Prayer 2011

Month of Prayer 2011:

One day last year I was seeking God for the good and growth of the church and I felt him speak to me very simply about the importance of prayer.  I had a picture of a can of sardines being opened with a ring pull.  There was a sense of anticipation as the ring pull unlocked everything inside the can.  I then felt God speak to me about its meaning; he said “All that you hope and long for is in the can. Prayer is the ring pull”.  I was so grateful to God for this simple reminder that prayer unlocks blessing.

It’s not as if prayer is about twisting God’s arm so he will act whereas otherwise he wouldn’t.  No – prayer is Gods sovereign way of bringing about transformation.  It’s his chosen means of causing change.  The early disciples knew this that’s why ‘they all joined together constantly in prayer’ (Acts 1:14).

This January Christ Community Church is going to pray. Rather than have one very concentrated week of prayer we are doing something different and holding prayer meetings throughout the month.  These meetings together are an opportunity for us to gather as a church and be stirred by one another in faith.  I look forward to seeing what God does in us and through us as we pray!

• Sunday Morning Prayer.  On 9^th, 16^th, 23^rd and 30^th January we will be meeting for prayer from 9am – 10am at Attleborough Junior School before we meet for family worship.
• Wednesday Prayer and Fasting– a day to pray and fast for specific areas of church life. On the 12^th, 19^th and 26^th you can join us from 7am – 8am at 18 Hargham Road. No breakfast as we are fasting!
• Final Evening of Prayer On Wednesday 26^th January there will be no Community Groups Meeting as we all gather together to pray from 8pm at Hargham Road Chapel.
• E-mail Prayer updates – each week there will be an e-mail with some key themes and challenges that we can pray into plus any update from the meetings, if you are on the directory this will be sent to you automatically.  Please e-mail Fleur Pull if you are not on the directory and would like to receive them.

Prayer Week 2010:

Our last three prayer weeks were a real time of blessing for us as a church.  The Most recent prayer week was a response to a recent prophetic word spoken over the church: “Prepare for babies”.  It’s wonderful that God is encouraging us to be ready for more new believers but it raises the question – how can we prepare?  For us the most effective way of seeing babies born and discipled has often been our Alpha courses which is why are making a big deal of Alpha this term.  If God is going to send us babies we need to be ready. 
 
On 11th July I shared a message about how we are going to prioritise Alpha this term – do check it out if you missed it.  A summary of this follows:

1. Use teams of young people to do outreach publicising these events across the town for the week of Newday (a large Christian youth conference hosted by newfrontiers).  The Newday teams managed to deliver over 4000 flyers for us in just two afternoons.
2. Run “God @ the Pub events”, using upstairs at the London Tavern for 42 type events.  The first in particular will be before our alpha supper and will be another chance to feed into that.
3. Equip you for mission with our summer preaching series called “Everyone is a missionary”
4. Run social events throughout the term where God @ the Pub will be plugged as well as alpha courses for next year.
5. Hold a week of prayer and Fliering where we will distribute the remainder of the 7,500 fliers advertising alpha and God@the Pub and pray for every household given one.  This is more Fliering than we have ever done before!

And you are having a very significant role to play in all of this:

1. Pray with us - Keep it up. Just because the prayer week is over doesn’t mean that prayer is not significant while we are living through this season.
2. Invite people – Churches grow when people are invited to events.  The significance of an invitation cannot be overstated.  A recent survey in the UK found that nearly 3 million people say they would attend church if only they were asked. It’s time to start thinking, who will you invite to the taste of alpha events? Or God@the Pub?  It’s also time to start mentioning these things to our friends.

These are great opportunities for us to continue God’s mission here in Attleborough and the surrounding villages. Please do keep praying.