Where there is prayer there is growth

I’m a terrible PowerPoint man!

There

I said it and feel much better with life now I’ve said it. 

I’m at the UK Salvation Army Territorial Prayer Gathering in Swanwick Derbyshire. I haven’t been around the SA Prayer network for about four years. So I was amazed to see how many people were at the event. 

About 130 or so. 

Now 

When I was last involved in the Prayer network, these things would attract usually between 30 and 60 people. 

There has been growth. 

And 

It reminded me. 

God once spoke these very words into my ear. 

“Where there is prayer there is growth.”

I’ve seen it time and time again. 

Where prayer is relentless, numbers grow, understanding deepens and spiritual lives grow. 

I hear so many Salvationists saying to me this “The Salvation Army will never recover from Covid.”

I always ask, “really?”

But 

It is too often said in the context that it’s kind of over for us as a movement. There will be no further growth. 

Hey

God is the master of the impossible. 

And

In plain sight, The prayer network in the UK has undeniably grown, and that is so counteractive to the notion it’s over for us and we are slowly sinking into the sea of the past. 

Hey

Where there is prayer there is growth. 

The key is and always will be prayer. 

Sitting in this building this morning, not doing very well with the PowerPoint, my mind went back to the two ladies in the Hebrides that prayed relentlessly back in the day and caused a revival of epic magnitude. 

Where there is prayer there is growth. 

It is so amazing to see the Prayer Network in the UK growing. 

Let’s not give up. 

Let’s not subscribe to the notion that Covid has stolen our progress. 

God can do more than we dare dream or imagine. 

Let’s start talking growth. 

Let’s start a positive wave of the power of prayer. 

Blessings

Calling in the things that are not

Morgan Freeman is an actor who has a convincing way of saying profound things, even if they are just in the script he is sticking to when acting. I was watching a film just the other night starring the said actor, called Once More. A story about a washed up writer who moves to a small town to try to rekindle his writing gift. he moves next door to a young family and most of the film then concentrates on his relationship with one of that families kids who really wants to be a writer. As he teaches her to unlock and use her imagination, he says one of those profound script bites that only he can make you feel that it is real. He says this, "Never stop looking for things that aren't there." Only a fleeting line. But It hit me between the eyes! Only because, just before that film I had been clean down in prayer for an hour, praying about my new role with the Territorial Prayer Network in the UK Salvation Army. And During that hard and fast session, I had been led to a scripture. 

Its a weird but wonderful thing that God often drops a scripture reference right into my mind, and I have learned to go to it without delay. 

I dont normally use the ESV bible much, but its text best puts the word I received, I think so anyhow. Romans 4:17 "God calls into being that which does not exist." 

Wow!

  

The NLT says it this way, "God creates new things out of nothing!" 

Hey,  now how astonishing is that! That is the God I serve and love. 

You can understand how taken aback I was when Morgan Freeman comes out with, "Never stop looking for what is not there." 

 

Then

I instantly understood what God was saying to me. 

I think it is safe to say we are in the early stages of seeing how Covid 19 and its lively team of variants has impacted the Church, and its probably a realism that its not looking too good. 

I love it! 

Its the best challenge any of us Christians could possibly have. 

I am so excited about the future. 

Its been needed for decades (Not Covid of course! But a cessation of what the church was pre-Covid)! And God, I believe is calling us to understand fully that he is calling the things that are not. 

In other words we are entering a period of stark reality as the Church licks the wounds that this bizaare period in History has left on it.

But God is releasing the creativity that sits inside so many God followers that hasn't been utilised as effectively as it could have. So, that's where I think Morgan Freemans words come in for me, for you, for the Salvation Army, for the Church. "Never stop looking for things that are not there. 

Wow.

There is so much to come. 

Imagine a total reshaping of the way we are as Christians?

A remoulding of the Church and its practices and endeavours?

A completely new understanding of who Jesus Christ of Nazareth really is. 

Are you trapped in the decline and slow death of the Church as we now it or do you choose to see the incredible new pathway forward? 

Listen! 

God calls into being that which does not exist! 

Use your imagine. 

If you are seeing that there is no way the church can recover from the ravages of a deadly virus. Then read this unbelievably brilliant word from God. Take it directly to your heart, your mind and your being. "Greater things are yet to come," the amazing words of that fantastic song, "God of this City" says, this is true even when things are seemingly impossible, the things that are not. So get your imaginations ready, start thinking about things that aren't there, in order for the Church to rise up strong and new. 

Wow!

Thank you God that you are so infinitely amazing. 

In Jesus name.

The return

This is just to inform you guys that I am returning to blogging after a break of four years. This time, all my posts will be around the infinate subject of prayer, hopefully giving you insights, motivation, courage and inspiration to develop your prayer life and hence your relationship with the super, the amazing, the incredible, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. I will be posting every wednesday. Be blessed this New Year. Gaz