Displaying items by tag: dedication

A couple have been recognised for giving more than a hundred years of service to the Church of Scotland between them. Don and Alice Barrie have played key roles at a church in South Lanarkshire for 51 and 60 years respectively. On 4 November their church presented them with long service awards from the moderator of the CoS general assembly, at a special surprise party. Alice’s father had insisted that she take music lessons from an early age; she took over as church organist at the age of 13 and has never looked back! Don became a church elder in 1967, and served as treasurer. As well as their church duties, the couple successfully ran a farm and raised five children.Their minister, Mike Fucella, said: ‘Church in a rural situation like ours can at times be frustrating, with very few people to do a great deal of work. Don and Alice deserve a big thank you. They have served with cheerfulness, often willing to try new things - open to the future God has in store for us. Without their partnership in the Gospel, I would find things very difficult indeed.’

The World Prayer Centre team have been like eager students in these first few weeks of 2018. Yet again, we keep saying “Wow” because God is taking us on a journey and we thought you might like to come with us.

As part of our Resolution 2018 campaign which we started at the beginning of the year, we resolved to pray together for the first two weeks of the year in the mornings covering the topics from our campaign:

CONSECRATION
This has been a key element. Many scriptures relate to consecration, washing our hands, changing our robes and preparing to enter God’s presence. We keep coming back to “If my people” and these four acts of consecration:

1. Humble ourselves
2. Pray
3. Seek His face
4. Turn from our wicked ways.

Bill Johnson describes humbling as reflecting on our insignificance and meditating on His significance. Or as the Psalmist puts it “As the eyes of the servant look to the hand of the master, so our eyes look to the Lord our God.” (Ps. 123). Making Jesus number one has always been part of our Christian thinking but there is a new intensity to this, a deeper call to intimacy.

DEDICATION
After consecration, we come humbly to God and dedicated 2018 to Him. We hear a holy call to dedicate all we have and all we are to Him. Part of this is a struggle because we might like to hold some things back, or adopt a wait and see approach, but servanthood is full commitment. We stood at our first Prayershift gathering of 2018, with people from across the country, at Betel in Birmingham on January 13th – dedicating this year of turning to God. Betel is the Spanish word for House of God, reflecting Jacob’s heaven to earth experience in Genesis 28 – a great encouragement to us as we started the year. They have a wonderful track record working amongst drug addicts. What an inspirational place to think of the wonderful transforming power of Jesus and why this call to turn is so vital.

CELEBRATION
We spent a lot of time in the scriptures around 2 Chron 5 – 7. They record marvellous times of celebration as the temple was dedicated. There was a huge wall of noise with 120 trumpets, hundreds of other instruments and multitudes of voices, shouting, singing, and declaring God’s praise. “For he is good, and His steadfast love endures for ever.” As the Ark of the Covenant entered the temple the place was filled with God’s glory cloud. When Solomon prays his prayer of dedication to the Lord the fire came down from heaven. Wow – let our praise be like this! As we prayed together as a team we were reminded of that familiar carol – “Hark the herald Angels sing, glory to the new born King.” Hark is not a word in common usage but it is really saying “listen up” “pay attention” – the King is here.

RECONCILIATION
We met with a group called England Prayer Watch on 4-5th January for a rich 24 hours. God spoke about our hearts being at one with His, and in harmony with each other. This creates a reconciliation and unity. We were reminded that the Holy Spirt fell when the disciples were waiting and were of one mind. In lots of other settings we are hearing God’s call that His people will be one. We are turning from pride, dissension, independence and asking God to forgive us that we have often blocked the work of His Kingdom. Let us be one that we can be effective channels for the Holy Spirit to heal our land.

INVITATION
At Prayershift as we wanted to know if, having done these things, we could ask the King of Glory to come in (Psalm 24 takes us through a process of consecration and dedication). We believe we had the authority to pray for the doors to be opened that the King of Glory may come in. These are not times for half-heartedness. A prayer as straightforward as Thy Kingdom Come can have powerful consequences when we see the dominion of Jesus in our churches, schools, families and communities.

It is interesting to report that we went through this process of consecration, dedication, reconciliation, celebration and invitation with the England Prayer Watch group. There were intense periods of humility as we kneeled and prostrated ourselves, there was a commitment to deepen relationship, serving each other and prophetically standing shoulder to shoulder in a line for our nation.

Finally, there was the invitation –

Lord we need you. Things must break in our nation and only you can bring it about. We welcome you Jesus, the King of Glory, the life giver and nation changer. We proclaim your Lordship; let us serve You in these times. Amen

Steve Botham

Director of World Prayer Centre