Saturday 13 March 2010

A name for yourself

Pill is a funny name for a place. We have heard every joke about our need to keep taking the tablets and does our CSM write the announcements on tablets of stone. It all washes over us. My home Corps before it was renamed Bath Temple was called Bath Odd Down, (where incidentally we are leading some sessions on Prayer Walking today.) so I grew up with wisecracks about God's peculiar people!

One advantage of the name Pill is that it is memorable and it is my hope that once they get past the very obvious and usually tedious jokes people will then immediatly make the association, "Oh that's the Corps that prays!"

Since we have been holding our Pray for a Day events that is happening more and more. We are delighted, not because we want to make a name for ourselves particularly but so that people can come and then say, "somebody prayed for me"

We are now in the place where when the prayer requests come in by email, that many people include thanks for answers, which is so encouraging for our faithful pray-ers.

One interesting development is that each Pray for a Day seems to have a theme. There is no consultation between the people who sent us requests but each time we hold one of these events there is an issue that is highlighted. The time before last the majority of requests came in from people in SA social services asking prayer for their work. Last time we had loads of requests that we pray for people with cancer. This time was marked by the number of people asking for prayer about mental health issues, such as depression. This co-incided with news reports in the UK yesterday that the numbers of young people attending Accident and Emergency with injuries relating to self harm had risen by 50%.

God bless

Carol

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