Prayer Weekend Nov 2008

Sunset prayer

'This room represents a new season that has come upon you, upon this church and this season.'

As I write, we have just completed the last of three prayer and fasting weekends as a church. They have been highly exciting, worthwhile and productive.

The reason they have been all of these things is simply that God has spoken to us about prayer and fasting as the next step on our journey in bringing about His purposes for us and through us, and so in going ahead with these weekends it has been exciting to know that we are right at the heart of what He has planned for us, and that we have been obedient to His word. We have been and continue to live in the momentum of a series of powerful and holy prophetic words, and these weekends have been a focus for generating excitement, hope and expectation for their fulfilment. And because God Himself has directed us to doing this, we know without a doubt that they have been and will be worthwhile- worth the inconvenience, the discipline, the sacrifice- the hunger pangs and the nights when we have been brutally awoken by alarm clocks in the early hours and stumbled into the prayer room to intercede for our church, our city and our nation, in some cases for hours on end! We know that there has been a purpose to all of this, because God’;s word never returns empty- it always accomplishes what He intends it to (Isaiah 55:11). And so we also know that these weekends have been productive, as we have laboured together with each other and with God to accomplish His purposes and to see the resulting fruit. Just as God spoke to us directing us to these times of prayer and fasting, He has continued to speak to us, more and more, during the weekends themselves, as the prayer room walls attest to and as people have shared in our corporate times at the beginning and end of each weekend. We look forward to what God will do and is already doing as the outcome to these weekends. We have been confronted with the seriousness of what we are undertaking in this too; the urgency, the intensity, the responsibility, as the word below, received during the first weekend, testifies. Just as Esther and the Jews fasted as a matter of intense urgency, I believe we have been doing the same- we live in no less desperate times.

As for my personal experience of these weekends, I can say that it has been such a wonderful privilege to carry the responsibility of interceding for my church and my city in the middle of the night. To wake up and question why on earth I signed up for the 4-5am slot (?!), but then to be filled with excitement and anticipation as I make my way to the church building, passing the sights of Lancaster city centre on my way, and realising that my job for the next hour is to pray for this place and these people- this has been astounding! ‘;Oh, praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, you who serve at night in the house of the Lord. Lift up holy hands in prayer, and praise the Lord’; (Psalm 134:1-2). The way we have all worked together and supported each other as family in this has been amazing too: I am convinced that the seemingly simple act of one person handing over the responsibility of prayer to the next person has in itself brought such a smile to the Father’;s face.

‘;This room represents a new season that has come upon you, upon this church and this season.

It represents a season and a place.

This room represents my boiler room, my engine room. A room full of nuts and bolts, a room that generates a lot of steam, a room full of people wiping sweat from their brow.

A season full of plans, sketches, blueprints. A room operated by an efficient team, every person like the parts of a giant machine. A giant machine that has been cranked into life by the Spirit of God.

This room represents a new season. A season of intense urgency in the Spirit. A season of new positioning in the Spirit where God is calling His people to take their places, stand in their ranks.

We are no longer a people huddled together; every person recognises their place and anointing and captures the grace to stand in their place.

This is a season when we strike out in military precision; this is a season when we experience such agility in the spirit, such swiftness. Our precision and swiftness comes from the utterance of God set before us.

The word of God goes before His army.

His commands pierce the hearts of His army.

We have heard His vice, we have heard His command –; we cannot help but advance.’;

Word received in Prayer Room on 21st September 2008 during Prayer and Fast.