Journey into Wholeness prayer room 28 - 30 September

Dear Boiler Room supporters,

There will be a 24/2 prayer room at the St Pauls Centre, St Pauls Road,Colchester from 7pm Friday 28 September to 7pm Sunday 30 September.

This prayer room will provide creative prayer activities, and prayer support for the Journey into Wholeness Christian stall at the Mind, Body, Soul exhibition that weekend.

We had a productive planning meeting this week. The theme for the prayer room is "the body".

If you'd like to book an hour slot or longer at the prayer room, please contact us at mail@colchesterboilerroom.org.uk

We will also need help setting up the prayer room on Friday 28 September and packing up the prayer room on Sunday 30 September. Also some sleep over slots will be available in the prayer room.

Richard Smith

Reflection on the daily prayer

Here's a reflection from Marie on her experience of joining in with the Colchester Boiler Room Community daily prayer.

"I find I am challenged on different aspects.

Sometimes I am reminded about being true to Jesus, when it would be easy to go for comfort!

At other times being kind to others is my challenge, when it would be my first instinct to go for justice.

I think there are many opportunities in Colchester to touch the nations with the gospel. The daily prayer is one way for me that community and spirituality can be linked together and so avoid compartmentalisation. This link leads to greater integrity and so helps us to be more true to Jesus...and so we begin again!"

A week at Abbotswick House of Prayer

Here's an entry from Jason, a friend of Colchester Boiler Room Community. He recently spent some time at Abbotswick House of Prayer in Brentwood.

"From the moment I stepped out of the taxi on the Tuesday afternoon, to the moment I stepped out of the sisters little run around car on the Sunday to go home my confidence in the Lord was pushed to new levels of highness.

Prayers every morning, afternoon and evening in either the Chapel, Church or Cathedral a time for reflection this week most certainly was.

The Chapel was quaint with a little tabernacle for holding the blessed sacrament (body of Christ) and the altar was neatly arranged with candles and clothe.

After going to an evangelical church for so many years it was different to be amongst Catholic brothers and sisters, lots of Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers kind of washed away any negativity from my soul and the receiving of holy communion felt almost higher than flying, very uplifting.
Mass in the Cathedral was angelic and sacred, the choir sung as if straight from heaven and the one drop of wine I drank from the silver cup (blood of Christ) almost sent me a bit drunk on the spirit.

On the Friday there was a massive barbeque and a great conversation about the differences in denominations in the Christian church. A group of evangelicals came on the Saturday and were vehemently speaking out loud in tongues to our maker, I hope they got what they asked for because the passion was high.

Walks in the garden were very enjoyable with willow trees, butterfly’s and statues to gaze upon, the place is well maintained by volunteers and looked immaculate (apart from the mole hills).

Places like Abbotswick only exist because Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ lived and died so our sins may be forgiven and it is on this note I close with a thank you to Sister Camilla and Sister Gaby for their lovely cooking and hospitality and spiritual guidance."

Update from Lakes Ministry prayer

I had an encouraging time praying for the Lakes Ministry in the hospital chapel on Sunday.

I was led to pray into the theme Jesus giving living water to those who are thirsty. John 4: 13-14. Also Revelation 1 :15.

I also prayed into the Scriptures that were given from the last Lakes Ministry prayer session.

I prayed for Mark's ministry that afternoon, the team and the patients.

love Richard

News from Clacton 24/2 prayer room

Dorothy Smith from Clacton reported from the 24/2 prayer room held at the Clacton Healing Rooms at the beginning of June.

People who took part enjoyed the prayer room and creative prayer activities. Some people received pictures and prophecies.

Dorothy said the prayer room encouraged the Healing Room team, and grew the number of people involved in the Healing Room.

Also one person was able to share the prayer room with a work colleague. This work colleague had an experience of the Holy Spirit in the prayer room and made a commitment to Jesus.

Daily Prayer with Colchester Boiler Room Community

A few of us have started to pray a daily prayer at 12 noon every day.



Here's the prayer (it's based on vow of the Honourable Order of the Mustard Seed as prayed by Count Zinzendorf)

"My Lord Jesus,

Help me to be true to you,

to be kind to people,

and to take the Gospel to the nations.

Amen"

We're sharing this with other friends in Colchester Boiler Room Community.

If you'd like to join us in praying this prayer every day please let us know.

love Richard



PS for more information on The Order of the Mustard Seed see "The Vision and the Vow" book by Pete Greig. Or check http://www.mustardseedorder.com/

News from Liverpool

Mike, Nicky and I visited Liverpool last week...

We had a great time visiting the docks in the sunshine and enjoying the Liverpool Tate gallery...

We were there as part of the UK 24-7 prayer network day. This was a gathering of people who have been making 24-7 prayer rooms and communities happen around the UK...and beyond.

