Yesterday was fantastic. Great friends, new lives and an amazing hour in the Prayer Room. For the first time in weeks I woke refreshed from sleep and excited about my day. I decided to play office worker and went for a smart beige slacks, shirt and cashmere jumper combo and strolled through Chichester with a sense of a new chapter starting...
After another online meeting with the 24-7 International team, hard thinking, serious talking and avoiding Pete's attempts to stick a mic up my nose, we sat back and set the world to rights. I really love Pete and Samie, it was a sheer joy to spend the rest of the afternoon talking and working in their back bedroom.
Lots of interesting arguments about Jonah and the Whale and pondering what 24-7 might look like in a year.
A quick change from my smart office apparel into jeans and hoodie later and Charlotte, Claire and I were off to a near by village to run a youth alpha session on prayer. OK confession time... we'd agreed to take the session at short notice and I'd spent the whole day in meetings so we hadn't prepared anything! As we walked into a quaint village church we were faced with a room full of young teenagers and suddenly all our cultural relevance and blagging counted for nothing.
A desperate few minutes in prayer later we set about playing games, cracking jokes, talking about prayer and asking them questions. Surprisingly they were far better behaved than a bunch of church kids and were movingly honest about the things they've prayed about. One young lad stuck his hand up and asked if we might pray for him and his family... his Dad had died six months ago, he was ten and he wondered if that would count for something God would be interested in.
We had a great time with the group. It was a real privilege to hang out with them and as we headed back to Chichester I sat looking out the car window wondering how often I look for opportunities to talk about God to people who don't know Him.
A gorgeous stir fry later and I was back out the door to the Revs 24-7 Prayer Room. I was joining my cell to pray for an hour, many of them are going through hard times so I knew that encouragement and prayer were needed. As we got stuck in the tears began to flow and the most amazing thing happened...
First I must back track... Jim is a guy from our Church who, when stuck for a media dissertation topic, proposed making a film about young people praying 24-7 to his tutor group. They loved the idea, inspired by the notion of active and interesting Christian spirituality they sent Jim and his partner Tom to film this week's prayer room.
Tom is a twenty something student who had just enough Christianity in school to put him off for life; recently Tom's started to ask questions. Jim, who truly isn't embarrassed about talking about Jesus, has been chatting away and bringing Tom along to Alpha.
Last night as my cell group prayed Tom and Jim were quietly filming. As we got to the end of the group, I looked at my watch wondering how to fill the last half hour when Jim cleared his throat...
"Sorry to interrupt but Tom wants to become a Christian. He wants to know if you would mind praying for him..."
A shocked moment of complete silence later then everyone broke into the most fantastic cheer that prayer room's ever heard. As we prayed for Tom people who'd been in tears over their own problems started encouraging him with bible verses, grinning over the new member of our family and then worshiping God with enthusiasm, belting songs at the top of their voices. It was awesome! It was one of those, so this is what's great about prayer rooms moments...
No talk, band, discussion or course can ever beat the presence of God. xc