign of Tracey. Time passed and eventually half an hour late Tracey arrived. Her Dad, a little annoyed asked her where she had been and what she had been doing to make her late. Her answer was, 'My friend's doll broke just when I was supposed to leave for home.' Her Dad replied, 'And I suppose you were helping her fix it?' 'Oh, no,' Tracey said, 'I was helping her cry.' Now that's friendship!

Healing obedience

I have just read a posting on Sarah's blog (see my links) She was visiting her mother-in-law, who is an 'Easter/Christmas' Christian and who had not had a whole night's sleep for 10 years. They had been watching television and during the commercial break her mother-in-law commented that she would love to sleep the whole night and that the tablets she was taking were not having the same effect as before. Sarah offered to pray for her and she agreed. The next day Sarah received an email from her mother-in-law to say she had slept right through the night for the first time in 10 years! Praise God and thanks to Sarah for being obedient and not worrying about what her mother-in-law would think of her.

It made me think - would I have been so obedient or would I have just prayed at home about it without telling her? God knows what He is doing and when He puts a thought into our minds all He wants us to do is to obey Him and do as He says. Sounds easy but how often we fail to do it. Seems that that is where being like children comes in when we just trust Him with child-like simplicity. I know this with my head but why, oh why do I not just do it? God needs more 'Sarahs'. It just makes me cry out to God in confession and seek forgiveness for the times I have failed to do as He has asked me and to ask for more of His Holy Spirit power to be more effective for Him.

Tribute to Lurdes

I've just read a blog on one of my links - Sarah Rooney. It is about a little African girl that was taken to Iris Ministries where one of the staff looked after her as though she were one of her own children but has since died. It is very moving. Just click on the link to Sarah's blog and then click on the picture under the post entitled Tribute to Lurdes.

Spain

Casa Maranatha

The week before Easter a prayer team of 11 people - 7 from Yeovil and 4 from Coventry - visited southern Spain. We had a wonderful time when God both used us to bless and help others and we ourselves were greatly blessed. This is the lovely house owned by an English couple where I stayed during our time in Spain.

The prayer team.

This was taken at a fort overlooking the town of Antequera. Lizzi and Jim Cook, the couple whose house I stayed at, are 3rd and 4th from the right. We stood here and sang worship songs and prayed for the town. A very friendly German offered to take this photo of us all.

El Torcal

This is a view of mount El Torcal near where we were staying. It is a result of earth movements millions of years ago that thrust this mountain of rock up above the surrounding countryside.

View? What view?

We travelled up to the top of El Torcal in order to look out over the village below but when we got there the view was covered by dense cloud. We decided to still worship and pray over the village although we could not see it. We also prayed that God would lift the cloud so we could see the village from this high vantage point - and He did! Just for a few moments we were able to see the village.

The clear(er) view of the village of Villanueva de la Concepción

It seemed like a prophetic act of God. Occasionally God allows us a glimpse of the 'bigger picture' from another viewpoint that we don't always see. This encourages us to keep going, knowing there is something beyond the clouded vision that we have. The evangelical Christians in the village are very few in number and it seemed that God was confirming that our visit there was for them just like that short glimpse of a bigger and clearer picture.

The ministry of going away with prayer teams is something wonderful that God has asked me to be involved in and I count it a great privilege to do so. We had a brilliant time and I made many new friends. Can't wait to go back!

Mum

I received a phone call in the early hours of this morning to tell me that my mother had gone to be with the Lord. She was 98 years old and in a way it was a release as she had got to a stage of living in her own private world of the past and totally dependent.

It is a sad time for families but I also want to praise and thank God for a wonderful Christian mother who has been such an example to us. As a home mother, she didn't work out of the home - in those days women didn't - and so was not noteworthy or successful in the world's eyes. But in my eyes she was the wisest and cleverest person around. She always had time for you no matter what she was doing. She was never judgmental of others and was so humble, never seeking to be in the limelight, always seeking to help those who needed a hand. She was there to praise you when you had done well and to comfort you when things hadn't turned out as you'd hoped. She just always seemed to know and understand how you felt. Our home was an open house where all were welcome. She was a faithful Christian and as I think back over the time God allowed me to share with her, I thank God for the privilege.

'Well done, good and faithful servant.'

Revival or reformation

I was reminded today in an email I received of a prophecy given by Rick Joyner in 2003. Here are a couple of quotes:

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

The most common characteristic of successful people, business, sports teams and even nations, is that they never look for outsiders to blame for their problems but use that energy to look inside themselves for solutions.

