Feedback from Feast & CelebrationAndy I had car trouble last Sunday so I wasn’t physically present at One Tree Hill but I have been fed back some of the stuff that’s been given to me. Yesterday morning, we did some more praying there and got some more words so it kind of made it up. So one minute’s worth: there seemed to be, one person sensed that there was an attitude of “we’re alright” – this is looking over Corringham – “we’re alright”. Kind of a love of home comforts, a complacency really that is a stronghold that needs to be broken. Another person thought that the life doesn’t seem to be actually in this town but it’s just a dormitory for people to sleep in, they go to other places to do anything meaningful. That seemed to be something that came through. We felt that there’s a strongman spirit of apathy over the area. The effect of this is that many spiritual activities are often begun but very rarely completed. Lots of optimistic starts but that the job is often not done well and left unfinished. Something I got was that God, we want God to create a deep hunger and thirst in those that are current apathetic and self-sufficient. God will create this, and that will cause them to cry out to Him for spiritual nourishment. So we’re asking God to do that, God create hunger and thirst in these people so that they will cry out to you and come to you and feed Sola We prayed at Quarry Hill School, overlooking Grays. When we got there, one of the things that people observed and we talked about was that there was a very deep dark cloud over Grays. Many people picked up on this – that there was a very deep cloud over Grays. And with that deep cloud the sunshine was not penetrating into Grays. And I remember Jo saying that she felt like getting a stick and poking it into that cloud to let the sun come through into Grays. And that is how we felt concerning Grays. That there is a deep cloud over Grays and the light of God needs to shine. And at the same time it was said about the blessings of God because as we looked at that cloud, towards the end it was a bit further from here, there was a ray that was coming that we could see, that there was a light that was coming into Grays and we trust God that we will be part of the people that God will use to bring that into Grays. We could see various structures within Grays and at the centre of Grays is the Civic Centre which is the seat of government for Thurrock and we felt that this was very significant for Grays. We look at the structure within Grays, it looks like there was no particular order in which these structures were built. You look over some aerial views of some houses and you see how the roads are lined, the houses, the trees, but when we look over Grays we couldn’t see that – it’s not in order. But we felt God saying that He will bring order into Grays. There are many lives that are not in order but He said He would bring order into Grays. As we finished praying, now listen to this everyone please, as we finished praying there was a strong sunshine that came through for those who were there. The cloud disappeared, and the very powerful sunshine just came through and we felt that that was God answering those prayers, telling us that light will shine over Grays. Praise God. Eddie In Tilbury, there were few words that were given. Andy said that there is a generational attitude in Tilbury that needs to be broken. People have got this pessimism and wrong attitudes with life. The Gateway School is in the shape of a big “G”, and we said let it be “G” for God. That somehow Christians will be able to go into the middle of that Academy and influence it through Godly influence. Also as you look in the area of Tilbury you see a lot of big industry – there’s the power station there, and over the docks there were loads of big cranes but no sense of activity and somehow spiritually speaking it needs the engines to be reactivated in that town. There’s a lot of greenery, green fields around Tilbury isolating Tilbury from the rest of Thurrock and it seems like it’s disconnected. Therefore something in the spirit needs to be done that is connected with the whole of Tilbury. These are some of the words that were given over Tilbury. Just so I don’t take more time after, I will just share about the prayer time that we had in Corringham. It was a fantastic time, a good opportunity to pray. Particularly on Thursday, it was interesting. I really felt there was something prophetic in what was said and we prayed literally that God will galvanise his people and that there will be this coming together even though we are talking about mission shaped communities and creating new groups but that everything will be brought together by the Lord. And then at the Prophetic evening on Friday night one of the first things that he said it was exactly this – harmony. A coming together and I thought that was really, really great as it was something specific on that, and I felt really blessed on that one. So God bless you all. Lois On Sunday evening last week we had a prayer meeting with the children and these are some of the ideas that they came up with. We thought it would be good to have a drop in centre for the youth. Every Friday the kids can come in and there would be like a chill-out section and stuff. And then every month we would do like a disco. Have some Christian children mixed in with non-Christian children and have the Christian children talk to them about God and evangelise. Some kids had a particular heart for Bar n Bus in Grays. There were two lads from Grays who said that they really want to see young people getting involved with Bar n Bus in Grays. Russell I was with the children and young people and was really impressed with some of the things that they came out with and some of the insights that they had into God’s heart for mission. It was really super. Judith We went up One Tree Hill yesterday morning which was fantastic and we got caught in