Love, Live, Learn, Lose September 10, 2009

For the past three years I’ve been working for the Salvation Army based at our wondrous Uk & Ireland headquarters in London.

Today is my last day, which is weird. I don’t think I expected to have such a melee of feelings, for the bittersweet-ness to be quite this intense! This lunchtime I shared a meal with a small group of my colleagues, and I have to admit to pulling back from the conversation a few times just to muse about that little group of people, about the joys and challenges of journeying together, and about all the things I have seen over the past 36-ish months.

A lot of people think that THQ is quirky, and it is true that it has its own unique character and personality. When you have sat, desk quivering through the sprinkler-test, or ridden out the boil-freeze-boil-freeze heating system, I think you come out the other end with a real fondness for the place and for the people, and for a greater desire than ever to see this denomination fulfil what is was raised up to do – to save souls, to grow saints and to serve suffering humanity. Actually, I don’t think that’s a reflection on the sprinkler system, I think it’s the spirit of God that hovers in the place, sometimes unnoticed but always having an impact.

I’ve come to the conclusion that every member of the Salvation Army should work or volunteer at THQ for at least a month of their lives. It gives you such a fuller picture of how the SA fits together – like seeing the cogs that turn the machine wheels, and I’ve found it inspirational. I’ve tried to add some colour to the place – with my bright socks and glittery reindeer adorning my desk, but more than appearance it’s about attitude… working here has given me a refreshed vision for the Salvation Army, re-invigorating my hope for a church raised up to live out an Isaiah 61 sort-of Christianity: setting the captives free and proclaiming good news for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed.

I’ve already mentioned the year of discipleship, and ALOVE uk chose the four words above to explore this theme further. I like to think they sum up my experience of working for the Salvation Army, and specifically working to champion the cause of prayer within it. I was and will remain passionate that we are called to pray and to wrestle and to ‘believe the future into being’ with our prayers.

These years have been about Loving – the most fervent prayer, in my opinion, springs out of a love relationship with God and with a passionate belief that we are his beloved. I long for more people to grasp what this means, and for the church as a whole to live out of that place – understanding our position as friends and lovers, as opposed to servants and employees of our creator. Love gives and spends itself on behalf of others, love inspires the desperate prayer for a lost family member or a broken colleague or peace in our world. Oh that we, that I, would learn to love more perfectly.

They have been about Living – understanding prayer as something that weaves through our day to day lives with beauty and simplicity, living out a journey of ups and downs and sudden-corners that shake and unnerve us but that we can make it through as a community of believers with a unified mission. It has been believing that the ‘life in fullness’ promise of God extends to my life in the office, behind a desk, wrestling with a photocopier – the mundane and everyday things we all do.

There has been Learning, many many lessons that I have grappled with and often only petulantly accepted. I’ve learned about myself, my skills and talents as well as my weaknesses and struggles. I have learnt to work in a team and to be more ready to ask for help and to be less frightened of failing. I have learnt that no-one has it all together and we are all walking and changing and being healed. I have learnt that prayer helps me learn – I hear Gods voice and he teaches me at a pace which is perfect and which never pulls me down or makes me feel small.

And then, there’s Losing. (We’ll leave this one to last because it’s hard to come up with a natty paragraph about stuff which still stirs my heart, still hurts to think about). I remember when I started this job, some keen prophetic type told me that, as my influence rose, at the same time there would be a going down, a stripping away, a brokenness that would increase simultaneously. I wasn’t so sure what all that meant at the time. The thought of my having any influence at all freaked me out, and brokenness just didn’t seem to fit into my nice, neat plans for things. Why would God bring me down at the same time as raising me up? From my three years older and maybe a little wiser place, I think I understand it a little more. I’ve felt the sting of unanswered prayer and I’ve seen the frustrations of unmet expectations around me. I’ve lost people who I loved desperately at seemingly the most untimely moments, when so much seems unfinished. There have been many, many times when my prayers have been ‘God… this makes no sense… what are you playing at?’