We heard about God working through prayer in;

• a skate and surfboard shop in Devon
• rural Scotland
• a camper van travelling to Macedonia and now based in Germany
• a prayer room in bar in Nottingham
• rhythms of prayer being practiced in Guildford
• a prayer community in Earls Court, London

We stayed in Liverpool Boiler Room, and participated in prayer through the night. (Although I missed my prayer slot through bleariness ;)

It was great to hear of how God is growing the Liverpool Boiler Room Community, which is a Salvation Army congregation, and also a place of prayer and hospitality for many church congregations in Liverpool - from Pentecostal to Catholic. And is a base for YWAM and Pure youthwork in Liverpool.

The message that I brought back was how God has been working through Boiler Room Communities in many different ways. Different Boiler Room Communities have different shapes and places within the church. Praise God for His creativity, and the freedom of serving Him.

I also saw that the Boiler Room Communities, and prayer rooms, that have seen most growth and life are those that are committed and compassionate.

love Richard

News from Joe and Walk Cumbria

Thanks to everyone who supported me in prayer whilst on WalkCumbria last week with Through Faith Missions.

It was an awesomeweek and Satan was injured. Many came to Christ and a lot more have been told that they are loved by God. Unity was growing between the churches and they have a fire in their belly now for evangilism.

Colchester could really do with inviting Through Faith Missions tocome and help out with mission here - its inspiring. Check out thelinks for what happened in Walk Cumbria and what Through FaithMissions is about:http://www.walkcumbria.org.uk/http://www.through-faith-missions.org/

They only work and get involved when local churches invite them along.

Going on the Walk was excellent and you really learn firsthand about bold but gentle evangelism. Next big mission is Walk Swansea Valley in September 2008 but there are shorter/smaller missions in the meantime.

God Bless,Joe

Opportunity to support a prayer room in Clacton

Some fantastic people in Clacton are running a 24/2 prayer room from 6am Friday 8 June to 6am Sunday 10 June.

Here's your chance to get involved!

Contact Dorothy Smith on 01255 426921 to book a one hour or longer slot in the prayer room.

The prayer room will be at 7 Wellesley Road, Clcaton on Sea, CO15 3PP.

(from Richard)

Keep on Making Poverty History

Remember Make Poverty History? Live8? G8 at Gleneagles in 2005?

Well, 8 world leaders made some very important promises....

Click on this link to add your voice to make sure they honour those promises.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/campaign/g8/index.htm

love Richard

News from the Lakes Ministry

Hi All,

I was joined yesterday at the lakes by Ann Blackmore which was such a blessing as she really just goes with the flow and is such a blessing to the patients in there... thankyou Ann :)

Yesterday was a good time in the lakes... it wasn't particuarly spiritually hard going and we could really sense the peace and gentleness of the holy spirit. We spoke on resting in God's presence and on how we can leave all our baggage at Jesus' feet and just rest in his presence.

One of the patients sparked a discussion on how she felt when she was sectioned (detained against her will). she said how she has been wondering whether this was some sort of punishment from God.... so that steered the discussion onto God's grace and unconditional love.

A prayer pointer... there is a guy that has started coming reguarly that is very ecentric and is very dilusional... he thinks that he has led a life, that he quite clearly hasn't. anyway he has been quite disruptive and yesterday in the midst of the flow of the holy Spirit he started steering the meeting off in a different direction and to be honest I had to really shut my thoughts down and focus on God to get back on track. it was almost like he was there to throw confusion into the mix. Obviously not intentionally.. but I felt like this was abit of a counter attack from the enemy to disrupt the peace that was in the room. This guy brings a scientific argument to everything we mention and also has the ability to hook the other patients into his ramblings which are mostly fictional.... I long to see freedom in this guy!!! Yay!! Please pray against confusion!

I am away in singapore for the next lakes service... but I think that a couple of the team are still going to go in so we would still appreciate prayer cover as normal please.

I just want to add that I am so grateful for all the support you all give this ministry... It can be very demanding at times but God has some amazing things up his sleeve. We just need to keep pressing in and I truely believe that there will come a day when God's Glory will just be poured out in that place and we will just see the shackles fall off these lovely people!!

I listened to a sermon last night about God's glory.... and that before the Glory always came the order. This last year has been a year of God bringing order to our personal lives so that he can use us as pure yielded vessels to flow through us freely and also to prepare the ground in the lakes for what he is about to do!! So watch this space!!

Thankyou also to Ally who has been putting loads of time into organising the prayer and keeping great records of prophetic stuff and of what has been going on during the services.

Bless you all loads and thanks again
Sarah

New date for Street Pastors meeting - 8 June

Thank you to all those who have got in touch about the forthcoming Street Pastors meeting. Being the first weekend of half term, there are a few people away who would otherwise like to be there, so we've decided to move the meeting on by two weeks.