a blizzard right at the top. It was just amazing. You could see right over to Kent and near to you, you could see the individual snowflakes and then there was just this white blanket. And I was standing there thinking of the snow this week. The snow has completely changed our community. It’s changed how it looks. It’s changed how we live our lives – the plans we make, when we drive, and all this stuff. It’s changed all of that. And yet if you look at an individual snowflake they’re tiny and they’re so light and they look completely insignificant. But together they have changed our community for a week. And I felt God really say to me that we are that snowflake. That’s what God is going to do to our community. That as we fall on it, as the Holy Spirit’s snowflakes fall on it, we will transform our community. Phil I was praying in the boiler room early on Monday morning. There are lots of practicalities and details and this and that all going on and I just wanted to bring it back to God and say “God give me a fresh revelation of your heart through all of this”. And I just felt that affirming sense that the fundamentals are that God is calling us to be a community of disciples in mission and that is our call on the earth. That is what we’re called to be, that’s what we’re sent to be, that’s what we’re equipped to be. And as we start thinking about structures, and what’s happening when and who’s with whom and how to organise this, not to lose sight of that fact that yes it is God’s call on all of his people throughout all of the world. To be a community of disciples in mission and just to keep our minds and our hearts and our eyes focused on that vision. Sola From the ladies night on Tuesday - “It was a great time of communion with God. The Lord has impressed on me that we as His people should not harden our hearts but we should be sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit and become obedient to His daily calling of fulfilling his purpose through us. God will continue to use his beloved (we, people that believe in Him, saved by his grace) to break the chains of the work of the enemy through His power that works through us. There is a bible quotation that says “ask of me and I will give the nations your inheritance to the ends of the earth your possession”. Peter Lawton I was at the 6 to 7 prayer meeting on Monday evening. There weren’t many of us but there was a great atmosphere. As I was praying, I had a real strong impression in my mind of a blueprint – you know like an architects drawing – and as I was thinking about that God starting indicating what it meant. And basically it was an architect when he has a blueprint, his master plan, he never lets it out of his possession. And it was as if God was saying in terms of all the change that’s taking place, I have the blueprint, I know what is right for you as a church. I have it all here in front of me. I work with drawings a lot in my trade and you often get revisions to the drawings, revisions A, B, C and every time there’s a change there’s a revision, and I have been in jobs where sometimes someone has been working to the wrong revision and it causes all kinds of problems. And I felt what God was saying to us as a body and to the leadership and to all of us, He has the blueprint for the way forward but we have to make sure we have the right revision. And I felt it quite strongly, in terms of the Chorleywood model, it’s good and I’ve read the book and I’m excited, but I think God was saying “don’t try to do everything just the way they’ve done it. Get the revision that I’ve now worked to with the changes and adaptations that I’ve made for this congregation and if you follow that you’ll move in the right direction”. Emma I was at the Ladies Evening on Tuesday night and I’ve had this word for some time. God has really been speaking to me about Ezekiel 47 and the river flowing out of the temple and He just says that that’s us. The river flowing out of the temple is us as a church going out into our local community. And that we might feel out of our depth but He’s going to look after us and it will get deeper, the water will get deeper and it will flow and we will cover the surrounding areas of our community. But God’s love will be there with us and the Holy Spirit will be upon us all the while that we’re doing His work. Verse 6 says “Son of Man do you see this?” So as a church, do we all see this what God is doing. That we’re flooding our local community and I just believe that God has put in lots of visions on people’s hearts, that as a church the leaders don’t all know about them yet. So if you’ve got something that’s on your heart and you’re not sure, then just speak to somebody because God is putting these visions on people’s hearts for a reason. Jo Hoare At the Ladies Evening we had this on floor and these are things that need to go. We prayed over this and just wrote lots and lots of words as you can see. Like blindness, despair, intimidation, condemnation, putting Satan under our feet. Loads of stuff. Please come and have a look. And we just prayed over, this is what needs to go. And then on top of that – this is what needs to come. Isn’t this fantastic. We just got involved. We need a new heart, we’re built on Jesus the rock, there’s just so many things here – righteousness, holiness, forgiveness, life, His presence, revelation, discipline, clarity, strength – there’s just so much here and we just prayed. And out of that we just said that people around us, our friends, do you know what they need – they just need the truth. Because it’s the truth that’s going to set them free and the truth that is going to bring all of this into being. It’s God’s truth. Michelle How the rock came about in my own heart was that it made me realise that Jesus has every single detail of our lives and even down to the time when I married my husband, Craig – his name actually means “rock” – it means “high crag”. And it made me