Tag Archives: deal

May 14 2013

What happens if….MC leaders step down

 

Today we start a new topic on the blog that we will intersperse with the other regular topics.  ”What happens if…” is designed to help answer some of those questions for the times when things might not quite go ‘by the book’ (which, incidentally, can be quite a lot of the time!)

Questions like “What happens if…there is significant moral failure by a leader…leaders step down suddenly…you encounter strong opposition…people don’t turn up…you come up against fierce criticism from within…your MC grows too quickly….” and more! If you have any questions you would like answered along these lines then drop us a line in the comments below and we will do our best to include them.

First off then, “What happens if…MC Leaders step down?” I write this as someone who is currently co-responsible for overseeing the MCs in our church, where this has happened before and only a few weeks ago has just happened again!

Leaders of an MC may step down for various reasons – redundancy or a new job meaning a move elsewhere, illness, burnout, bereavement, or other significant circumstances. You can find yourself in a position where those have been leading an MC, and doing a great job of it, suddenly find themselves unable to lead any longer. What do you do then?

Firstly, don’t panic! There can be a tendency for both those in the community and those responsible for the MC to be fearful of this unexpected change, to feel pressure from different sides to make decisions that might fix the problem in the short-term, but actually be unwise ones.  There can also be a desire to control the situation as much as possible, instead of waiting on God and holding your nerve to see what He wants to do and say.  There is an opportunity here to allow God to speak and to perhaps shake things up a bit in a good way.

Flock_of_sheepAssess the current position with regards to who else there is in terms of potential leadership.  How far round the Leadership Square have the MC Leaders already taken anyone else (if they did it it all!)?  Who else do you have who have been part of the team leading the MC?  Who can you see is totally committed to the vision of the MC?  You may find that you have potential leaders in the making, who perhaps might never have stepped up if not for the opportunity they are now faced with.  These people might be reluctant: “I’m happy to stand in as a short-term solution”, “I’ll do it if there’s no-one else”, so it might be an idea to have a coffee with them and tell them what potential and skills you see in them.  If you think they are capable of leading the MC then encourage them, offering training and coaching in whatever areas they feel they lack.  Assure them that you will be close at hand to help them step up and lead the community.

It’s also worth letting them know that they are free to lead the MC in their identity and according to their giftings and skills – don’t expect them to lead as the last leaders led, they must be released and encouraged to shape the MC in their own way.  As beginner MC Leaders they may not feel confident to lead as well as the previous leaders – encourage them that that’s ok and you are not looking for ‘perfect’ leaders, that their vision and reliance on God is more important than their skill.

What if there are no obvious leaders you can see and call up into leadership?  Firstly, and it bears repeating, don’t panic!  Then pray, seek God and listen to what He wants to say.  Don’t be afraid to include the Missional Community in this process.  Don’t feel that you have to get it all ‘sorted’ for them.  Trust God to speak to and through the community itself for the next step. MCs often go through different phases of their life together and in between each phase there is often a time of coming together, praying and seeking the Lord for what next. It may be worth calling a ‘vision’ evening where you might invite others who are not part of the MC but whom you think might be interested to hear the vision and decide whether this is something they want to be a part of and even commit to leading.

Sometimes, this will lead to the MC finishing and people moving on to do different things with different God-given visions.  At other times you may sense that God still wants the vision to continue, that this is just a time of pruning, so trust that if God has given the vision and he wants to see it fulfilled then He will provide leadership.  Then stand and be amazed at what God will do!

And through it all, keep communicating with team members and those in the MC so that they feel confident that you are with them in the process and have not left them to fend for themselves.

My personal experience is that God always makes it clear about where He is leading if we stop to listen and follow His whispers.

helen-a-pic

Helen Askew lives in Deal, Kent along with her two young children and husband Ben who is training for ordination. She works for St George’s Church with responsibility for everyone under 30 & also helps to coordinate Missional Communities. They lead an MC for young adults, are working to establish youth MCs and also work with 3DM UK from time to time!

