It’s a great question posed in West View Baptist Church today. We were led by the Guinea BMS Action Team supported musically by Jonny. (PS He passed his driving test this week so the title of this blog is apt!
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Our theme today was around prayer, From my own experience prayer is a powerful tool, but we don’t always get an immediate answer or the answer we want. When challenged about unanswered prayer on the street I often say that we need to know that with God there are at least three possible answers, yes, no and hold on…I’ve got a better idea.
The team shared with us that we need to commit to praying every day and God will answer. Prayers were answered both at home and in Guinea for the team and those around them. Safety was a known issue when they went to Guinea . The team never prayed themselves for safety. They subsequently realised that all of the folks at home were praying for their safety. They never felt threatened or at risk. Prayer works. God fully covered them at all times. The continuous prayers make a difference . Pray and pray again was their message.
The t
eam got the children in church to move from one end of the church to the other standing on a sheet of paper each to keep them safe from lava. After we lost a few to the lava flow, they got the idea that they all needed to stand on a sheet of paper and pass another sheet or prayer provided by the action team down the line. By working together they all got safely out of the lava flow. This exercise with the sheets demonstrates us praying together as a team. Sharing problems is like asking for prayers for each other and for others. God answered all those prayers prayed together. The extra prayer in the exercise enabled the team to move forward. The prayer from home enables BMS people to move forward.
Eleanor then read from the NLT James 5:7-19
James outlines the importance of patience in prayer. Eleanor learnt patience the hard way in Guinea, thrust into a classroom with no common language with 80 2 year olds, trying to sort them out three days a week. She admitted to clock watching initially , but learnt patience, and began to work well with the kids. The real test was to be patient for God, 3 weeks of strikes meant the school had to close. The team would walk 4 km to school each day praying and get there to only have to turn back. Frustrating, and a hot tired dusty journey. In those 3 weeks of alll the missionaries in Guinea, all the staff in Didcot were praying , all their supporters were praying. And their prayers paid off as the strikes came to an end.
Prayer is more than struggling. James covers 3 points
He shows that it is not just powerful prayer is but also how to pray. Praying regularly and repeatedly. The team’s first answered prayer was that the strikes were suspended. But then the strikes seemed to start up again and the team might not have got to say goodbye and finish the English course they were holding.
Sing praises
Anoint one another during sickness . If we are powerfully praying then we should be praying for the return of Jesus we should be anointing each other
Elianne was the french teacher for the girls, she was very busy. She taught children in the morning, then taught the girls , then went home to cook food for the family then run discipleship courses. Despite her busyness she would say Jesus is coming. Just as the girls were expecting an end to the strikes , she is expecting Jesus to return. She models the prayer of a righteous person being powerful and effective. Some examples of answered prayer for the team in Guinea, water tank overflowed after prayer, a new night guard brought water from his well. Even travelling to the airport the tyres of the vehicle were on wheels that could not have been removed if got puncture. No punctures happened either way.
Eleanor urged us all to form prayer groups to pray together. She shared the example of someone from another church . The brother in law of Chris , Jim hada bleed on brain. Jim was rushed for surgery whilst people were prating for him and is now fully recovered and back home . Do we need to pray more? Do we need to pray together. Eleanor asked us how many go to west view weekly prayer group? Do we pray before Filling Station? We should if we can.
This certainly hit a chord for me. As a Town Pastor I’ve been having an ongoing conversation with a regular in the night economy for over two years now. I’ve prayed that he finds the answers and that he comes to realise that, far from being the atheist he professes to be, he is questioning and seeking answers. I didn’t seem to be making any progress yet my last contact with him two weeks ago apparently gave him sleepless nights. I had left him with the thought that if I was wrong about God, then I’ve simply spent my life doing nice things with a group of friends and having something to do on a Sunday. However, I said if you’re wrong…. and then just left it there.
Apparently this gave him sleepless nights and a need to know more, He’s jealous of people with faith, terrified of the certainty that I shared with him as did the others on the team. Bizarrely as a self confessed atheist he wears a set of rosary or prayer 
beads and indeed when pressed cannot remember a time when he did not wear a cross of some description. I left him with a simple message, pray about it and then decide. Put down the cross as something he does not believe in or alternatively embrace the cross and everything the cross stands for. No prizes for guessing which outcome I’m praying for. Join me and pray that the way is made clear for this troubled young man.
adly this Sunday we were met with some vandalism to the new ramp at church. It’s really frustrating when we’re trying to reach out to the community and this sort of damage occurs. However we pray that whoever feels the need to do this sort of thing realises in time the implications and costs from such actions.
n you have power. God’s answer is so perfect. “I am who I am”. A great answer with God saying don’t box me in don’t categorise me . A better translation might be “I will be who I will be.” Moses signs on for God’s mission in the world here.
rship was led by Jonny with music provided by The Apple Tree. I was lucky enough to join them for a worship night earlier in the month and found the music and worship very uplifting. Today they brought us a mix of more established and newer worship songs, providing a louder worship experience which fitted very well with what Judith was preaching on.
wing the glory cloud of God. This them being delivered out of the hands of the Egyptians. It looks to the present and the literal sense of where they were gathering the harvest and looked to the future the coming of the messiah.
