For four days in November we put everything else aside to seek God in prayer and to step out in faith. Phil Andrews reflects on what took place.

If you’ve spent much time amongst us, you’ll know that we are committed to prayer, and do 24 hours of prayer and fasting twice yearly. This time we decided to change things up, give people more flexibility about how they ordered their time with God, and offer four days of prayer with a variety of different activities for people to do alone and with others, in person and over Zoom and social media.

God loves it when we put our hunger for him above our own appetites for food, comfort, entertainment and pleasure. Focusing on aligning ourselves to the heart of our Father and experiencing his presence is a far greater pleasure than anything else we can imagine. We were delighted how seriously members of our church took the mandate to fast and pray with some parents sharing how they had introduced elements of fasting into prayer times with their children.

We started the four days by joining with Catalyst, our family of churches worldwide, for their Global Prayer Day. It was amazing to connect with churches all over the world, and to lift them up before God in prayer. It was so encouraging to hear of 14 people being baptised in Pakistan following a church being closed for six weeks. God really does bring life in the face of persecution! There were great stories from India where churches are taking responsibility for orphaned children across the nation. It was good to hear the latest news from our partners in Albania too, and pray for churches across Africa, in Turkey and for believers in Kurdish Iraq.

There were brand new prayer stations in our Prayer Room to stimulate our times with God and our prayers for our friends, neighbours and for the nations. Particularly popular was our prayer footprint activity in which we were encouraged to write down what and where we felt God wanted us to step out in faith. Once we’d written on our ‘foot’ we pegged it to a washing line for others to see and pray along with us. I loved the ‘Power Shower’ prayer station. It really helped as a way of focusing on encountering God’s presence coming like a stream of living water. Some people liked it so much they took a chair into the shower to have a really good soak!

On Saturday a number of people went out to share God’s love with the people of Milton Keynes through free hugging. Steve Murrill reported that they were able to pray for a number of people, including a Romanian man with job issues, two guys who were angry at the injustice in the world, and a man with arthritis in his hand. At one point an elderly gent asked where they were giving out ‘Free Rugs’, to which two of the team demonstrated what a free hug was like. He settled for a handshake!

Meanwhile, Sue Watts and Donna Elliott gave out tracts and shared the gospel with Saturday shoppers. 50 tracts were given out in total and they spoke to four people about Jesus. One young guy started off by saying that when he died he expected to just be put into the ground, and that was OK with him. Then, Sue and Donna talked to him about the reality of what’s going to happen when he dies. They talked for a while and then asked him, ‘Has this conversation made you think?’ And the guy said, ‘Yes, it’s really made me think! I don't want to risk anything by letting time go by, I want to give my life now.’ So they prayed for him and gave him a copy of John’s Gospel, and he went off, having given his life to God. What a story!

On Saturday evening we all gathered for a special Worship and Encounter Evening led by international worship leader Michael Bethany. It was such a powerful time of proclaiming the victory of God and the unstoppable advance of his kingdom. We also prayed for our city and the towns and villages that surround it, that God would do a mighty work amongst us.

We finished with Prayer Sunday, in which we brought the nations of the world to God, and prayed for those churches we are in relationship with in nations dealing with conflict and natural disasters. Sharon Clark, host of the meeting, led us in praying off the back of a local news story that had broken her heart. This story described how schoolchildren from struggling families in Milton Keynes have been pretending to eat out of empty lunchboxes to save their embarrassment at having no food. The report went on to say that ‘more than one in three children in the city are living in poverty’. New Life operates Food Bank at Greenleys Community Club, run by Mike and Sue Wood. After the meeting Sue was blown away when someone handed her £35 towards Food Bank. Another person from the church who works for Amazon shared that they have access to returned food goods, which are fine except for damaged packaging, which could be donated to families that are struggling financially. It all goes to show how much we can impact our city by praying and working together.

We finished by dedicating ourselves to God in prayer with these words adapted from Psalm 150, with just a dash of Romans 12:1–2:

Praise the Lord. Praise him in his sanctuary;

Praise him in his mighty heavens.

Praise him for his acts of power and his greatness.

I'll praise you with every part of my body,

with every moment of my living.

I'll praise you with my working and my resting,

with my time and my money.

I'll praise you with resounding acts of sacrificial love.

Let my life be a living sacrifice of worship to you, Lord. Amen.

As we move forward from these dedicated days of prayer, let’s keep those words in our hearts and let them inform what we do for God, personally and corporately.