An ironic prayer request

Over the past two days London City Mission has hosted a prayer conference teaching church planters how to pray for and make prayer central to their new ministries.  It may sound like teaching your grandma to suck eggs but the truth is the prayer life of many Christians/churches is sadly lacking.  I was only able to attend the first half day due to ill health but I was greatly challenged and encouraged.

In the first part of the morning we looked at how the churches call in to be a "House of prayer to all nations!"  A place where people come from all over the world and lean on a personal relationship with God.  The challenge was simple where do our churches square up with this calling?  We spent time examining the health of our own churches prayer lives.  And then the question was put...  

Q: What would Jesus say if he were to talk to you about your churches prayer life?  There are three possible answers.

A1: He'd be happy.
Maybe there are some areas that need addressing and improving but generally you are praying and leaning on God as a  church.  Your leaders are praying together and individually for guidance and help.  You have regular prayer meeting that are well attended.  And people in the church value prayer highly.

A2: He'd be worried.  
You have some good things going on but not enough of it.  Jesus would write you a letter like in Revelation where He would commend one or two things.  But then He'd give you a serious warning about some other things that had to get better.

A3: He'd be seriously angry!
Remember how he came into the temple in Jerusalem? With whips, over turning the tables and shouting...

"It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers." Matthew 21:13 

Is that how he'd deal with your church? Or mine?

In Cafe Church we have 5 planks in the out working of our vision and prayer is one of them.  But to be very honest it hasn't been high enough on my agenda.  I feel God has been incredibly gracious to me by showing me now while things can be sorted, rather than later before it is too late.

I have a few ideas to start to remedy the situation but first I need to pray and I need your prayers.  I know it's ironic to ask for prayer about prayer but that's where it needs to start.  Please pray that I would hold and believe in prayer as highly as I do His word.  I want to be like the Apostles who said...

"We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." Acts 6:4

Nothing else matters but being completely dependant on our loving Father through prayer and His word.

Christmas Cafe

Merry Christmas everyone! Let me start by thanking everyone that prayed for our Candlelit Cafe this past Sunday, it went really well. We had over 35 people come. Most were cafe regulars but we did have a few visitors amoungst us.
It was a pretty simple format. People arrived and were served Glogg (Swedish mulled wine) and Christmas goodies. We sat around and chatted about what we were doing on Christmas day and other seasonal stuff.

After about 30 minutes we started the main event. No one led it but I did start it off. Basically the format was a video Bible reading (from last years Baptism Union "Bethlehem readings" DVD), followed by a brief testimony from a member of the church that related in some way to the reading, and then we sung a carol. We did this four times and then I did a brief talk.

My main point was to show that if all Christmas was about, celebrating the birth of a poor baby 2000 years ago, then that isn't really worth celebrating. But as the testimonies demonstrated Jesus is still changing lives and relevant today. All the people who shared were very different and were all united through their relationship with Jesus.
My challenge was to ask people to take the time this Christmas to think about whom this baby grew up into and what he came to do. I wanted them to get beyond the prologue of His birth to see His amazing life, death and resurrection.

Afterward, we continued with the refreshments and converstaion.  I was encouraged to see that people wanted to invite their friends to come along to Cafe Church in the New Year. I think the combination of God's word and live testimonies proving it true was a very powerful mix. Please pray for the non Christians who came along.

I'm off on my Christmas Hol's now and looking forward to the break before 2010.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Ben