January Pray for a Day and Committment Sunday

Pill Corps Pray for a Day went ahead despite the terrible weather. The Prayer Room was used all day but some people who were not able to attend faithfully prayed at home or during meal breaks at work. The Prayer Room focussed on different covenants in the Bible.

God's Covenant with Noah

God's Covenant with Abraham and Moses

The New Covenant

Prayer requests poured in as usual and each one was brought before the Lord.
We hold a Pray for a Day event every two months and each time it has been strange that despite the requests coming in from all over the UK each time there seems to be a recurring theme. A few months back the majority of our requests were about the work of social services, another time it seemed to be Corps concerns. This time a great proportion of people were asking us to pray for people with cancer.

The Committment Sunday meeting was a blessed time, although our numbers were depleted because of the snow. Nevertheless there was a lovely spirit in the meeting and many of those who gathered signed their committment cards at the mercy seat.

It's a good way to start the year.

God bless

Carol

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW

We don't often have snow in Bristol but we awoke this morning to a thick covering of the white stuff and more is forecast before the week-end.

Also coming thick and fast into Pill Corps are requests for prayer. My husband Alan, email's everyone on the UKT system during the week leading up to one of our regular Pray for a Day events. We always have a huge response and this Friday our intrepid team will once again bring every request to the Lord in prayer.

It occurs to me that there may be someone who reads this blog who isn't on the UKT system who would like prayer. If that is you please let me know via comments below.

God bless

Carol

Here we go again!

I have had a complete break from blogging for the whole of December. Life was just too busy with all that being a Salvation Army officer at Christmas means. We were able to take a break with family after all the activity which was lovely.

And so it's 2010 and here we go again. Corps life is geared up again, with meetings, hospital visits, toddlers, school ministry, events to organise and a prayer room to prepare for Pray for a Day on Friday.

I also personally feel, it's here we go again with my personal Bible Study, which I have to admit had to go on a back burner whilst I immersed myself in preparation and study for Christmas messages. Now I am back to reading through the Bible chronologlically.

I am always amazed by the fact that after a life-time of reading the word of God I still manage to come across passages that have completely passed me by.

So come on all you Bible scholars! Here is your starter for ten. Who was Hobab?

Well Hobab was the brother-in-law of Moses and he was invited by him to accompany God's people as they journeyed towards Canaan. We find the incident in Numbers 10:29-33. As we get going again after a break after Christmas I think this little story has a lot to say to us would be evangelists. So here is advanced notice that this is the passage we are going to look at next Sunday night at Pill Corps. All I'll say for now is that an invitation was given, was eventually accepted and Hobab ended up in the Promised Land. Now that's a result.

It's good to be back

God bless

Carol

Prevailing Prayer

On Sunday night in our meeting we spent some time praying for breakthrough in the lives of people who we are breaking our hearts over.

Sometimes our prayers are not more effective than trying to knock a wall down with an inflatable hammer.

Our prayers need to have more weight if we are to prevail and see breakthrough. Today I picked up my 24-7/SA Prayer Networdk newsletter and read again an extract from an article by Major David Taylor about the conditions for prevailing prayer.

He writes:

1. The conditions for prevailing prayer.

Catherine Booth fervently taught that there were God given conditions that we have to fulfill in order to see our prayers prevailing. This would sound rather mechanical if it were not for the deep spirituality of those conditions. The conditions she saw in Scripture included such primary truths as "abiding" in Christ, obeidence to what God has reveale, being sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading and holding on to God in faith. They are conditions of relationship with God. When a revival that swept across Ireland and America missed England and raised ridicule in the National Press for the way Christians had been praying and expecting God to move mightily, Catherine was angry and exclaimed, "I knew it was not because our God was asleep; not because his arm was shortened; not because his bowels of compassion did not yearn over sinners: not because he could not have poured out his Spirit and have given us the same glorious tiems of refreshing they had in other places. THAT WAS NOT THE REASON. There was only one reason and that was the people asked amiss. They did not understand the conditions of prevailing prayer.... The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." For Catherine Booth, prayer and holiness were inseperable."

God bless

Carol

Reflection

As usual my life has been incredibly busy. That's not a complaint. I am an activist and I will always find something to do, even if no one else makes demands upon me. As it is, knowing that I am quite a motviated person, I do get asked by others to get involved in a variety of things, some of which I should probably say no to. I am much more disciplined over this than I used to be and the important things usually to do get done, including Sabbath Rest.

However if you are at all like me, you will understand what it is to always have a longer list of things you want to do, explore, have a go at and read about that you can ever hope to do. Physical stamina and the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day mean I never get to the end of a list.

I am not really frustrated by this, just thankful to God that he has made the world such an interesting place. Sometimes people mistake my work ethic for duty, or being driven to prove something. There was a time when that was true. The Holy Spirit gloriously delivered me from that. I am however still as busy but it's because most of the time I relish life and the opportunities for service which come my way. I do not understand what it is to be bored or not to be bothered. What is that like? It must be awful, not to find prayer, the Bible, the world, people, and life fascinating.

Anyway, just so you know, sometimes the reason why there are long gaps between blogs, it's because I'm doing something else and blogging was the next thing on the list to do but didn't quite make it before the time ran out!

Bye for now. I'm off to get stuck into prep for Sunday and ..........................................

God bless

Carol

Pray for a Day

It's Pray for a Day at Pill Corps again. Once again we have had dozens of requests for prayer, which we will bring before the Lord throughout the day.

In addition we will be praying for a list of things for our own Corps and each seeking God for his anointing and power.

Then on Saturday, it starts all over again as Lori Richards and I are responsible for setting up the prayer rooms for the Territorial Congress and will be spending most of the week-end providing prayer cover for the meetings and praying for the UKT

That's brilliant as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of many other better ways to spend a week-end.

Let's believe that God will mightily bless the Salvation Army in the UK and do much more than we can ask or imagine!

God bless

Carol

Jonathan and his armour bearer

Do you ever get the feeling that God might be asking you to look again at a particular part of his word?

Just over a week ago at Prayer School, part or our study was to look at prayer roles, one of which was armour bearer and the story used as an example was 1 Samuel 14:6-15.

Yesterday at the Remembrance Service, our local Baptist minister chose the same reading for his sermon. This morning, whilst eating my breakfast I browsed through TV channels onto one of the God channels, which was showing a preacher at the New Frontiers Conference in Brighton. He was preaching on 1 Samuel 14:6-15!!

Anyway Pill Corps, be on the alert I get the sense that this a word for us to chew over on Friday at the Prayer Day.

God bless

Carol