Through all these experiences, there have been some truths that I hold on to, that have been I think indelibly written on my heart through these past years of triumph and struggle, of joy and of sorrow. These include: Prayer works, Jesus always does something even if it looks like the opposite is true. None of us are too far away from God, or our lives too ‘messed up’ for him to heal and change and use for his glory. I’ve learnt that he really does choose the weak and foolish things to shame the wise, and that he really does use all things for good for those that love him.

This truly has been a beautiful chapter of my life, and one I will thank God for, ponder on, and learn from as long as I live.

Prayer on the Road September 2, 2009

This summer, the 24-7/SA Prayer team had the privilege of collaborating with ALOVE UK, and the International Development department at THQ, to take part in the first all-summer-school road trip.

We packed our suitcases, we saw more of the UK and Ireland’s motorway system than I ever thought possible, and we had the amazing opportunity to interact with every young person who attended one of the Salvation Army’s 14 divisional summer schools.

Now that Road Trip is over, and we are back in the office, back behind our desks, I have been musing that these past few weeks. I realise that they have probably taught me more about prayer than any of the books I have read or talks I have heard recently. I wanted to share some of those lessons with you in this article. You might not be surviving on service-station coffees or living out of a suitcase, but sometimes all of our lives feel like this: like we are on the move, like we don’t know where fit, like we’re not sure what life will throw at us next. Prayer gets me through these unsettled times.

One of the things I quickly found out about the fast-paced Road Trip lifestyle, was that there was not much sleep to be had! In all the late nights and early mornings I deduced that getting up extra early for an hour of concentrated intercession would seriously impede my ability to deliver seminars later in the day. My prayer life became flexible – I talked to God over the rabble of my travelling companions musical taste, I whispered prayers before seeking to enthuse teenagers about the things of prayer, and I think we all prayed when, in the evening ‘gig’, we had to don comedy sailors hats and step into the ‘disciple-ship’ – an inflatable dinghy where we were each interviewed about our discipleship journeys.

All of us have to pray on the move like this, when the responsibilities of work and family life crowd in. Sometimes we can find ourselves feeling guilty, because we simply do not have the time available for long devotional times. Sometimes we feel like we ‘aren’t good enough’, because we compare ourselves to others and become convinced that we don’t measure up. The truth is, God isn’t measuring our prayers on some sort of league table; he doesn’t rate us on our eloquence, or give us extra blessings because we manage to squeeze in an extra chapter of Ecclesiastes in our evening devotions. We don’t need to feel guilty, because it is perfectly acceptable, and I would argue invigorating, to mutter a prayer under our breath as we wander around the supermarket, to pray for the other parents in the playground by simply running through their names in our heads. One of the main messages we were trying to get across with Road Trip was that our personal discipleship journeys – our engagement with worship, prayer and social justice – are not extra pressures that we need to squeeze into an already packed schedule, but that discipleship is ‘whole life’ – something that should pervade and shape the lives we already lead.

The other important lesson I was reminded of through Road Trip, is that the power of God and the effectiveness of our prayers is not increased or restricted by how we are feeling at any given moment. I loved teaching young people about prayer, (especially the bit where we wrote sentence prayers on paper aeroplanes and all threw them at each other), but as any of you who’ve worked with youth will know, their engagement and enthusiasm varied immensely. It depending on the time of day, on how many hours sleep they’d had the night before, and on how many wasps were circling overhead. Sometimes I felt like they were hanging on my every word, sometimes I doubted they were even awake! I loved the material we were teaching, but after the fifteenth time I really had to rely on the Holy Spirit to inspire my delivery of it. I found myself musing that most of us shift in terms of our eagerness and belief in the power of prayer, depending on any number of factors. Some of us struggle to engage with prayer because we have experienced the pain of unanswered prayer, when we have prayed and prayed only to see the opposite happen. It is hard to trust in a faithful God after an experience like that.

I was reminded that God is the same, and his promises remain true, whether I am feeling encouraged or exhausted, inspired or irritated. Isaiah 40:31 says: ‘Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.’ That is a promise I hold onto through the shifting seasons and emotions of life. We all need his hope and his strength to keep us going in the times when it feels like we are going nowhere, and to encourage us to move on from places of comfort and safety when things have been going well.