The meeting will now be on
Friday 8th June, 9:30pm to 11:00pm, at Eld Lane Baptist Church.

A revised notice to this effect has been sent to churches for their notice sheets, but please could you spread the word to any you know who were intending to come on May 25th.

We've had lots of expressions of support for getting Street Pastors under way and although we're keen to get started, it's important that as many people as possible can take part in the early stages of setting up Street Pastors. This is worth doing well and we hope this change will enable more people to get involved.

As before, please could you let me know if you can get to this meeting. This not only helps with planning, but gives us an indication of whether this date works for people.

Thanks,
Tim Abbott

Report from Jesus Centre Prayer Room

Jesus Centre, Colchester 24-7 Prayer Room
22 – 29 April 2007

The Jesus Centre 24-7 prayer room was used by more than 40 people from more than 10 church congregations. There were also prayer requests posted into the prayer room by the local community. The prayer room hosted worship music sessions, united prayer with local congregations, soaking prayer and sessions with young people.

Here are some stories from people using the prayer room.

“I had a two hour slot in the prayer room. But it wasn't long enough.”

“I valued the community feeling in the prayer room. It felt like home. It was a wonderful place with intercession, worship and creativity going on all at the same time. It was a place of personal spiritual expansion.”

“I came back from a time away and walked into the prayer room. I fell to my knees from the presence of the Lord, crying, praying for Colchester and thanking God. I was led to pray for the homeless and The Lakes (psychiatric hospital).”

“I thought it would be just hard work, and that I'd only last ½ hour, but I stayed for 2 ½ hours!”

“My colleague from work came to the prayer room. He loved it. He said the smell of fresh baking reminded of him of his grandmother's house! He came back the next day to read more prayers and scripture, and to receive prayer.”

And here's a report from St Lukes, Highwoods

Here's news of a prayer room that happened at St Luke's Highwoods, from our friend Gillian.

We’ve been encouraging people to pray at St Luke’s over the choosing of our new leader. There were even a couple of 6.30am prayer times in the prayer room! (I confess I wasn’t at those!) Numbers have been small and sometimes its felt discouraging at times but God has definitely been at work.

You may have heard already but I thought I’d let you know that it was announced in our Easter Sunday service that a new minister has been appointed for St Luke’s which is great news for us. His name is Jeremy Noles. He will be coming with his wife Gill and 2 daughters from Southend. He will start working here in September.

We have been very conscious of God’s hand being on all this. The day of the interview we had our little temporary prayer room open and over 20 people came at different times to cover the day in prayer. It was very encouraging to me as prayer leader that this happened but what was even more encouraging was that several people reported back to me afterwards about what an good time they had praying in the prayer room!

We were able to pass on to those involved in the vicar selection words the Lord had given as people prayed.We can use our prayer room for a while longer but the vicarage is going to be sold. I’m praying that the Lord will somehow provide us with a new prayer room!

Report from St Stephens Prayer Room

Here's a report from the St Stephen's prayer room, back in January 2007...


Lots of people seem to have experienced a sense of God’s presence in the prayer room and a number of people said that the time went very quickly one person wrote “my time in the prayer room has been a wonderful moment of healing in a safe place where we felt able to be open with God and one another, 3 hours went very quickly.”

Someone else wrote ‘praise the peace of god in this place.’ There was also the chance to just relax and be yourself. One of our visions for the prayer room is summed up in this next quote that someone wrote during their time ‘be still and know that I am God … they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength…’

During the week this theme of light has been a feature of some people’s comments in the prayer room log. Some prayed that our church would be a beacon of light for Colchester and Hythe. Some people felt strongly that God is seeking to give a voice to this church in our community and saw this church covered in light drawing many to his kingdom.

During the week many scriptures have been given, Mary was repeatedly given Isaiah 40 9-11 and 29-31 which we have repeated here:
“Jerusalem, go up on a high mountain and proclaim the good news! Call out with a loud voice Zion, announce the good news! Speak out and do not be afraid. Tell the towns of Judah that their God is coming! The Sovereign Lord is coming to rule with power, bringing with him the people he has rescued. He will take care of his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs together and carry them in his arms; he will gently lead their mothers.”

“He strengthens those that are weak and tired. Even those who are young grow weak; young men can fall exhausted. But those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary; they will walk and not grow weak.”

One friend who is an agnostic was reluctant to go but on entering someone prayed with him and he found it a comforting place and stayed for two hours.

The superb news is that our prayer room has inspired another prayer room at Wickham Bishops.

In addition we also felt the need to do more pray together and therefore a 24 hour day of prayer was arranged for 24th -25th March.

‘We give thanks to those who have built your church here. The mantle of stewardship is with us now and here. We are the laborers now, for the mill cannot grind with the water that is passed.’

