|
M25 Nutcracker - the big picture
10 prayer rooms were established around the M25 with the primary objective to pray continually for London between 20 & 30 May. The venues and styles of the prayer rooms reflected the diversity and creativity of the the Body of Christ praying in unity towards one goal - to see the 'nut' of London 'cracked' through prayer.
The prayer rooms were as follows:
Sidcup - run by a young person called Noami Martin, member of New Generation Church. She converted her own very small garage into a prayer room, with drapes, displays, maps, and a lot of grafitti on the wall. We visited this prayer room and can report that the garage was full of the presence of God.
Green Street Green Baptist Church, Orpington - run by John & Yvonne Pressdee (who were formerly involved in Walk The Walls and who actually suggested the Nutcracker). They had mutliple prayer stations around the church and held special prayer meetings each evening to focus on specific aspects of the Nutcracker. We visited this as well.
Reigate - a lady called Pippa Foulkes opened up her house for Nutcacker prayer.
West Horsley - Steve Locke ran a 'virtual' prayer room as he was unable to secure an actual venue, so people joined a telephone prayer chain.
The Journey, Englefield Green, Egham (nr Staines) - Vicky Earll (formerly of Grays Pentecostal Church) and her team of mainly students from Holloway University had a prayer room on what was the balcony of their building, an old Methodist church (the 'ugliest church in the UK'!). Using drapes, cushions, carpetting and so on they turned it into a cosy prayerful environment. Prayers and pictures were all over the walls. We visited Vicky and spent some time praying there.
St Paul's, Slough - Michelle Bryant and her lively team of mostly young adults and youth put together an incredible display in their prayer sanctuary. They were supported by the curate and were obviously making an impact in what is a quite large church, and every hour was covered. We visited this and were really impressed by all the different stations they had to do with the Lord's Prayer, London, Slough - they even had a huge homemade Monopoly board with various London landmarks on it to prayer over. There were paints, art, meditations, prayer walls and all sorts. Someone had taken the Nutcraker prayer manual and expanded upon it to produce a booklet. This particular prayer room also took prayer out onto the streets and they held a prayer cafe. One man at this church took his annual leave to pray overnight every night of the Nutcracker.
Elmfield Church, Harrow - run by Trefor Bark, who did every night shift. Tefor says: "The room itself had different areas where people cold pray in different ways. We had one area which was for repentance, people could bring their sins before god, write them on paper, give them to god and then putthem in the shredder so that they are gone forever. Next to that was a news romm, the idea being that people would use items in the news to stimulate prayer for our country. We also had a room where you could sit in silence and wait on the Lord, listening to his prompting for what to pray about. The main GDOP area had each days prayer points up for people to pray for and write their prayers on the wall to encourage others. Psalms for our city was a section encouraging people to pray the pslams over London and also to maybe write their own and stick them on the wall . Community prayer wall had pictures of London and Harrow up for people to pray over and write on the wall to encourage others.
Overall we covered all but 10 hours of the 10 days so not 100% but not too bad. There was a real feeling of God being there throughout the week and feedback has been positive."
Potters Bar & Barnet - a couple of networks/churches were getting together on this one, using a double decker bus.
Havering & Brentwood, various venues - Gary Seithel and Linda Holt got a number of churches from across the denominations to host 24hr sections of the Nutcracker. At Emmanuel Centre in Romford/Havering-atte-Bower, they had a room with an enormous map of London on the floor which could literally be walked on. Every junction on the M25 was prayed for.
Aveley Christian Centre, Thurrock - we turned the junk room cum office of this small pentecostal church into a Nutcracker prayer room with the help of Grays Baptist minister Colin Baker. We used maps of London, Thurrock and the Thames Gateway, and by the end of the week they were covered in post-it note prayers. However, we found it very hard to get folk to sign up to pray and churches to be resonsible for covering whole days, and so we had to do away with the night slots (apart from on the 24hrs that Grays Baptist Church block-booked). But Pastors Alan & Lydia Field were extremely encouraged and pleased that they had agreed to host the 10 days of prayer. Their own congregation had responded well and some testified to great blessing in the room. One elderly lady came every day and felt so inspired by the experience. Some very powerful times of prayer took place.
There was also some prayer on the Nutcracker 'handles' of Southend (A13) and Medway (A2).
We have felt some indication from the Lord about the way forward for the Nutcracker, but await confirmation.
Nevertheless I would say the M25 Nutcracker is been a positive exercise and believe this has been God-inspired. The over all reaction has been overwelmingly supportive and enthusiastic. It certainly seemed to ignite people's imaginations, especially the younger ones!
Thanks go to GDOP London for partnering in faith with this 'logistically crazy but spiritually exciting' venture.
|
Tim Harrold, 03/06/2009 |
|
|