Road Trip is over now, our flip-flops and suitcases have been packed away until next year, and we face the prospect of a new school year and new seasons approaching. My prayer is that we will each find prayer infiltrating our day-to-day lives, and that we will learn to more fully rely on God’s presence and promises to sustain us.

More ‘Fullness’ pics May 27, 2009

I was rooting around this afternoon looking at some of the photos I took at the Fullness retreat, these give more an idea of the location rather than what we actually did, I guess, but I thought I’d post them as I really like them.

This was outside at the back of the Custard Factory. The weather was lovely and the coloured graffiti really stood out. I wished I’d thought about popping out and snapping beforehand, as we were rushing to packdown, so I only had time to snaffle a few illicit shots… lots of bright spray paints, peeling paint and rust – my favourite sort of a place to take photos.

Again, there was much in this corner which could have kept me snapping for hours. I loved the starkness of the tower, which is out of shot to the top left, I loved the broken brickwork, the sharp angles contrasting with the curling graffiti, the plant growing out of the drainpipe and the small snatch of blue sky. I was inspired by the scrap of blue knitted fabric stuck in the barbed wire, too. I may have a bit of a photoshop twiddle with this, because think it’d look better in black and white perhaps, with some bleaker contrasts… we’ll see.

On to inside artwork now, a beautiful contribution from the beautiful Kate. I loved the ‘flowingness’ of this. A dangerous prayer to pray methinks, but she really captured the heart of the event with this.

I loved the picture of the girl with her hands in the fire. I’ve thought about it a lot since then. Was she warming her hands? Was it a cleansing thing, like the heat of the fire symbolising holiness? And then the fire seems to be radiating, shining from her face and hair. I like the thought that being that close to God radiates like that.

‘Fullness’ – Emptying ourselves to be filled May 12, 2009

On Saturday 2nd May, fresh from our Durham trip, we found ourselves in the creative quarter of Birmingham, setting up for the UK Territory’s first ‘Fullness Retreat’.

These retreats were first pioneered in the USA Eastern Territory, they basically involve a room, plenty of coffee, and a bunch of hungry people waiting to meet with God.

We set the room up with some prayer focuses, some art space and lots of comfy corners for people to do business with the good Lord.

At midday, people started arriving from far flung corners of the UK (like Bristol and Banbury). There were about sixty of us in total, as well as 50 others who couldn’t be there in person, but were kept in the loop with live text updates, and who prayed alongside and fed back prophetic words and pictures they received.

So what did we do? We fasted; we worshipped by singing, by praying loud, and by mumbling quiet praise. We listened to fab, inspired teaching about fasting and prayer, and then went off on our own for a bit to meet with God. We listened to him and shared what he spoke to us about the Salvation Army in the UK, and we chatted in groups about the exciting things God is doing around the country. We prayed for the new Directors of ALOVE (The SA’s Youthwork expression), and we doused each other in anointing oil (which was probably perfume). We painted on the walls, and danced about, and made things with clay. It was great.

And what did God do? Well, he showed up! It was so weird, in that the location was, to put it politely, intriguing. It had been a nightclub venue the night before, so it was all a little sticky, and on the Saturday night it morphed into a nightclub venue one more. We were praying alongside a sound check playing hardcore trance for a bit, and the whole place felt quite soulless and sad, but after a bit of praise and worship, our little area felt warm and transformed. The walls were made of cold white breezeblock, but soon heartfelt prayers and prophetic pictures danced across them, bringing a real life and vibrancy to the place.

The stories coming out of the weekend are exciting. People heard God speak about new directions for their lives. Others encountered the healing power of his Spirit. Some made new commitments and for many the passion for prayer was fuelled and revived. It felt like a line in the sand, one of those weekends you look back on and say ‘that was significant.’

The stuff God said was amazing too. I was awed that you could ask 60 people to listen to God and they would come out with pretty much consistent stuff. There were some common themes – the call to holiness, our mandate to partner God in

setting the captives free, the heart cry to see the Salvation Army become all that God intends, the need to make costly sacrifice, to lay down what is passable and strive for the best.

The bit that was most powerful for me happened on Sunday morning, when we split into two groups, and the ‘parent generations’ spoke words of blessing and affirmation over our generations. It was a powerful and releasing moment.