realise that even all of that was because He wanted me to depend on Him, that He is my high crag, and He is everybody’s high crag. He’s our righteousness and we can depend on Him. Jo Hoare So it was an amazing evening – what’s got to go and what’s got to come. Please have a look before you go because there’s some amazing stuff on here. Beverley We went prayer walking yesterday. We thought we would prayer walk around Grays. We prayed for some fantastic places in Grays. We prayed for the Civic Offices which was already talked about. The place where decisions are being made for our area. We prayed for the Learning Campus and we walked right round near to where the Bar n Bus is placed near the beach. We walked round to Seabrooke Rise. And just things that came to me, as I was walking around, is that when you walk round I know that we saw a couple of people that had been to a youth group years ago when we were part of youth work here. So when you go out and you walk, you see people and you’re reconnected with people and you also see people’s needs as you walk by as well. The other thing that I noticed was that the snow had started to disappear. And when the snow started to disappear, I looked up at the shops, we were looking at the shops and we thought “is that a new label up there? Is that a new sign? Is it that we haven’t seen it before?” and everything looked fresh and I don’t know why. The snow had disappeared and things looked different and I just really believe that God is saying that when you go out there, you’re going to see things differently. God’s going to show you things, God’s going to show you the needs that are out there. And also in terms of our own needs as well – two things. One was that H, Allison and Alan had these lovely boots. They’re all prepared with great grips and I was in these kind of Ugg boots. My feet were really warm but gradually the rain was seeping through, so I’m not sure how prepared I was but I carried on. And also Allison won’t mind me saying, that she was dying to go to the toilet actually on the way and she said that. And we got round to the church here and suddenly some people came out of the building and so she was able to spend a penny! God meets our needs! We take part in the journey but He knows our needs and puts people in place as we go along. So there’s still a need for church, a building, for the toilets anyway! Just praise God – it was a great experience.
Glenda When we first started talking about mission shaped communities, God just started to speak to me about what He had actually given us already. And as I looked at the Corringham Centre, God specifically spoke to me about the pre-school there. That God has been giving us families year after year and what have we done with them. We have tried to do some things. We’ve tried to put on special services and things like that, but God was saying to me that isn’t enough. I want you to build relationships with them and that’s part of what God’s been speaking to me about but he’s also been speaking to me about the Corringham area. We have a building, we have use of a building where we can do things with people in the local area. Over recent months, Janet and I and John and I yesterday went walking around the Corringham Centre. In just Giffords Cross Road and the basic streets leading off of that, there are 400 houses. There are 400 families there that need us to reach them for Jesus. I’ve got a couple of words here but I haven’t got time to read them. But God did speak to us about it’s a very mixed estate, there are houses that are old council houses which people have taken over and changed them and built on them, and God just spoke to us out of that about God wanting to change lives and giving us permission to change lives in this area. On the lampposts there were double 0’s on all the numbers. 007 his license was a license to kill. Our license is to go and bring life in Giffords Cross Road and the basic area from there. And that’s really what my vision is. John Freeman Throughout all of this week, God has been really speaking to me about quite a lot, but one of the most major things that He’s talked to me about is in Exodus 33 v. 18 and Moses is actually spending time with God and he says “yeah it’s good that you’re going to take us on this journey and you’re going to take us out of Egypt into the promised land, but we need your presence to go with us, we need your glory to go with us” and that has really hit hard home to me that it’s great all these ideas and the vision that we’re getting and everything which God is doing but unless we actually have God’s presence with us and God’s glory with us then it’s just going to be like community work or just good works. So that’s the prayer of my heart and I encourage that to be the prayer of our church throughout the whole of the year. It says “if your presence does not go with us, then do not send us” but God responds and says “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name”. Our journey is going to involve everybody from the youngest to the oldest. I think I’ve said that before. When Moses took all the people out, it involved all the youngsters and old people and everybody in between. That’s an awful lot of people. And so it is going to be with our journey, it’s going to involve everybody and we’re coming to the end of our preparation time. We’ve had this time of sharing our journey, where we’ve been. We’ve shared some of the stuff that we believe God has been sharing with us in vision. We’ve had this week of actually seeking God and we’re now getting very, very close. It’s all preparation stuff. Tucking your shoes in, your cloak in and all the rest of it and we’re reaching a point where we’re now going to go into His community. I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim your name. So that’s the prayer of my heart and I just wanted to share that and encourage that with you. That we will see the glory, not only