Mark goes to Africa

Mark Cronin left Colchester on 15 April to join a discipleship course in Malawi. He plans to be there for 2 years learning Arabic, learning about mission and evangelism, studying theology, praying alot....and many other things beside....

You can check his blog at http://markbythebook.blogspot.com/2007/04/africa.html

I think it's exciting that we can be part of sending people out on mission, and supporting them while they are serving.

Please support Mark in prayer. love Richard

Mersea prayer shop exterior

Report from West Mersea 24-7

Place: West Mersea, Essex

When: Sunday 18th March – Sunday 25th March 2007

Mersea Island is located on the coast of Essex and has a population of approx 9000 people. This is the first prayer room that has been done on the Island and we were all very excited by the prospect of it.

Sunday 18th March saw the launch of our 24/7-prayer shop with a service at West Mersea Free Church explaining who Stop The Traffik were and what they are trying to achieve. After the service we all walked down to the prayer shop (10 min walk) and began the week of prayer.

We managed to secure a vacant shop premises that was situated right in the heart of the community and the leaseholder was very generous in allowing us to use it for free for the week.

The vision for the week was that the shop would be a place where people from the community could come and find out about Stop The Traffik and its work in trying to prevent human trafficking. The shop provided information about STT and gave other information about the terrible state of human trafficking, which is happening on a global scale. We encouraged people to sign the declaration and put their handprint on our freedom wall. Alongside this there were many prayer activities for people to do and it gave opportunity for people to express themselves in prayer in ways that they may not have previously thought of.

Throughout the week people from the various churches in the area came and got involved and there was a real sense of fellowship between the many and varied Christian community. Fantastic friendships have been built as a result and we all believed Jesus’ prayer that we ‘may be one’ was being answered in some way as we all met and prayed together.

One evening a group of teenagers came in the shop. They would normally never step foot into a place that had something to do with God! They signed the petition, put their handprints on the freedom wall and stayed for an hour chatting. We pray that the conversations that we had are a beginning to seeing these guys again and again.

On the Saturday morning we handed out hot cross buns to passers by and encouraged them to come into the shop and sign the petition. Because we held the week of prayer in a shop people were much more willing to come in a see what it was about.

The week saw many different and varied people come to the shop to sign the petition and say a prayer. It has given people a real passion to see something like this happening on the Island week in week out. Time and time again throughout the week people were saying to me that this was a place that they could come to, no matter what time of the day and really meet with God and have fellowship with other Christians. We believe Gods Spirit brooded over the shop for that week and that lives have been changed as a result.

We finished the week sitting on the floor of the shop, everything having been packed away and the shop vacant again, and took communion together.

Huge thanks to Richard and Katy for sparking the vision in our hearts and helping to get the fire burning. A big thank you to Cas, Stuart, Claire, Andy, and everyone else who gave so much time in getting this shop off the ground and running.

Our prayer is what happens next. How do we keep this vision alive? How can we continue to support Stop The Traffik? How do we ‘flesh’ the gospel out?
Pray with us that we may know the heart of the Father.

Joe Haward

Jesus Centre 24-7 now booking

There will be a 24-7 prayer room running from 4pm Sunday 22 April to 4pm Sunday 29 April at the Jesus Centre, King Harold Road, Colchester.

You can be part of this community prayer room by booking a 1 hour slot during the week. Contact Tracey Cowell on tracey.cowell@ntlworld.com

Alongside the prayer, we need to have rota of people on call to supervise the prayer room. We also aim to have a supervisor sleeping overnight in the prayer room. If you would be available to be on call for some time during the week please offer your help to Richard Smith on r_g_smith@hotmail.com

There is limited parking available in King Harold Road. Please park considerately and avoid parking on both sides of the road, as this blocks the bus route.

News from Lakes Ministry

Update on Sunday 1 April prayer and ministry.

Sarah went in with Andy Smith and Trish Halsall. Sarah said that she felt everything was very difficult with thepresence of the Holy Spirit hard to sense and came out feeling very despondent. It was like a wall and it felt like people had shut down.They were only able to pray for and lay hands on one person and werestopped from going further.

Words from the prayer room:
* This is breaking ground
* Hearing the sound of the bucket hitting the well of salvation!!
* Picture of a person on a raft in a cave, standing in a stance ofvictory, arms outstretched, moving from the darkness of the cave,through the waterfall and into the light.
* A small shoot in the ground, trying to break through fightingthrough the darkness.
* God's not given us a spirit of fear, but of power of love and ofsound mind. 2 Tim 1v7

Points to pray for:
* Favour
* Strengthening and protection of those going in - this week is Sarah and possibly Andy, but tbc.
* Holy Spirit presence and guidance
* Open hearts of the patients and staff

Also, if you have any words at all regarding the Lakes ministry,please let me know so I can pass these on.

Thank you for praying. Love Ally