Loving God. Loving People.

Session 4: Nations

It is always a privilege to get to pray for the nations within our prayer week and this session was no exception. It was great to pray for Jesus to be lifted high as we gave ourselves to praying for…

…friends from Oasis who are now in other nations specifically the Stunt family

…for our friends in newfrontiers in other nations

…for all that is going on in the Middle East at the moment

…and for the nations on our door step in Birmingham

As we gave ourselves to prayer God encouraged us that…

…praying for the nations is part of enjoying the journey, as it reminds us: a. we have faith in a God who is over the nations which gives faith for the situations we are facing b. we are part of a far greater story that is God’s story throughout the world

…we are called to live as a church as many different cultures not just one

…the call to live for Birmingham, the nation and the nations isn’t to be seen as a logical progression but rather is to be mixed up so that as we are giving ourselves to one we understand it impacts the others.

…

Session 3: Social action

To launch us into praying for this vital expression of church life we read the feeding of the 5000. So often it can feel that there is so much need and all we have is the equivalent of a picnic however as the feeding of the 5000 reveals God can take the small resources that we have and multiply it to satisfy the needs of many.

We then had the privilege of asking God to multiply all we are involved in in respect to the Bridge and Street teams to satisfy the needs of many.

As we gave ourselves to pray God continually brought us back to the motivation of compassion.

Prayer session 2: Rescue and mission

You know when you get to meet to pray under the heading of rescue and mission it’s going to be a good night and tonight didn’t disappoint.

The backdrop to this session was the Olympic challenge we are living with of daring to believe God for 500 people, the fact we are to be like a lifeboat as a church that we are here to rescue and the desire to be those who like Jesus are moved with compassion towards others.

As we gave ourselves to prayer a number of encouragements came form God…

…that we are to seek to gather those who are on the fringe who don’t feel like the belong

…that we are to live seeing crowds of individuals…that we never see numbers but rather individual stories

…God is wanting to bring ease in living as rescuers as he open doors to communities and people that could seem like hard work to open

Then as we got towards the end of the meeting we felt stirred to pray for a presence that is 24/7 offering a visible expression to needs…a building that acts like a lighthouse.

On the back of then praying for us someone then shared how they had heard how King’s Church Eastborune was given a building and that god wanted to challenge us do we think he could do the impossible.

Great night…looking forward to 6.30am!

Session 1: Enjoying the journey

It was great to be meeting once again for our prayer week at the Cricket Ground to see how far the building work has come since we were last at the ground. The progress in work was a visible backdrop for our theme for the first session as well as the week and year, of ‘Enjoying the journey’.

We spent some time thanking God for the journey so far and declaring our dependence on Him in all that is in store on the next part of the journey He has planned for us.

Through the time of prayer we felt encouraged by God that…

…He wants us to come expectant that He desires to give us both gifts we are expecting and some we are not and joined with this an encouragement that He is a lavish God and desires to do lavish acts amongst us

…He wants us to know that He has placed us and made us to be a Church that looks attractive but that also has substance

…He is calling us to inhabit the places that we have pioneered, however we are not to just to settle but the call is to continue to pioneer to go where we have not been before

A GREAT START TO THE WEEK!

Prayer week

Starts Monday 7th March – Friday 11th March at Edgbaston Cricket Ground 6.30am-7.30am and 8pm-9pm.

This is a week not to be missed!

The schedule:

Monday:

am Enjoying the journey

pm Rescue mission

Tuesday:

am Social Action

pm Nations

Wednesday:

am Kids & Youth

pm Small groups

Thursday:

am Momentum/Impact

pm The City

Friday:

am Resources

pm Break through and healing

Prayer Week: Monday 27th Sept – Friday 1st Oct

—All meetings will be in the Players Lounge in the Wyatt Stand apart from Friday AM which will be in the Marston Suite which is also in the Wyatt Stand.
—All morning meetings are 6.30 – 7.30am
—All evening meetings are 8 – 9pm

Monday
—
AM – Thanks & Growth
PM – The Nations

Tuesday
—
AM – Small Groups
PM – Kids & Youth

Wednesday
—
AM – Momentum
PM – Mission/Rescue

Thursday
—
AM – Birmingham Churches
PM – The Move

Friday
—
AM – Social Action
PM – NO PRAYER MEETING but rather the ‘Life is Beautiful’ event held at the MAC from 7.30pm. It is an evening of music, drama and story-telling and £3 a ticket all available from Gus Rosier. (For more info on this then please ring the Oasis Church office on 0121 628 0001 or email lifeisbeautiful@theoasischurch.com but I’ll write a separate email/update/blog post about this anyway)

Hope that’s all good. Any questions then ring me on the office number 0121 628 0001 or email admin@theoasischurch.com

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!