The Open Week started brightly on Monday 16th, with a flurry of people helping to set up prayer stations around the Boiler Room. We were joined at lunchtime by four girls from 24-7 Prayer’s ‘Transit’ course, who, after cups of tea and introductions, enthusiastically got stuck in and decorated our prayer room (it looked amazing!).
The Monday evening was phenomenal. We met for a prayer concert, and were joined by a band from Rayne’s Park who led worship sensitively and powerfully. We took part in some creative prayer exercises, and then Lyndall Bywater spoke. The Holy Spirit was really evident and many people were touched.
Tuesdays’ theme was creativity, and we set up lots of different expressions of this around the Boiler Room. Centre of the activity was the main hall, where we were joined by 17 Danish students, who painted, drew, sculpted and learnt about our Boiler Room journey. It was great to meet them, and have them join us as we walked across the Council Chambers, in the heart of Wandsworth Town Hall, to pray with members of the Council Christian Fellowship. It was thrilling and significant to pray in the place where decisions are made that affect the whole borough.
Wednesday was a quieter day, we held our usual XYZ lunch and club (Pensioners church), and the Transit girls helped with the running of the day.
Thursday evening was another high point in the week, where most of our congregation, plus a whole bunch of others, joined us for our first ‘community meal’. Everyone brought something to share, so we ended up with an eclectic yet yummy mix, and there was more than enough for everyone. It was great to eat together, to spend time chatting and getting to know each other better, to just be family with the people we see in church every week, and welcoming others who perhaps we don’t see as regularly. The youth group played board games, everyone else drank a lot of tea, and fun was had by all. We’re definitely going to do this again, there was an openness and vibrancy about the place, and it was a great way to build community.
On Friday, the Social Action team led our Friday food parcels ministry. In the old building we used to just give these out at the door, but we wanted to make the afternoon more welcoming and inclusive. This way, people aren’t just getting a bag of food at the door, but have the opportunity to come in, to spend some time in the warm, to have a shower and a cup of tea, as well as spending time chatting and building relationships. This is a relatively new venture, but, on this day, 34 people came in.
Friday was rounded off with a half night of prayer, where we spent some time worshipping, praying for London and interceding about world situations.
Saturday was the brightest and warmest day of the year so far, an excellent time to embark on our first Boiler Room mini-pilgrimage. We had the pleasure of hosting some visitors from Springboard (24-7 Prayer’s leadership training track), and spent some time telling the Wandsworth story and sharing prayer requests for each other before setting off.
In times past, pilgrims may have used chariots, or walked miles on foot, but in 21st century Wandsworth, there was a certain novelty about using a bus to get us to Richmond Park, our location for the day.
Once there, we walked and walked, enjoying the sunshine and the space to share lives, share stories. We spent time chatting with the Springboarders about their future plans, and were excited to hear about all the far-flung places they will be heading to post-springboard.
We spotted some deer, and then walked a bit further until we found a grassy spot under some trees, where we shared lunch together. Again, it was lovely to chat, to take things at a slower place, and to enjoy each others’ company. Our Boiler Room literature talks about pilgrimage helping us to see things differently, to gain new perspectives, and Saturday’s journey definitely felt useful for this.
The open week, and our first week of 24-7 prayer in the new building wrapped up on the Sunday, with everyone commenting that the experience had been a positive one. People said that it made them really feel part of the Boiler Room, and that there was a buzz about the place that they hadn’t felt before. People walked into the prayer room and said they could feel the presence of God there.
When you’re just getting on with life in a Boiler Room, it’s sometimes easy to forget why we do what we do, and the privilege and excitement in what God has called us to be. It can just become very normal. The open week really helped refocus us, remind us of our calling, and reinvigorate our experience and understanding of the six elements of Boiler Room.
It shook us up a bit too. Relationships often noticeably deepen in the times when people are thrown together, undertaking tasks that break their routine and nudge them out of their comfort zones.
Sometimes the best and most honest conversations happen when we are tired and don’t have the energy to maintain a front. In a community, this sort of honesty and vulnerability helps us all move forward. Throughout the week, we worked through the challenges of fitting different programme events around our existing work, thinking about visitors and accommodation practicalities, and being flexible with our plans and expectations. I think we have come out the other end of the Open Week with a greater commitment to each other, and to what God is doing through Wandsworth Boiler Room.
It was great, through the week, to get stuck into focussed prayer for so many different people, events and situations. The prayer request sheets filled up fast, and it was great to know prayer was being raised up every hour of every day. There have already been some great answers to prayer: non- Christians coming to church for the first time, and new people signing up to be Street Pastors in the borough. Intriguingly, we heard at the weekend that the roof of the council chamber where we’d prayed later fell in… but we are claiming no responsibility for this. Hehe!
Moving forward, we’re definitely hoping to hold another Open Week, potentially in the Autumn. We’re also looking to integrate some of the one-off events of the week, like the community meal, into our main Boiler Room programme, because they were so enjoyable and beneficial. Like so many things, we can’t see all the effects of the week, some of them will be things that work out in the long term, others will be held and pondered in the hearts of those who were impacted, but all in all we are thankful to God for being with us, for helping everything to run smoothly, and for the journey that we know stretches ahead of us in the weeks and months to come.
