Today the Almond Vineyard is taking part in a 24hr prayer event as part of the Try Praying initiative. Forty churches across Edinburgh have agreed to take on 24 hours each for the period of lent to pray for the city.
For those involved, please use the comments page to talk about your experiences and what God has spoken to you about. I'm excited to see what God is saying to us as a city and as a church.
for more information about try praying go to trypraying.org
Max Edgar
Intern
7 comments:
I got a picture of a graph with a slowly but constantly decreasing line on it. I get a sense that some of you have felt like you've had a real heart for change in Edinburgh but over the months and years that's getting harder and harder to see happening. God just wants to remind you that it's His heart for Edinburgh that matters not yours and that change comes through Him.
I had a great time praying for whoever popped into my mind... this included bus and taxi drivers, window cleaners, gardeners, dog walkers, the homeless, Colinton, Wester Hailes, the Royal Mile and everybody on it at that time (noon), the government offices all over the city, the hospices and care homes. I had a picture of the old historic churches of the city, with Jesus shouldering his way in past those who just wanted to admire the architecture, and reclaiming his position as the focus and point of these places.
My son Lachlan shared an hour of prayer with me, and when we compared notes afterwards we found we had both been prompted to pray about the Kingdom coming to Edinburgh. The remarkable thing about this was that Lachlan prayed in tongues throughout his stint and that was the only bit he felt he had a clear interpretation of!
Yesterday felt like such a special day, knowing that we were covering the city in prayer for 24hrs, knowing someone was praying each minute of the day. I had a night slot and found it suprisingly easy! God was very chatty and i stayed awake very easily! I felt led to pray for the city as a whole but also my area and the small group my husband an I lead. I felt especially led to pray for the government and I have heard a couple of other people felt the same.
I found the whole thing to be an energizing experience. In my first prayer slot I found myself praying for lots of city areas, people (some known, some strangers) and organizations. The time flew by. My second slot really centred around the theme of "Prepare the way of the Lord"
I read it in Luke 1: 76. It's the prophecy that Zechariah gives where he begins by recalling the hundreds of years of God's sovreign work in history only to personalise the story by speaking about his son and the key role he had been chosen for in the drama of the ages.
Reflecting on it, it occurs to me that we can personalise it further when thinking about our own situation and the heart we have to see our city of Edinburgh and the Lothians transformed by reminding ourselves that although God has unlimited power, he chooses to work through frail human beings - that's us!
If anything we need to keep praying and not minimise what God can do through people who are faithful to him.
When I was praying I felt that God was telling us that we need to know the love of God and as we fully understand that then God's love for us will flow out of us and we will have a real love for those around us. I saw a picture of a heart and then a tree growing and blossoming. We need to love each other how Christ loves us.
I really felt excited about taking part in this project because it allowed us as a church community to plug into something bigger than ourselves.
I started reading 2 Chronicles 20 and never really left those verses as I prayed for our city. What a great line Jehoshaphat comes away with in v20, "Believe in the Lord your God and you will be able to stand firm. Believe in his prophets and you will succeed".
How do we let God fight for us? By realising that the fight is his and not ours and by recognising our own limitations. Both of these are important, but the other thing that stood out for me was that everyone willingly took their place and were ready to do whatever God had called them to do. I felt God underscored that as I thought about all the exciting things that are happening in Edinburgh as a whole swathe of churches and ministries take their place for the sake of the gospel.
My half hour of prayer convinced me that he is encouraging us to do more and to keep on pursuing God's interests rather than their own because when we live this way we can not only ask him to help us, but he always WINS!
praying blessing on the city has been an inspiring thing. to think that we can be such a positive influcence by simply pressing into God for our city - i wondered if we could keep going somehow - maybe as a church have a day a week where we have a prayer focus on the city. as i was praying i thought when did i last really pray God's blessing on Livingston or Edinburgh and how much our cities need our prayers. Liz B
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