Dictionary definitions:

Revival - a revived use of an old play; a revived use of an old practice, custom etc

Reformation - the act of reforming or process of being reformed, especially a radical change for the better.

God is reshaping his church and yet it seems we go on resisting. We don't want change, we just want more of the same. In which other walk of life would anyone dream of carrying on doing things in the same way or having the same type of system or set-up when they are not producing the desired results and in fact seem to be having the opposite effect? It seems that instead of revival we should be praying for reformation, instead of more of the old we should be seeking something new and different. This does not mean just following the latest religious fad but being prepared to look up and see a bigger picture, to be prepared to accept that maybe there are some things that we have got a bit wrong, to not try to make God conform to how we are used to doing things when He wants to show us something different and not to limit God to our limited thinking or ways. Let's stop putting God in a box shaped like a church building when He is desperately wanting to get out and be free to work in power and might to seek the lost and free the captives. His ways are not always our ways. We need to be re-formed.

Church in the Supermarket

I went to the supermarket. On my way round I met the chaplain (who happens to be one of the leaders of the church I attend) When he asked me how I was doing, I had to be honest and say that actually I was feeling quite down in spirit.

I went on to explain that my elderly mother (who is 98 ) had a fall at the beginning of March and broke her hip. She was taken to hospital and underwent an operation. The operation itself was OK but then pneumonia set in and she developed other difficulties. She lives 370 miles away in the northeast and so every day we have been phoning my other sister who lives near her. A number of times she has been called by the hospital saying that Mum didn't have long. She has been in a coma now for a week and the doctors don't understand how she is still alive.

So, yes, I was feeling very down, a bit in limbo, just waiting for that phone call but at the same time not really being able to get on with things I have to do. There and then, in the supermarket, the chaplain prayed with me. I don't know what other shoppers thought but it blessed my socks off!

Makes you wonder just how many people go about their daily activities when they are really hurting inside. I thanked God for those who realise that that's where we need to be 'doing church'.

Interesting websites

Today I picked up a copy of the February edition of Inspire Magazine. You can check it out on Inspire Magazine. It has some really interesting articles.

In the February edition I read of a young girl called Akiane Kramarik who was born into a family of non-believers. At a very young age she had visions and dreams and felt the urge to paint. She is self-taught but has produced amazing pictures. She insists that these experiences are from God and wants only that her pictures and poems bless others and bring them to God. She also had the privilege of leading her parents to faith in God. You can read more about her on the official website at Akiane.

Happy browsing!

Passion or activity

Yesterday I was part of a group who were talking about passion. The concern was why more people aren't passionate about God, the gospel and reaching the lost. It got me thinking how sometimes we confuse passion with activity. I suspect that some of the group who are active within the church setup may feel that others who aren't as visible in activity are not as passionate.

To give up 'ordinary' work in order to give more time to church activity or outreach is very commendable but not necessarily more passionate than someone who is either not in a position to do this or doesn't feel that God is asking him/her to serve in this way.

God also gives passion for different aspects of His work, some more visible than others. Those who are passionate about prayer and intercession are not always seen and may appear to be inactive but they are the ones who break down the strongholds in the spiritual realm. No amount of busyness in projects will do this. Jesus Himself said that some people could only be helped through prayer and fasting. It is also important to have this passion in place before we begin to put our plans into action.

I know that leaders of my local church agree with me on this but it did make me wonder just how often church generally confuses passion with activity and busyness in church projects.

Encouraged

I have had a very encouraging weekend. One of our church leaders here in Yeovil has set up, with a friend, an organisation they have called 'Send and Serve' (I have added it to my links) It is basically a group of people who are willing to go where God sends them to pray - mainly in Europe from the most western point of Ireland to the most eastern point of Turkey. I have joined with them and am going with a team to Spain during Holy Week.

Those who have read previous blogs of mine may be aware that I have struggled in my situation knowing this is what God has asked me to do but felt a bit misunderstood and a little alone feeling unable to share fully what is on my heart. So this weekend has been so good for me to meet with and share with others who are of a like mind.

Another interesting fact is that four of the people who are going to be on the team going to Spain have links with Argentina, one lady actually being of Argentinian nationality. Having lived there for 10 years myself and being married to an Argentinian and both of my children having been born there, I felt that this was another divine link that only God could arrange. Isn't He amazing!!

So today, after spending a wonderful weekend in the company of new friends, I feel very much encouraged and realise that God is connecting a whole network of people who are feeling and sensing God in the same way as I am.