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Thames Gateway Prayer - After Forts
 On Saturday 4 April a small group of some 12 plucky intercessors met to pray on the banks of the Thames at Coalhouse Fort.
Those present came from East Tilbury, Linford, Horndon on the Hill, Stanford-le-Hope, Chadwell St Mary, Grays and Romford.
But this was just one half of a prayer meeting that was also being conducted simultaneously on the opposite side of the river as well, on a jetty by Cliffe Fort. Paul Cave, one of the chaplains working out of Tilbury Seafarers' Centre and who attends Gravesend Baptist Church, was among those gathered over in Kent.
 Once we arrived, we established mobile contact with the other group and waved flags at each other. We began the prayer time with a joint declaration by phone and then used an old Turn Of The Tide liturgy to provide some direction as we prayed. We prayed as watchmen over the Gateway; as partners in prayer with Kent; and as Thurrockites, for the communities of Linford, East Tilbury and the Bata Estate; and regarding the various occultic activities that take place at Coalhouse Fort.
  We also undertook various symbolic actions. We drove a stake into the ground as a sign of estblishing the rule of Christ in the land of Thurrock - at the same time, the folk on the other side drove a stake into the ground of the Hoo Peninsula. We anointed the stake with oil, and we were blessed to have Rev Bob Magor with us who poured oil over the ground, as an intentional deposit of healing balm on a dry and cracked land.
Jane Almond (who's been prayer walking the county boundaries of Essex over the past year) bought with her an extraordinary email that included a word given to an elderly man named Arthur Burt in 1930, one that at the age of 97 he has been told by the Lord he will yet see come to pass! So we read this word out over the phone to the guys on the jetty, and all repeated it at the same time:
"THERE SHALL COME A BREATH AND THE BREATH SHALL BRING THE WIND AND THE WIND SHALL BRING THE RAIN AND THE RAIN SHALL BRING THE FLOODS AND FLOODS AND FLOODS AND THE FLOODS SHALL BRING THE TORRENTS AND TORRENTS AND TORRENTS.
SO SHALL THEY BE SAVED LIKE FALLING LEAVES FROM THE MIGHTY OAKS SWEPT BY A HURRICANE IN A GREAT FOREST. ARMS AND LEGS SHALL COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN AND THERE SHALL BE NO EBB."
Because we didn't have a shofar-blower with us, Edward Wright - minister at Clliffe - blew his shofar over the phone, and so we held the phone over the river. It was an incredibly powerful moment. Then we proclaimed the 'ancient gates' Psalm 24:7-10 together.
At the end of our time together, a contact from London, Sally Record of Holy Trinity Brompton, phoned with the following scriptures: Nehemiah 8:1,6-8; Ezra 8:25; Isaiah 41:4-10 (which was interesting because we'd already read out Isaiah 41:17-20, the word over Thurrock). She then blew her shofar down the phone! We concluded with the Lord's Prayer.
The next dual gathering of the Thames Gateway Prayernet will be at low tide on 6 June at the Crowstone (off Westcliff-on-Sea) and the London Stone (off Sheppey). These two obelisks denote the former extent of the Port of London Authority and where the Thames 'officially' becomes the North Sea. More details will be posted on the Transformation Thurrock website once they are confirmed.
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Tim Harrold, 13/04/2009 |
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