Mar 20 2013

Our Mission, Our Story….Martini Church!

 

This week’s post comes from a Missional Community leader from St George’s Church in Deal, Kent.  It’s his story of how the first Missional Community he led started, developed and grew. 

What exactly is going to Church? (or Martini Church – any time, any place, any where)

I grew up going to a lively Anglican Church in South London. My mum says it’s Surrey but she’s a bit posher than me. We all went every Sunday, at least once and sometimes twice. Mostly, this was a good experience.

As a grown adult living in Deal our Curate rocked our Church boat one morning in 2005. On Sunday mornings our building was uncomfortably full and she wanted us to stay away to leave some space for newcomers! Instead, our leaders encouraged us to do an alternative form of Church ourselves but somewhere else. The vision (for vision is essential) was to create communities that would, themselves, grow.

stepping stonesMy wife, Jacqui, has more ideas than you can imagine. She talked about forming a group, called ‘Stepping Stones’, with a vision for reaching out to families with younger children. The vision has changed, or rather, developed as we’ve gone on and the way we’ve met has varied massively over the years. Our concept of what going to Church meant was so shaken and since we were tearing up the rule book anyway, we were free to experiment and adapt to find out what worked best for us. Interestingly, the children had fewer hang-ups than the adults. They just asked ‘is it big church or little church today?’

Our Church agreed on five core values (which we borrowed from Phil Potter) that each Missional Community would try to embrace

  • All involved
  • Becoming disciples
  • Creating community
  • Doing evangelism
  • Encountering God

Initially, we succeeded in drawing in a number of families who had loose connections with the Church, gave them jobs to do and made sure they kept coming back! We basically ran a family friendly act of Worship on a Sunday afternoon (and soon on a Sunday morning instead) in the Church Hall and then in a local school. Getting away from Church buildings proved to be a good move. It was hard work but fun and relatively successful. People liked coming, felt valued and were committed to the group. We have been best at creating community but have never lost sight of our other values.

One Sunday morning we took about 20 adults and 20 kids 10-Pin Bowling in Margate. I felt so uncomfortable! How could this be Church? In fact, to me, it felt wrong! I started to chat with a Dad I’d never met. His daughter was starting soon at my kids’ Primary school. I knew his wife and daughter who came most weeks we did Stepping Stones, but less often to Big Church. We got chatting about sport, work, life in Deal, the kids’ school and so on. He enjoyed his day out with us and his wife was thrilled. He’d never been to anything run by the Church before. She described the event as ‘the most spiritual thing we’ve done’. He now comes to Church (big Church more than Stepping Stones) sometimes and he once came to an Alpha supper.

Stepping Stones grew. It became too big. It’s two MCs now, Sunday AM and One Step Beyond. Each has a separate and distinct vision although they overlap one another. People have come and gone but the vision for reaching out to people remains.

We have gone from being a group of people who go to Church to a group of people who do Church. It’s a much healthier arrangement.

553653_10151018696023223_889245838_n

 

Bruce Watson lives on the Kent coast and teaches Modern Foreign Languages. He taught for 3 ½ years in Pakistan, married the Science teacher & came back to England (where he planned to live happily ever after).

Photo courtesy of Milan G on flickr.com

Feb 12 2013

Celebrating Seasons as a Community: Lent

This week sees, as well as Valentines day, the start of Lent. The 40 days between now and Holy Week make a great opportunity for you and your missional community to voluntarily engage in a bit of pruning and learn together how to draw close to Jesus. It’s also a great chance to try out a new practice or discipline over a relatively short period of time and have a fixed end point in mind.

crossSo how might your community focus on getting closer to Jesus this Lent? Here are a few ideas:

Discuss giving up and taking on
Make a habit of talking about your thoughts and ideas about the season. Perhaps read together the story of Jesus’ time in the desert. Discuss why it is good to fast and give certain things up. Maybe take a look at John 15 and talk about fruitfulness and pruning. Most importantly, chat about what you each plan to do over the time to draw close to Jesus. Keep talking about it, and encourage each other over the next few weeks.