Jesus just wants to just sit with us sometimes and hold our hand and say it will be alright, it builds us up when we connect to God. If you swim in a river for a day can you say you’ve experienced the whole river? Think about all the explorers who map a river from its source to it’s estuary. Sometimes we need to go to the source, Ezekiel says our job is to get in and swim. If you take water away from the flow it becomes stagnant. You can react in a good way in the workplace, thank god that we can do our best to shine for him where we are. We know when we don’t make time for him. Come back to him he’ll give you rivers in a dry desert. Judith shared that she’s never content, never assumes she knows. Are you divinely dissatisfied? The Holy Spirit gives power to disciples to be witnesses. You might believe you know the letter of law but without water of the spirit becomes difficult to swallow. How to stay in river? Pray, ask for more of God. Need to honestly ask “Have you got all of me, God?” We need to obey prompting, and keep our sin account short. Ask God “Let me know” and then obey. We either progress or we regress. We don’t stand still. Keep your roots in the streams of living water. Psalm 1 reminds us of the need to be a tree planted by a stream of water.
Judith moved on to the faith of the woman with issue of blood who’d been a pariah all her adult life. She wanted to reach out and be healed. She should have been at home, a pariah… yet she ignored society , she knew she just wanted to touch the tassels of Jesus’s tallit or prayer shawl. She pushed through the crowd with desperation to touch in faith, to risk stoning, so hungry and thirsty for a touch of god. Jesus always responds to the touch of the hungry heart. Isaiah 41:17 states that the poor and needy search for water . Judith urged us all to get into the river, get into the presence of God, don’t get stagnant, don’t block the river with boulders. Time to step up and step out.
at that meant for folks from other faiths, and where we would all end up. Our newest recruit to town pastors gave him some honest answers and I tried to share my own faith journey with him. We’re never sure what takes root in such conversations but we left him hopefully with some thoughts to mull over. The team eventually clocked off at 3:40 am. A couple of hours later I’m then up and on my way to a cold blustery sunrise service on the headland. Sadly I’ve not much in the way of photos from this as I forgot to put the memory card in my camera and my phone ran out of power. Clive Hall led this short service and did a great job competing against the awesome noise of the sea hitting the breakwater and sea wall. As always the atmosphere of the sunrise service is something special. A few dozen Christians remembering the dawn of the resurrection really sets the proper tone for Easter reflections. The bonus as always is the 3Bs… Bacon Butties at the Baptists. Headland Baptist church as
always getting up early to serve hospitality to the rest of the Christian community who gathered to greet the new dawn of the greatest day in history. After a short time of fellowship I was on my way home. I managed to grab a quick hour of sleep before heading off to West View for the morning service. Tim led the service supported by Amanda and Jonny with Jonny’s cousin called in to serve as our drummer. The song choices were fantastic this morning, and Tim involved a lot of the young people in the service. Eleanor was also pressed into service to provide the artwork for our “family” tree where everyone at church was asked to add their names
. With a little artistic licence we ended up with the resurrection story told by Lizzie as Mary Magdalene, the boys as Peter, the other disciple and the other, other disciple. They did a lot of running about. They were greeted by the girls as 
angels with red cowboy hats. All of our young people served to illustrate John’s version of events in Chapter 20, verses 1 to 18. It got across the real core of what Jesus expects from us. What we do for the least of his people we do for him. We focused on how Mary Magdalene recognised Jesus. It was when he said her name in only the way he could. In telling Mary to go and tell the others he was creating the first apostle, the first missionary. He was also summoning his church together, sharing and serving together as a family, calling God their father. And my short term plan… to borrow a phrase from a well known “blogger” , “and so to bed”
om the men’s Bible study, He reflected on Jeremiah 13 and the linen belt or loincloth that God had instructed Jeremiah to buy and then to hide in a crevice in the rocks. When Jeremiah was eventually instructed to go and retrieve it, it was spoilt and ruined. Matty reflected that this was like God’s gifts for us and that without care they too would be ruined.
y, he always made time for people and also for his father. We reflect on this Palm Sunday with our crosses made from palms that the people who welcomed him on this day subsequently turned on him, denied him, betrayed him and turned their backs on him.
Reflecting on what Yvette had preached on I was reminded of some of the training I had undertaken for Hartlepool Town Pastors. Part of that training focussed on avoiding conflict and being aware of how our actions affect and influence others. The Betari Box model expresses the fact that our attitudes and behaviours have a direct effect on the attitudes and behaviours of others. We need to let the Son shine from us and be the best Bible that people get to read each day. A tall order and we will not always manage it. The good news is that God does not hold it against us. We get to keep on trying each and every day.