I loved the conversations over coffee, the undercurrent of excitement that came from giving 24 hours over to God like that, the sense of solidarity in knowing that we were ‘going without’ as a corporate body, in order to find a new place of intimacy with him. I loved the sense of corporate responsibility, the sense that sixty people gathering like that really could make a massive difference.

And the conversations since the weekend have been inspiring. It’s been fab to open my emails of a morning and read more stuff that God has been saying to people, new ideas for going deeper in prayer, and feedback from those who were challenged and inspired. It seems that this was not just another event, but something that was and will continue to be catalytic for prayer in the Salvation Army.

So it’s a watch this space thing I think!!

Setting the Captives Free May 12, 2009

(in an attempt to work through my blogging backlog)

Two weeks ago a bunch of us trundled up to Durham for the above course. It was run by the SA’s in service training people. It was the first one of its kind, and was set in the beautiful (if remote) setting of a Durham seminary college:

Location wise it was incredible, the place had a real austere and grand feel about it, without being cold and overbearing. The long sprawling corridors were inspiring, and the refectory looked like something out of Harry Potter:

It was great to be in a beautiful place with 25 or so others who really wanted to learn and to understand more about how God can bring freedom and healing to people. It was great to hear different teachers – a fresh perspective on this stuff is always helpful, and our speakers were informed, helpful and most of all ‘normal’ – they made the topic sound like something accessible we could all be doing, rather than some weird ministry that only a few are called to.

At the beginning of the week, I thought a three day long course would be a bit of a slog, but the length of time seemed to be just right, and by the end of the course there seemed to be a real tightness about the group. It was the kind of community that is formed when a bunch of people really journey through some stuff together. I felt like I’d known them all for ages, there was a real deep level of trust, and the sense that it wasn’t a random accidental group of us that just happened to end up there, but a selection God had brought together for a purpose. I am excited to see what comes out of that and how things develop as a result of the conversations and connections we made that week.

Most of all, I was again encouraged and reminded that God truly is all about saving, healing and redeeming people’s lives from the darkness. I pray that he will use me, and all of us to partner him in that.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget our tour of Durham in the most persistent driving rain. I’d have liked to see more of the city in the sunshine, it looked like a lovely place.

The Big Church Day Out April 15, 2009

(This deserves a shout-out, if only for the beautiful design work above!!)

24-7prayer are joining up with Delirious? and a huge list of other friends for a one-day festival on Sunday 24th May – called the Big Church Day Out – on the incredibly beautiful Wiston House Estate, West Sussex.

From 2.30pm in the afternoon until 10pm late that night, there will be a whole variety of experiences for all the family… with worship bands and speakers, fun stuff for children and activities for young people, an acoustic cafe and other food venues, and our very own 24-7prayer chapel.

Charlotte Terris and her small team have been dreaming up all kinds of creative ideas to turn the 700 year-old Wiston chapel into a beautiful prayer room, based around the Lord’s Prayer. It’s all very exciting. Tim Jupp, from Delirious, said that the prayer room should become the focus as the day progresses… prayer for the area, and for our nation.

So… we’d love you to be there, if you can come. Already churches have been buying blocks of tickets and booking coaches for the day… up to 10,000 people are expected. For more information, and for tickets, you can click across to the website; http://www.thebigchurchdayout.com

Prayer Day thoughts September 9, 2008

Saturday morning dawned, grey and drizzly, as I lugged a bright pink stuffed suitcase round the corner. The time: 7am, the purpose: a prayer day at a SA church not far from the town I grew up in.

Bleary-eyed, we navigated our way to the M1, which was in a state of roadwork-related disarray but thankfully not too busy. It was at this point that I realised I had brought pages 1,2,3 and 5 of 5 of the directions, but that the all-important page 4 of 5 had dematerialised.

(We wondered why it always seems to be the vital page that disappears at a moment like this. We didn’t need to know how to get from Wandsworth to the M1, but having an idea what to do once we turned off the motorway would have been useful. Anyway…)

Once we made it to the church building (with only a bit of creative directional improvisation), we were swiftly ensconced in set up: laying craft items out on a table, tearing up sheets of newspaper for under chairs, distributing pots of play-dough, putting Jelly Babies in bowls at the front. When the first delegates came in, they were heard to wonder whether they had walked into a playgroup… musing that made me smile a lot.