Plan a lent event
So your community might have eaten pancakes together on Shrove tuesday. Maybe you could meet together for some kind of Lent reflective service too. We’ve done retreat days, quiet services, services of ashing, and things that don’t quite fit into any of that and they work great! You don’t have to do any of it on Ash Wednesday itself, just choose a time that fits your community and get thinking. What would help the people in your community best engage with repentance, rest, fasting? We’ve often found that playing creatively with the symbols of ash, water, deserts can help you make some really significant times of worship. These kind of events don’t have to just be about up and in, they can be a good for spiritual seekers and people of peace to encounter God as well. A great place to start looking for ideas is the creative worship site Proost.

Agree to take on a discipline together
What could you all do together that could help you grow closer to Jesus as individuals and a group? Try doing that each day for the next 40. Helpfully there are loads of apps and websites that offer simple actions and practices. You could try 24-7′s lent podcasts or Christian Aid’s count your blessings programme. You could pray for the world with Operation World, or engage with 3dm’s daily devotionals. If you can’t find something that works for where your community is right now, then create your own.

Play Lent Angels
We used to do this each year on the discipleship year I led. It’s a great way to get your community connecting more deeply with each other and making sure Lent stays full of grace and blessing. Give everyone someone else in the community’s name and ask them to be that person’s “angel” for the next 40 days. Get them to pray for that person, listen to God for them, send them little encouragements and gifts (although check they haven’t given chocolate up before you shower them with that blessing). Basically take every opportunity you can to bless them. This in itself can be quite a discipline, but is often also lots of fun.

They’re just a few ideas, and they are all on the lighter side really. That’s important, if you’re going to engage with this season of fasting and repentance then make sure you do it with joy and grace fully intact. Have a happy Lent!!!

ben and helen askew

Ben Askew lives in Deal, in the far south-east of England. He is married to the beautiful and talented Helen and they have two children.  Ben and Helen have been involved in leading missional communities for over 10 years and are particularly passionate about seeing the emerging generations discover God’s love.   Right now they are working for a church in Deal while Ben is also training for ordination.  You can connect with him more at benaskew.tumblr.com.

Jan 21 2013

Take some time…

 

Normally things kick off again in January with fresh energy and excitement, perhaps as people come back from the Christmas break ready to get going again, ready to make a fresh start, ready to get going with all those ideas they’ve been brewing. 

You may have noticed that we haven’t done that here on the MC Blog yet.  Partly that is down to my disorganization in preparing a new rota for our wonderful writers.  Part of me wonders whether God is trying to say something, to catch my attention; to cause me just to stop and wait, and to reflect and take note of a few things before we launch headlong into a new year of blogging.

Maybe sometimes we need to do that with our lives and our Missional Communities.  To take stock a little longer than we usually might, to reflect on what has gone before and properly give thanks to God for all that has been.  When the Israelites heard the Book of the Law read to them for the first time since the rebuilding of the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem, they worshipped, wept and celebrated:

 “the people went away to eat and drink at a festive meal, to share gifts of food, and to celebrate with great joy because they had heard God’s words and understood them.” (Nehemiah 8:12) 

They then celebrated the Festival of Shelters for 7 days and a short time later they stood for 3 hours listening again to the Book of the Law and then a further 3 hours repenting and worshipping the Lord.  They then committed together to carefully follow all the commands, regulations and decrees of the Lord.

Only after all this did they then go and occupy the rebuilt city of Jerusalem.  I wonder if this situation happened in our time, in our ‘now’ culture, whether many of us would have just rushed into occupying the city, into the doing of life, before fully taking time to reflect, to remember God’s goodness and allow time for that to happen before recommitting ourselves to wholeheartedly following what God says?  I know I probably would.

Perhaps it’s ok to take a little longer, to not rush in…maybe to linger in the presence of the new-born King and the wonder of Incarnation, and everything God has done in the previous 12 months before rushing into the occupying of 2013.

