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T-Fest Prayer Stop
 Among the many stars who performed at last weekend's Thurrock Festival (24-25 July) were a small group of unsung heroes from churches across the borough who gave their time to pray with punters upon request.
A Prayer Tent was erected among a string of booths - which included a couple of local churches - on the embankment opposite the main stage (left).
The team was made up mainly of people from Thurrock Christian Fellowship, Grays Pentecostal Church and the church-in-the-house in Grays. A number of volunteers are active with Thurrock Healing Rooms. Transformation Thurrock supported the Prayer Tent because of this intentional cross-denominational flavour.
It was a hot weekend, so the free bottles of water handed out by the team were mostly accepted with gratitude. Advertisements for an up-and-coming Alpha course were also handed out. Lots of conversations were had as well, some significant.
But most importantly was the offer of prayer to anyone who wanted it - and many did.
Facilitator of the event-in-a-tent, Andy Blakey, said afterwards, "I know we had one person sign up for Alpha while we were there, and I know another man found himself outside out tent when he should  have been heading the other way, but there will be many things that we can encourage each other with."
At one point, the air ambulance landed on the field to take a young boy who had suffered a bad head injury to hospital (right). The team prayed for the incident once it became clear what was going on. The acts on the stage stopped for a while while all this was going on.
Andy had had constructed a bus stop-type sign, and each member of the team wore a red sticker with "Prayer Stop Here" on it. There was a notice stating the aims and purpose of the Prayer Stop, which read:
Timetable
T-FEST PRAYER STOP
Limited Weekend Schedule
Saturday Service 10am-9pm
Sunday Service 10am-8pm
Prayer on request between these hours
Life presents many challenges for each one of us. There are times when we all feel we need help with situations beyond our control. Prayer Stop is specifically available for those in such a situation or caring for those in such a situation.
This Prayer Stop is manned by Christians from a wide variety of Churches in Thurrock and is supporting the Alpha course that is starting on the 26th of September at All Saints at the corner of John Street and William, all welcome.
 Acts that appeared on stage at T-Fest were Stacey Solomon and Rachel Adedji of X Factor fame and Britian's Got Talent father-and-son stars Stavros Flatley (left - look carefully!). But Jesus was making an appearance of his own away from the main stage and among the people.
Barbara Brown (below right), who facilitates the Thurrock Healing Rooms, expressed much satisfaction with the prayer tent. She felt that Sunday was better than Saturday. "We spoke to lots of people and were able to payer with a couple of men who had particular requests," she reported.
Andy is now gathering the stories of the two days from team members and also considering how such prayer tents could be improved in the future.
"Thank you so much for your support and time - it is realy appreciated," said Andy to the team afterwards. "I hope that you were blessed in your serving of Jesus over the weekend".
 >>> At this year's Thurrock Day of Prayer on 16 October there will be a seminar stream for people interested in 'Prayer on the Streets'
>>> Transformation Thurrock have already been approached to host an inter-church prayer tent at next year's Stanford Festival on 2 July 2011
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Tim Harrold, 30/07/2010 |
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