28 Days of Prayer … Making Room for Prayer – to listen, to worship, to surrender… together

For the 28 Days of February, we as a church will be increasing our emphasis on prayer across the

whole life of our church.

This is not coming from a critical or negative place that says “We SHOULD pray more” or “We

don’t pray ENOUGH” … but the simple idea that I’m sure all followers of Jesus grasp – that prayer

is the best place to start things as a church.

As a Pastor, my sense is that we as a whole church LOVE prayer very much! We are a prayerful

church in many ways. But – if honest – the attendances at our church prayer meetings don’t

support that idea! Being a prayerful church is about more than turning up to prayer meetings …

but praying together is a specific focus of this idea.

Praying as households, praying in teams, praying with our friends, praying at our ministry teams

and praying as a whole church all carry value and will each be encouraged through this month.

There are loads of bible passages about praying … I’m sure you have a favourite?

Whilst it has an historic context and meaning that is much richer and deeper than me just praying

more or we as a church praying more together… 2 Chronicles 7:14 speaks timeless truth about

the place of prayer in our relationship with God when it says :

“if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my

face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their

sin and will heal their land.”

Sunday Worship Services.

The sermon series for the 28 days of February is called “Making Room”. Flowing out of our

January series about coming closer to Jesus – it will challenge us to make room in our heads, our

hearts and our lives to pray. Each week will look at a prayer from the bible, and what it teaches us

about listening, worshipping and surrendering in prayer TOGETHER. This focus will apply both at

our 10am service and at O2 evening services.

Daily Prayer.

Praying together doesn’t have to mean praying in groups physically. For the 28 Days there’ll be a

simple prayer guide for each day that if you choose to join in – will mean our whole church prays

for the same thing each day. The power will be in us doing this together AND in listening to what

God says to us individually as we pray.

Prayer Meetings.

Each week – there’ll be a specific gathering point for anyone and everyone to come and pray with

others. We’ll vary the times so as to open up opportunities for people to come. And these will be

30 minute prayer meetings where we pray, and not where we talk about praying.

On Sundays – we’ll be actively encouraging more people to come and join the prayer gatherings

before our worship services too. They happen every Sunday morning from 9:15am and all are

always welcome to come along – but in this month, we’ll be working hard to get more to come

along.