Helped by some coffee, we got into the swing of teaching: I expounded wildly about how we pray most comfortably in different ‘styles’, according to our personalities. The lovely delegates made collages, practised centring prayer, went on a short walk, found newspaper articles to pray about, and made models from the aforementioned play-dough depicting, something/someone they were praying for at the moment.

Then we had soup… amazing soup - leek and potato of the highest variety. I love meal times at days like this, just to be so mixed into the life of a church, hearing the conversations, sharing some of their journey, learning of their hopes, dreams and struggles. Laughing with people I’ve just met, though feeling as if I’ve known them for years.

After lunch the teaching fun continued. This time we thought about our distinct roles in prayer – as intercessors, watchmen, spies, armour-bearers, prophets and overseers. It was so exciting to see lights going on in people’s eyes, and to hear the buzz of excited conversation as people with the same role gathered in small groups and chatted, dreamed and prayed together.

Later in the day, we gathered in a restaurant, debriefing about the day and continuing some of the conversations that we’d begun. We learned about each others lives, we shared our joys and pain, it felt like family. We didn’t feel like visitors, but like we were at home. Over our free salads we discussed ways forward, and how to build on those conversations. Then we travelled back to the main church building, wandered around seeing all the different rooms, hearing about the different ministries that take place in them, again feeling privileged to hear some of the energy and inspiration behind them.

After this it was back on the road, back up the motorway, back through the sleepy streets of London and back to our homes. I was left marvelling again at the exciting things God is doing in the Salvation Army in the UK, how prayer is still steadily pulsing away on the agenda and what a privilege it is to be able to catch glimpses of how that looks in practice.

Lament for the Bride September 8, 2008

God of Good News
See these ruins surrounding us.
Observe the chains of our captivity.
Give ear to these songs of bereavement.Father of Light
This night has been long now.
Dawn, just a fading rumour.
We’ve stumbled in the bitter dark.

Lord of hosts
See these crumbling citadels.
We have been plundered.
The gold of our inheritance exchanged for iron bars.

Give ear to us,
You who love justice.
Come quickly to our aid,
As we groan under the load of exhaustion.

Forgive us our many sins.
We lie, face down in the ashes.
Wash away the stains of our idolatry
In your mercy, restore our purity.

God of grace, we long
For a crown of beauty, for ashes.
For the oil of gladness, instead of mourning.
For the garment of praise, for this spirit of heaviness.

Prayer Room Capers September 5, 2008

This week, I had the pleasure of spending some time in a 24-7 prayer room at the church some of my friends attend.

Being in a prayer room is not a rare occurence for me. One of the joys of my job is that I often find myself constructing ‘intimacy areas’ out of old bedsheets, or taping speaker boxes together to make a Babylon prayer installation. I love the buzz of starting with an empty room and  creating something that helps people meet with God.

What was so refreshing about this week’s experience, however, was that I had nothing to do with any of this. (Except, I have to say, for printing and photocopying the sign-up sheet, but then I like to leave my mark somewhere!) And that made such a difference. I could experience the room for what it was, I could meet God there without having to worry if there was enough paper or if anyone had spilt coffee or if the fish were alive or dead (there were no fish, which admittedly made this job easier for everyone).

Walking into that room was like walking into a prayer room for the first time ever. I experienced the stillness of God’s presence there (even above above the monotonous drone of a persistent drill). I felt intrigued by the different zones that had been set up and the thought that had gone into their creation. I loved rifling through a selection of CD’s before eventually settling on some chilled strings. I felt like a kid in the prayer version of a toy shop – What to look at first? Where to sit down? Do I paint first or dance around for a bit?

One of the things that struck me most about the prayer room, and the 24-7 week in general was that it is taking place in an upper room, while the main church downstairs is being renovated (hence the drill). Interestingly the gentle undertone of construction noise didn’t distract me from praying, it actually made me think –  what better time to do 24-7! Something like a building project, when you’re quite literally changing how a church looks physically, strikes me as a great time to turn to prayer and dedicate everything to God!

