Loving God. Loving People.

week of prayer: meeting 9 ‘nations’

From early on in the life of Oasis we have lived with a passion, a drum beat of our mission to Birmingham, the nation and the nations. We live in a city whose strap line is a global city with a local heart. The hour this morning revealed this as we gave ourselves to pray for 5 different people, two couples and one individual who are getting ready to go to different nations. It was exciting to think that their stories are our stories.

It was such a privilege to give time to therefore pray for Richard and Alison Stunt as they get ready to go to Russia in August. To then go on to pray for Pete and Cheryl Lockhart who are in Brazil at the moment fact finding as they seek to get ready to go and to hear that already they have been a great encouragement to a brand new church plant in Rio. (the final individual I can’t highlight online)

It was so exciting to know that prayers we were praying at a Cricket ground in Birmingham were changing situations in three different nations!

Week of prayer: meeting 8 Olympic challenge

…what an evening, as we got to spend time thanking God for his provision both financially and materially as prayed in to the Olympic challenge we are running with to be a church of 500 by 2012.

We started by thanking God for his provision of finances that in the climate we are in, in 2009 we saw an increase in giving from £183.5k to £195k (which was just 3k short of what we were going for) and doesn’t include the nearly 10k on top that was given elsewhere! We then moved on to thank God for the favour he has given us at the Cricket Ground and for the marquee (big top) we are getting to meet in and our ability to see God fill it. From here we then thanked God for every individual that has been added to us since going after the Olympic challenge in 2007! As we prayed you couldn’t help but see we were already a totally different church to the one at the start of 2007.

As we thanked God for all we have seen it stirred faith to ask God for more. As we prayed we were reminded of how natural things we see can point to spiritual realities…Elizabeth Adam’s remined us of the new ceiling in the marquee and how it is littered with small LED’s from here she read and reminded us of the promise God gave Abraham that his descendants would out number the stars in the sky. Elizabeth encourage us to remember this promise whenever we see the lights.

This encouragement fueled our prayer for faith to believe God for growth and for God to bring growth…the hour ran out quickly and for all of us we left with a deep sense that things are changing…

Prayer week: meeting 7 Birmingham

I always get well excited whenever we plan to pray for Birmingham on prayer weeks and this morning did not disappoint. Brilliant time of praising and thanking God for being in such a great city with massive diversity and size with so many different aspects to it. We then moved this into thanking God for being the head of the body: His church. This was an ace time of praising God and thanking Him for the diversity that exists amongst Birmigham as a city which is reflected in Birmingham’s churches. We asked for greater unity inside each of the churches and also amongst churches and for all of us to know that we all belong to the same family and the church is Christ’s bride: happy, beautiful and not depressed, quiet or dull.

We prayed for churches to be invigorated with hope and optimism in God and to all look staright to Him again for joy and know how much He loves us. We prayed a lot for salvation in the city and were reminded of what Frida Burea prayed for us when she was here with Edward during the summer of 2008: that God encouraged us to have faith for 10% of Birmingham being saved and how big a number that is but how amazing God is!

We prayed for old or smaller churches that might not have seen anyone become a Christian for years to know proper hope in God and that He wants the best for His church and to give them joy. We prayed for old churches that might not have used their baptism pool for years and that they’d see tons of people get saved and would have to get using it again! Richard Stunt had this picture of it being a bit like the little boats after Dunkirk: inasmuch as the little boats were little churches rescuing people from death on the shores and bringing them to life and safety. He felt God was saying it didn’t matter how big the boat was but it was important it was rescuing.

We then prayed for new life in the whole of Birmingham, not just churches, and that Birmingham would be a place characterised by God. That Birmingham would be a city that was transformed in every aspect of city life: politically, socially, culturally (specifically in the arts), that the attitude of Birmingham and Brummies would be hopeful and optimistic all to do with God and how much he loves this city and everyone in it. We prayed Birmingham would be a city that didn’t hark back to time when it was great but that it would become great because of God!

Prayer week: meeting 6 Social action

We concentrated on praying specifically for two initiatives we are running as a Church through this session. The Bridge, our work with those seeking to live free from addiction and the Well, our work seeking to support women struggling with postnatal depression.

Jackie Medler started by sharing some stories of the life change that has gone on at the Bridge, we didn’t really need much more motivation to start to pray for God to do more and for us to see more of the individuals from the Bridge coming into a living relationship with God and becoming pillars within the church.

From the starting point of the Bridge it led us to pray that we would always be a welcoming community as a church where no one would ever feel excluded.

Alison Stunt then shared how things were going in the Well and the need for wisdom to know how to take thing forward and the way inwhich the Well is gaining a positive reputation within the city. It was great to then give ourselves to praying for wisdom in knowing the right way forward and for increased influence to change how women are cared for in the city.

To finish off as we ran out of time we quickly called on God for provision for finances as we have lost £150k of government funding due to a change in policy. With faith we called on God who is able to provide all we need!

Prayer week: meeting 5 Momentum/Impact

Another good prayer meeting this morning where it was all about the stuff we do with everyone who is in their 20s and 30s called Momentum. It was brilliant to be able to thank God for eveything He is doing in this area and to look back and thank Him for where he has taken us over the ten years Oasis has existed to where we are now. To be able to thank Him for everyone we have come into contact with, whether it was for years or even if it was just one very small meeting, was ace and we asked God would keep blessing them now and that they’d know God more.

