The Power of Prayer

Every Tuesday at 10am there is a group of people from churches and organizations in the Newcastle area that come together to lift up prayers to the One who can answer them all and then some.  As an intern at the Kairos Centre, where the prayer meeting is held, it is required of me to attend.  However, after going to one, people would never want to miss this time of encouragement, refocusing, and community building.  For this reason i do not say it is "required" of me, but rather than i have the gift of being a part of this community group.

If i can be transparent with you, i will tell you that prayer has never been one of my strong spiritual disciplines; something i have always struggled with, but desired to make more a part of my daily life.  During Summer Fused: Drop-in 2011 i, along with my team members, prayed more than i have ever prayed in my life, and with an honest heart believing God would answer in 1 of 3 ways: yes, no, or wait.  An incredible situation occurred.  Everything we had prayed God would do and provide during our two weeks was answered with a very definite "yes," and even then some.  We asked at the beginning for there to be a fair amount of young ladies, we had 3/4 of the Drop-in attendance be young ladies.  Then in the second week that number was increased even more.  We asked that God prepare the young people coming to the program to have open hearts and willing ears to listen to our talks about the Gospel and what Christ has done for us.  They not only listened, but interacted in deep spiritual discussions and even began asking questions.  My favorite part was that they allowed us to pray for them, interceding on their behalf to the Almighty.  It's amazing what God will do if we just let Him!

Recently while i was at a Tuesday morning prayer meeting, i brought one of the young ladies who volunteers with the drop-in with me to the meeting.  She was quite nervous and afraid of whether or not it would be ok for her to join.  i reassured her that it's an open prayer meeting for young and old, new or long-time followers of Christ, who want to unite together to talk about the ministries in the area, lift broken hearts for the brokenhearted of the community.  When she finally came along she was one of the most encouraging to me of all because she prayed for me specifically, by name, and for things i had asked prayer for during the meeting.  i want to encourage everyone that if you have the urge to pray for someone, out loud, with them in your presence, DO IT.  Her prayer was so powerful to me it nearly brought me to tears.  It wasn't so much the words she was saying, but thinking that someone was using what i believe to be one of our most powerful tools as the body of Christ to intercede for me.  i have come to two conclusions: 1. prayer is powerful and impactful when done for others and out loud in their presence and 2. it is hard to feel disdain for someone for which you pray.  i know some of things i've struggled with most are that which friends have prayed for and with me about in the past and it has truly made all the difference.

James 5:16 proclaims:

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results.

i have seen this ring true in my own life, my prayer is that you venture to experience it as well.  Take time today, whether right now or when you are able to simply get away from the hustle and bustle of your day and pray with God.  The Hebrew language, with the use of the word prayer, literally meant a back adn forth, give and take, talk and listen.  Talk to God, but also listen to what the Father is telling you.  He may speak to you through a person, His Word, or Himself.  He may reveal Himself and His will to you through a circumstance or by another means, but He will speak to you, He longs to hear His child'ss voice, just as a father with his son or daughter here on earth.  They may know you need or want something or that you are having a difficult time with a situation, but there is something deeply moving in a parent when a child comes, clinging to their parent and pouring their heart out to them.  We are His most prized possession, don't you think He'd like to talk with us about our lives, our struggles, and our joys?  Talk with the Father, He's always there, always listening, always willing.

Dream Big, God's Bigger

Oh my goodness!!!  Ok, so it's going to be really hard to describe and insert everything from the past fortnight (2 weeks for you non-Irish readers) :)  I'm gonna do my best to explain the summer programme we did as best as possible.

Well, I guess it's not so much describing the programme as it is cramming all that God did and how He moved into one post.  He is truly moving here in Newcastle and I honestly believe this is just the beginning.  As a fellow person in ministry said, Summer Fused 2011 is a springboard for this coming year of ministry and we need to be asking ourselves, "What's next?"

These past 2 weeks we did a programme for the youth of the area around Newcastle.  There were 50 leaders (mostly Irish with some Americans sprinkled in) that lead 5 different groups of what would be equivalent to a 2 week VBS or church camp kind of atmosphere.  We ran two sessions a day with each session running two hours each so we were with the kids for four hours a day Monday through Friday for a total of 40 hours.  Now seeing that in a two week span there are 336 hours and most of the young people spent 296 hours somewhere else other than in the programme you may think it didn't really have that much of an impact.  But you'd be wrong! :) You see, we had 300 young people registered, over 33 Bibles distributed to those who didn't have one and wanted to get into the Word, and about a dozen young people between the ages of 4-18 giving their lives to Christ.

Never underestimate what God will do with your time, talents, and programmes if you simply surrender them into His hands.

That's the amazing thing about God.  It doesn't matter how much or little we plan, whether we know exactly where we're going or stepping out on faith, whether we have millions or barely 2 coins to rub together; if we surrender it to Him, trust Him, and accept the fact that His will is better than anything we could imagine, He will do amazing things.  We don't need to be able, but rather available.

Over the last 2 weeks God has been refocusing my attention from the question of "How will I?" to "When will He?"  You see, when I was here last I was talking with the guy who I'm serving under and he explained to me that there were 2 sets of young people coming through the Kairos.  There's the ones who were in one room (talking through issues/questions of faith and what it looks like to follow Christ) and the other room (where the girls were concerned with boys, hairstyles, make-up, clothing, drink, and drugs).  He wanted to make it clear that I would be coming back to work with the young ladies in "the other room".  I would be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated one bit, however.  You see, these young people are rough, come from a completely different background as I did, and aren't afraid to push you to your limit just because they can.  This left me pondering the question, "How will I?"

However, the last week of the programme 2 young ladies were back from holiday and were coming to join us.  And they just happen to be put in my small group during discussion time after the talk that day.  Funny thing is one of them was very boisterous in the fact that she would not talk at all during small group time while the other one was trying to yell over her to tell her to shut up because it would only be 15 minutes and she could suck it up. (I'm trying to give you an idea of why I was so intimidated).  What followed was anything, but what I expected going into our small group time.  Both girls began asking questions (even the one who said she wouldn't say a word.  And they weren't just silly questions to get us off topic, they were genuine questions of curiosity and confusion.  Though it may not have been the smoothest ride, God was breaking through to these young ladies, even if just in the sense that they were opening up and asking honest questions where they had doubt or uncertainty.

But it gets even better.  You see, afterwards I came out glowing and smiling ear-to-ear.  I began telling Ben (the guy I had the talk with earlier on in the year) about how they were engaging in the small group time, asking questions, and being open.  It was then that he asked me if I remembered the talk we had a few months prior.  I said yea, about the young people I would be coming back to work with.  He pointed at the young ladies and said, "They were the girls in 'the other room'."  That was when God opened my eyes to the realization that it's not about my abilities and how I will do something, but rather about when God deems appropriate and I simply have to be willing to be a vessel.

God knows what He's doing.  Sometimes I forget that, as I'm sure, if you're honest with yourself, so do you.  But the best part is, God can handle that and still work despite our forgetfulness, our doubts, our imperfections.  In fact, sometimes that's when He works best, when we come to the realization of how small we are and it's then that He is able to work in big ways, because we finally step out of the way because we realize it's not by anything we do, but what God does through us.

God is moving in Newcastle and in the hearts of its young people.  The leaders, we're dreaming big and remembering GOD'S BIGGER.