I wasn’t planing on blogging a report on this weeks prayer and fasting. These events are semi-closed. They are family affairs. Visitors are allowed, but they are allowed in much the same way that I might invite a new friend to share a family meal with us. I wouldn’t want the details of my children’s conversation blogged afterwards! So I will not report on the event as such, however, it is reverberating around my mind. I just wanted to point out a couple of things that stood out for me.
The first thing I want to highlight was, a very positive feeling about our future together. We were led to pray by a team of men, and it was a great delight to see that whole team, young and old, together leading us. So often one or other of them are traveling abroad at these times, its the first time for a while I remember them all being in the room. They were united in a desire to lead us into seeking God for more of his gracious activity among us. We are not a movement that is built on the foundation of clever leaders with brilliant strategies. We are led by men who long for more of God’s consciously experienced presence to be among us. We need the filling of the Spirit. Charismatics do not simply look back to some second experience and smugly assume we “got it all” then. That is no better than someone who claimed they “got it all” at conversion! The truth is NONE of us “have it all” We all need to obey Paul’s command to “go on being filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:18, literal translation). These couple of days were an opportunity for us to pray for ourselves, our churches and our movement that it would go on being the case that we are a spirit-filled people.
We were also wonderfully challenged by Bob Roberts to be a missional people. What an inspirational preacher and example that man is!
Terry Virgo shared on the second day how he is planning to answer a God-given call to uproot himself at the age of 70. He always assumed that Brighton would be his last assignment. I am thrilled that he will be coming to London to help build a robust church in Kingston. I am inspired that he is refusing to simply quietly retire and withdraw from the public stage. God has not finished with Terry Virgo yet! I make no apology for the regularity with which I quote him here. Quite frankly if you wanted to stop reading this blog and just read his, I would be happy! He is not just a lot older than me, he is a lot wiser, a lot more anointed, and has been given much revelation. He truly is a gift to the whole Church in the mold of Ephesians 4. I implore you to benefit from what God has given him to give to us. You might not agree with everything you read or listen to, but I promise you will be inspired, and you will learn something. For sure, if you like this blog, you will LOVE learning from Terry.
If, like me, you were not able to be there on the second day of prayer and fasting to hear Terry describe the process of how he and Wendy heard from God about moving on to the next challenge, he has posted it on his blog. Go read it right away in part one and part two.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In