Thank You
I am writing this sitting in the 777 Prayer Room. As I said in the service yesterday morning, I am so encouraged by the week of prayer which finished yesterday. So many of you gave an hour of your week to pray in the room, and I know a number of you prayed at home as well and passed on things for me to add to the prayer wall.
When we started I confess I was nervous, anxious about how the week would go. I cleared my diary to ensure I was available in case slots weren’t filled or someone forgot or didn’t arrive. I didn’t have to cover a single slot other than the ones I committed to at the start – every single one was filled. I’ve done a quick count, and over 80 different people signed up for at least one slot. I wasn’t contacted once because of a no-show. And every day, when I came back for the last session to pray and then lock up afterwards, it was a delight and genuinely moving to see what people had added to the walls during the day, to see the chain grow link-by-link, to know that as a church we were demonstrating how important prayer is to us. Some days I was moved to tears, and I know that I wasn’t the only one.
So today’s Vicar Writes is basically a thank-you. Thank you! It is a powerful thing to stand together like this in prayer, to seek God together, to intercede for one another, for our church, for our parish and neighbourhoods, for our partners in mission, for our world. The spiritual impact is massive. The enemy hates it when we pray – which is why we often find it so hard, and why times of dedicated prayer like this are so important.
As I’ve said in a couple of places, we are going to leave all the materials in the Prayer Room and up on the walls for a couple of weeks. If you’d like to come back to see what people added after your slot, or if you weren’t able to get to a slot during the week – or you simply would like to pray some more – please pop in during the day (the building is usually open during the mornings) and as long as the Blue Hall hasn’t been hired out, someone will let you in the Prayer Room to pray.
I am looking into different ways of capturing the prayers people have shared – I have a couple of ideas but if you do too, please let me know. There is so much there to digest and reflect on – and pray through over the coming weeks and months.
For now, I’m going to end with the prayer I prayed at the end of our Vision Sunday service yesterday:
Come, Holy Spirit – fill us and this place,
transform and renew us,
give us hearts of flesh
and willing minds to serve our Father
in holiness, faithfulness and humility.
Send us out to go and grow as disciples of Jesus,
confident in the power of the gospel for salvation,
trusting that we are in God’s hands.
And as you bless us, so may we be a blessing to others,
in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Revd Ben Green – Vicar