Lots of things struck me about the room: The plant with little fairy lights spelling out ‘Love, Joy, Peace’ etc reminded me that these qualities are organic and they grow in us. The Bible verses dotted around reminded me of some of the promises I’ve been mulling over in my head recently. The heartfelt, post-it note prayers for God to transform the city challenged me with their passion and fervency, and nudged me to lift up afresh some of the things I’m longing to see God do. The pile of cushions that I sunk into in one corner reminded me of the importance of stopping, encountering God and finding his clarity in our confusion and busyness.

The bit that impacted me most, though, was the aforementioned intimacy area (although I’m pleased to report this one was not created from a manky old bedsheet!) Now, again the rigours of life and work mean I end up in a lot of similar purposed places. I have always liked them well enough and thought they were a good thing to have in any self-respecting prayer space, but I usually find them a little difficult to connect with. Everything is very white, very clean, very pristine and very still. This being the case, I’m generally very tempted to splurge paint all around and make a lot of noise in them. (Not because I have rebellious or destructive tendancies, I hasten to add… I just see white spaces and want to colour them in). Anyway, this intimacy area in this prayer room was different, and it included one detail which changed it from being just another nondescript white area, into a place where I probably did my most significant business with the good Lord.

The thing that made such a difference was simply a stretch of red fabric, torn in half, hanging in the entrance to the area, in such a way that to enter it you have to enter in through the torn fabric halves. For me this was a powerful symbol, speaking clearly of the sacrifice and death of Jesus tearing the temple curtain clean in half, leaving the access open for people to enter into the presence and holiness of Christ. I felt like I could connect with the theme of holiness and intimacy in a new way, because it was so contextualised by the visual reminder that the way is opened to me because of what Jesus did.

I was sad when my time in the room was done, and I was thankful to God for the spontaneous interlude that had only been planned the evening before, that meant I could have this space. So it’s a well done to my friends who’ve worked tirelessly to set it all up, and a thanks to God too for showing up when we pray.

September September 4, 2008

My life is often a feat of trying to fit a lot of diary engagements into not enough diary days. Especially in the excitement that is September, when prayer events aplenty seem to spring up all across our fair isle. I love the busyness, the feeling of being kept on my toes, the drive to keep going to God for inspiration because my own supplies have long since dwindled.

September comes with a sense that the year is drawing to a close. My ipod strayed to a Christmas song the other day and I didn’t forward skip it in disgust. Pretty soon the shops will be full of associated garb. I begin to feel the familiar sense of satisfaction that another twelve months are almost over and done with, and with that comes the urge to start looking at the statistics of my year. How many towns have I visited? What was the top moment? Where have I flown to? (and what was my carbon footprint like?) What has surprised me (there are some top contenders for that prize this year, let me tell you), What have I learned?

Also, meetings about next year have started to creep into my week. Both this week and last I found myself enmeshed in buzzing conversations, dreaming big for 2009, sharing concepts and visions and working out partnerships. I was excited about the potential of this year, and have not been dissapointed, and next year seems to be following suit. 

But there is more fun to be had before it’s time for that. Highlights of the next few weeks include trips to Bedford and Huddersfield and Banbury to hang out with lovely Salvation Army praying people. After that there’s a training day we’re pulling together that I’m really excited for. Exciting social occasions coming up include multiplicitous dramatic performances from my gifted friends, plus a cool engagement party, and an evening making Fair Trade goodie bags for a coffee evening we’re having with church.

Church is the other excitement in life at the moment. For the past twelve months we’ve been out of our building, while the dear old place was razed to the ground and replaced with an altogether shinier (and less death-trap-laced) new one. It’s pretty much done now, and it’s been really great to watch the finishing touches being applied. This leaves us with the fun process of shopping. So I have been measuring the height of filing cabinets, musing over the practicality of teal sofas and observing discussions about the correct type of potato masher to buy. I’ve learned things about decking out a church that I never would have even considered before.

All in all, these are exciting times. I find my head merrily full of projects that I am really able to get my teeth into. I find myself anticipating the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, amazed at what I have seen and experienced over the past nine months, and thrilled about what is to come.