Mission with Journey into Wholeness 23/24 September 2006

We've got an exciting opportunity to support Journey into Wholeness at the Mind Body Soul exhibition at Charter Hall, Colchester on 23/24 September.

Journey into Wholeness are a Christian organisation that aim to reach out to spiritual seekers. They will by providing a Christian stall at the exhibition, and also sponsoring two seminars.

We can support them by;

1. supporting them in prayer at the prayer room at the St Paul's Centre that will be running that weekend.
2. helping them to staff the stall (this is subject to attending some training courses with Journey into Wholeness)
3. providing a seminar on prayer. Katy will be leading this, but will need some helpers (again subject to doing the training courses)

The training courses are on 22 July (daytime) and 9 September (afternoon). Please contact us as soon as possible through the comments link below if you wish to attend.

Tea Time report and upcoming events

Sounds like Mike had a great time in Croatia. Thank God. There'll be more chance to pray for him when he's over there with the time in the first week in August.....

I am meeting with Alex at the University to plan how we organise the prayer while Mike and the team are on mission in Croatia. We're thinking about setting up a 24/7 prayer room for some or all of that time in the first week of August. Let us know by clicking the comments link below if you'd like to be involved planning and setting up the prayer room.

Coming up soon is some events with Seeking God's Blessing for Colchester (SGBfC), the Colchester church leaders group.

On Tuesday 11 July, Mike and I have been invited to an away day with SGBfC. We've offered to set up a prayer room for them to use on that day....and we're still waiting to hear if we can go ahead. Please pray.

On Sunday 16 July SGBfC are organising a Celebration of Colchester 7pm at St Botolph's Church. I've asked if the Boiler Room Community could have a display stand there. This would enable us communicate our vision for prayer rooms to more people. Let us know through the comments link below if you'd like to help with the display.

We had a good tea time on Sunday and met some people who are new to the Boiler Room Community idea. Great cake and buns, thank you! This was an answer to prayer since I have been praying for more people to get involved as part of the Boiler Room Community.

Please pray and get involved where you can.

love Richard

Boiler Room Tea - Sunday 25 June 5pm to 7pm

It's another chance to get together and share together at Richard and Katy's house. Please bring food to share...I will be providing some muffins and crumpets...it is Sunday tea time after all!

If you'd like to come click the comments link below.
with love Richard

News from Danni in St Osyth

Danni has been involved organising a fresh time of praise and worship at her church, SS Peter & Paul, The Parish Church of St Osyth.....

"Sunday evening was fantastic, It went really really well, God was definitely with us. We had just under 60 people come and all went away having enjoyed a fantastic evening of praise. We have called the team 'Water from the Rock' which I can tell you more about next time I see you and the service we have called 'Evening Praise.' The band from Alresford are helping us out for the 1st three months and they are true worshippers.
We are Praying and believing God to raise people up from our own congregation so they can take over in Septembers service so please pray for that. The services will be on every 2nd sunday of the month so the next one will be July 9th - I know I know its world cup final but we are going ahead anyway.
I am gonna share a word at this one (July) so please come and support me if you can but if not please pray what Paul asked the church of Ephesus (6:19) "pray also for me that whenever I open my mouth words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the gospel for which I am an ambassador. "... Obviously I don't face the kind of pressures Paul faced but I think he speaks for us all as believers."

Prayer for Parliament and further report from Waiting for Pentecost

Joan from Greenstead Evangelical Church sent the following report of their Sunday Penetcost service. (Thanks, Joan.)

"There was a wonderful sense of the presence of God at Greenstead church on Sunday morning..The visiting speaker spoke with power and authority..from Acts 2 and talked about 3 of the characteristics of the early church...
1.Wonderful Word...or something similar!
2. Powerful prayer
3 Fantastic fellowship"

This week 24-7 UK is co-ordinating a week of prayer for and at the Houses of Parliament. You can join in by praying from home, going to London, praying with others at your church or joing in with the Monday morning prayer with the Colchester Boiler Room Community. Check http://www.christiansinparliament.org.uk/home/tabid/91/Default.aspx for more details. (that's the Christians in Parliament website)

I am still praying about how to use that key.

with love Richard

Prayer Room at Castle Methodist cancelled, but a key given for new things

The planned 24-2 prayer room at Castle Methodist Church, 9 June - 11 June, has been cancelled.

I apologise to those people who have made plans to spend time in the prayer room. Please support future prayer rooms.

The prayer room was cancelled because the planned overnight supervision for the prayer room was not available. Also because I failed to gather enough of a team to make this prayer room happen.

The following learning points have emerged for me;

• give longer notice of future prayer rooms, to enable more people to participate
• gather a planning team to plan future prayer rooms
• I want prayer rooms to be really stimulating, exciting and creative places
• I want prayer rooms to pray through the night

This morning I felt quite defeated and deflated that we are cancelling the prayer room. I prayed for God to show me a way forward. That I needed to start doing new things in my planning and communicating with people. And that I long for new things for prayer for Colchester.

This lunchtime, I went to prayer with the Watchman Network (WN)- a group of people praying for Colchester. The WN are praying for the Balkerne and Schere Gates this week.

As part of their research they discovered that the Abbott of St John's Abbey, a godly man reknowned for doing good and walking around the town, refused to give up the keys to the Abbey at the time of the Reformation. As a result he was hung at the Scheregate area.

The WN felt led to give me a key. I took this as a great encouragement that God will enable me to unlock new things as we work to increase the rhythm of prayer for Colchester.

with love, Richard

Waiting for Pentecost : final report

(In addition to the previous posts about Waiting for Pentecost prayer)

On Thursday 7 of us gathered at a town centre work place on Trinity Street. We were led to pray for Trinity Street - for spiritual seekers, and for the planned provision for young people through CO1 at Holy Trinity Church. One of us saw a picture of a spring of water rising up out of the ground at Holy Trinity and rushing through the streets of Colchester and out into the surrounding area. We read 2 Timothy 4 : 6-8 and were reminded of the need to run the race and persevere in these times of opportunity and favour.

On Friday about 12 of us gathered at Colchester Baptist Church, Eld Lane, to worship and pray. This was a new worship and prayer time at that church fellowship. Many of us felt a powerful sense of the Holy Spirit with us during the worship. People received words about the river of God flowing and getting deeper as in Ezekiel 46. I received a word about God wanting to do more in my life, the Church, the Colchester than I was prepared for. I had to reply that I wanted more of the Holy Spirit and God's kingdom, despite the change it will bring. We heard that people at Colchester Baptist Church had also been hearing that it is a year of God's favour, and that it is time to cross the Jordan and head into the promised land.

On Saturday many people gathered as part of the regular monthly prayer breakfast, this month at Maldon Road Chapel. They prayed for problems and opportunities in the town at reported by Prayernet (www.colchesterprayernet.co.uk). Also the challenge and opportunity presented by the book and film "The Da Vinchi Code".

On Sunday people are celebrating and praying for Pentecost with their church congregation. Please let me know your experiences and stories....use the comments link below.

In summary,

• the Waiting for Pentecost time of prayer excited and encouraged me by allowing me to pray in different places with different people from across the Church in Colchester.
• I felt that again this is a year of favour - a year of doors opening - and with this a challenging time for doing new things and investing more.
• I also felt that our Father God is capable of doing more than we can hope and imagine, and wants to do amazing transformational things in Colchester. To allow these things to happen we must each listen to Him and play our part with hope and love for the people in our town.

with love and eagerness for the next thing, Richard