the glory of God working out in front of us but the glory actually being in us as well. So people will see God’s glory and God’s presence in us in this time ahead in 2010. Jan Blakey Just a thought really on Sunday when the young people were coming up with their ideas, Some said about getting involved in some of the care homes and about Evelyn’s home and that set something off in me because when our girls were in the dance school, the dance school used to quite regularly go round to the old people’s home and just put on a little show and the old people loved it. And it just started me thinking how Helen’s mum is going into one of the homes round here, there’s a contact already. And if you haven’t got any idea of what you want to do, may be that’s an idea that you could get involved in a group doing something in some these old people’s homes, just going visiting, getting some of the young people or even a few older people have got a talent and putting on something for them because they love it. It’s just a thought. Norma More than a thought Jan, because when you read my little blue slip this week God’s really laid that particular care home on my heart. I haven’t shared it with anyone. I’ve been unwell this week, and I’ve prayed an awful lot. And I kept saying “if this is you God, keep giving it to me” and He has nearly every single day. There must be an older generation there that have perhaps always gone to church and they’re not fortunate enough to be in a care home which is a Christian care home and they really miss that contact with like-minded people or even just to spend 10 mins to pray with them. Perhaps their wider family don’t believe and they could have lost that little bit of intimacy that they were used to having with God. That’s really been on my heart as well that Helen’s mum especially has found Christ in a different way just these last few weeks when she’s been ill and Helen’s given her a booklet and it’s really blessed her. And if we could go in once a month for half an hour, invite the wider family, invite their grandchildren there, their children, anyone that has contact with them. It would be time really well spent and also bring God back into their lives if they’ve missed that, or even introduce God into their lives if they’ve never had it.
Andy If you talk to a whole bunch of teenagers and said “well God’s really interested in your purity" they think that you’re only really talking about one particular thing. But I believe it’s not about that what we’re talking about here. God wants purity, God wants oneness in relationships. Alaric was talking the other day, wasn’t he, about the need for us to be in harmony, the need to be in unity. And it says in Psalm 133 “where brothers dwell together in unity, there God pours out the blessing”. So as we walk together in purity in our relationships, in holiness in our relationships as a church, we are setting ourselves up for God to pour that blessing of revival on us. It won’t happen until we have to work at relationships, we have to work at being united. It doesn’t just happen. It’s kind of in our DNA but it still doesn’t just happen. We have to work at that. So I just want to encourage the church that let’s work at relationships this year, particularly as hopefully we will be spread out far and wide in various activities, we need to work at our togetherness. And that’s what God will bring us then – a blessing. James Gensberg Something that God’s been trying to explain to me and it’s about redeeming the cultures and the communities that are already there. I just have a real sense that we have our communities of our churches, and our church together, and then there’s all these other communities in the community which are completely separate and the challenge for us now I think is to go into the communities that are there not to recreate our community but to become a part of that community and to redeem it and to take the good things from it and to build new good things into it and to build Jesus into the communities that are there. We’ve been going into one of the pubs in Stanford and it’s a typical example of a community that’s already there. There’s people going there everyday, every week, meeting together, talking together and it’s something we can just become a part of and not seek to necessarily change it but just to bring Jesus into it and just be Jesus in the community. Judith God has just given me a really daft word. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed but thanks to our expectation of pudding everyone who’s come up has been holding a spoon. And God just said to me “I’m going to use you to stir things up”.
Jean I think God just spoke to me this week about something completely different in that ever since we heard about MSC I thought “yeah I’m all for it, it’s good, we should be in the community, we should be meeting people, we should be talking to people about Jesus” but then I thought “but I’m already doing it”. We’ve been doing it for four years with the SAFE Club, I go into a couple of the complexes and talk to the people and I’ve made loads of new friends in Tilbury, so I’m talking about Jesus, I’m already doing it. But somehow it’s not been enough and I wasn’t quite sure – so what is it? And then it just suddenly came to me – whether it came to me or whether it was the Holy Spirit, whatever, that this is so amazing. That there are two new homes in Tilbury that I don’t even know what they’re about. I’ve got a feeling that it’s to do with mental health or Alzheimer’s, I’m not absolutely sure. But what I feel about this is that God is saying “that’s where I want you because that’s where you used to be”. And I just feel as though that’s it, that’s the place God wants me to be, that’s why I’m in Tilbury. It’s not all these other things, they’ve just been leading to it. So I’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out. |
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