As we started praying for those who are involved with Momentum now it was ace to thank God for the recent Momentum weekend away and to ask God to keep blessing everyone in Momentum and everything that Momentum is involved in. Recognising that this age group is massive in Birmingham and that it is a really significant period of our lives where people want excitement, adventure, acceptance, and to have a purpose that they would find all that and more in God (and not in other things that would only prove to be a dissapointment). We prayed that Oasis would be somewhere that people would learn these things and know how much God loved them.

A lot of what we prayed about was concerning universities and colleges but Zac Dixon prayed a brilliant prayer asking God to help us to be as passionate for those in their 20s and 30s who are not interested in education at all: as we are about those at college, university or those who have left university.

Finally, we also prayed about a regular night we run in the city centre, above O’Neill’s pub on Broad Street, called Impact. This is something we do to give back to the city and have a night where bands can play and enojy it. We prayed that the people that come and the bands that play will notice something different about Impact and that they’d ask questions and find out about God through the Impact nights.

All in all another good prayer meeting! Tonight is social action and tomorrow morning is for Birmingham and other churches in the city so come along.

Prayer week: meeting 4 kids and youth

When you know you’re getting to pray for 75 kids and youth how can it ever be boring!

We spent time thanking God for the kids and youth we have and for those who faithfully work with them week in week out…from thanks we began to pray for each of the kids and youth that they would grow in their knowledge of God and that we would have increasingly more people serving in this vital area of church life as the need is very great! We specifically called on God to provide leaders that are needed in the XGT group.

We felt led to pray for the parents of Oasis that they would have wisdom to equip their children to understand how their faith can interact within the world that we live in…which naturally lead us to pray for our kids and youth that they would know God’s protection as they navigate their way through life.

One couldn’t help but leave with a sense of privilege in praying for the next generation to surpass all that we have done and known…and with a sense of excitment of how God is continuing to add more into this vibrant area of church life!

Prayer week: meeting 3 Small Groups

Another quality prayer meeting this morning and this time it wasn’t as cold as yesterday. The focus this morning was about small groups but again a big thing that came out was thanking God for who He is, how great He is and thanking him again for our salvation. This might sound like stating the obvious but was a great way to start praying and was similar to yesterday morning.

We then got into thanking God for small groups and for small group leaders: specifically praying protection over them and that they won’t get worn out but will be a great influence on their respective small groups which in turn will have a great impact on the rest of the church. From this we prayed that the recent Life Rhythms series would be a great resource for small group leaders (and the rest of the church) to get the balance right in our lives with God as our Lord.

This led into small groups being the engine room of the church that will “stoke the fires” for us as individuals and the church as a whole always making us look straight to God, getting more people into small groups for everyone’s benefit, making them places of hospitality which in turn will have a great evangelistic effect where small groups will not only be a place of Godly reset and recouperation but will see salvation.

All in all well worth getting up early for! Tonight it’s about kids and youth or otherwise hopefully see you there tomorrow morning where we’ll be praying for Momentum and Impact.

Prayer week: meeting 2 ‘everything’

This time really lived up to his heading of ‘everything’ as we got time to pray for the many ways Oasis is impacting and changing the city through the lives of those who are part of Oasis. It was amazing praying into the many areas individuals are working within, both employed and voluntary, and realising each individual was not alone but was being Oasis extending God’s kingdom in each of those settings.

As we prayed you couldn’t help but be impacted by the fact that what we use to dream of doing is now what we are actually doing!!

As we prayed God quickly encouraged us as to how He  values where each individual within Oasis is placed. How he yearns to affirm the call of where we are rather than us continually feeling like we need to hear God call us somewhere different.

Within the time we also felt drawn to pray for the continuing impact we can have together in and through the Cricket Ground and its staff…and from this focus to pray that we would be in more Sunday’s than not in the new marquee, not for a nice buildings sake, but to act as a large space to build many others in!

Most definitely an hour worth being out for!!!

starter for 10…

…or should I say 10:10 (sorry bad pun!!) This morning saw the start of our first prayer week of 2010. We picked up on the theme of the year 10:10 (CB code) that God’s message to us is clear to love God, to love people and therefore to rescue and he is now awaiting our response.

On the back of this call we looked at Colossians 1: 13 ^“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,”and then spent time thanking God for our rescue. We then went onto pray for God to rescue those we know individually and are in contact with directly as a church.

As we prayed God reminded us to continue to enjoy and explore our rescued status as the more we do the more it impacts our desire to rescue others.

Week of prayer…

Hi All, hope you have had a good week. We are nearly entering our week of prayer which I always find an exceptionally exciting time of community life as we give ourselves to calling on God. We have much to thank God for and much to ask so I want to encourage you to come along next week.

We will be gathering each day at 6.30am and 8pm at Edgbatson Cricket Ground each time for an hour and will be covering the following areas:

Mon am   10:10

pm   lives of  rescue – ‘everything’

Tues am Small groups and community

pm Kids and youth

Wed am Momentum and impact

pm Social action

Thurs am Birmingham and other churches

pm A big tent and an Olympic challenge

Fri am Nations in this city and outside

pm Everything: change, thanks and ministry