Normal service will resume on this blog next week but for now perhaps carve out a bit of extra time to reflect on the last season, then to listen for the words God wants to speak into this new one.

  • Are there prophetic words you need to come back to again and further reflect on and dig into before carrying on?
  •  Instead of pressing on with new plans for your MC do you / your community need just a little longer to pause and to listen carefully to God and his voice, and to what He wants to say to you about the next year?
  • Can we be counter-cultural and wait just a little longer than is perhaps comfortable for us in order to ‘hear God’s words and understand them?”

 For me right now God seems to be giving me some gifts of time to use to wait before Him before I really get going with this year, a year which I know will have many challenges ahead. What about you?

 

 

helen-a-pic

Helen Askew lives in Deal, Kent along with her two young children and husband Ben who is training for ordination. She works for St George’s Church with responsibility for everyone under 30 & also helps to coordinate Missional Communities. They lead an MC for young adults, are working to establish youth MCs and also work with 3DM UK from time to time!

Oct 8 2012

Real Life Discipleship: Passing on the Torch

I was reading the old Jewish story about Elijah and Elisha today, where the protege gets to see the old prophet go up to heaven, and starts to do all the cool tricks that his mentor used to do.

As I read it, I started to think about all the people over my life who have invested in me, who have taken some time out to notice something in me, talk about it, push me forward, pray for me, encourage me. A whole load of people: Henry, Kate, Claude, Stephen, Steve, Jo, Andrew, Dave, Toby, Rich… names to you, massively significant people to me. The list goes on, there’s people now who are still doing the same thing. Encouraging me, investing in me, helping show me what God is like, and what I could be like. As I thought about them I became profoundly grateful to them, and to God for putting them in my way, and how they’ve helped me get where I am.

Then I started to think how fun it was that I get to do that too, that one day I might be in someone else’s list of names. And of course I thought there might be a few ways I could begin to do that better.

To me, that is what discipleship and apprenticeship is. Spotting people, making space for them in your life, investing in them and saying “follow me, as I follow Jesus.” I know the phrase has been used and used this year, almost to the point of redundancy, but I’m going to use it one more time: it’s passing on the torch.

So, do you want to grow as a disciple, a leader, as someone who can influence others and make life better? Look out for people who can invest in you. Find relationships with people you can serve and learn from. Mentors and leaders, be pro-active about seeking them out.

And keep an eye out too, for the people who are looking at you and might want to learn something from you, who might need a bit of your time.

We’re all followers, and we’re all leaders.

Ben lives in Deal, in the far south-east of England. He is married to the beautiful and talented Helen and they have two children.  Ben and Helen have been involved in leading missional communities for the last 12 years and are particularly passionate about seeing the emerging generations discover God’s love.   Right now they are working for a church in Deal while Ben is also training for ordination.  You can connect with him more at benaskew.tumblr.com.

Sep 18 2012

Oikos: going somewhere?

 

Hopefully you’ve been following the series on Oikos on the 3DM UK Blog over the summer, where they have shared some reflections on the principles of Oikos.  Here on the Missional Communities blog we have been posting some practical suggestions of what Oikos might look like in real life. Today Helen shares some personal reflections on her experience based on the most recent 3DM UK blog post entitled ‘Where’s the Adventure?’

  • Firstly, it would be really easy to start a Missional Community focussing on the UP (worship, prayer etc) and IN (accountability, fun, socials) dimensions, and be tempted to leave the OUT (mission, being good news) dimension for when people have got to know each other a bit better.  Don’t be tempted to do this!  What you may find is that you inadvertently create a cosy group of people who become reluctant to engage with any OUT kind of activity when you suggest it.   So many of us feel most comfortable in the UP & IN dimensions and so consequently it is vital that the OUT dimension is present right from the very beginning, setting the culture you want to continue with.  This will create a sense of shared life and adventure together much more quickly than many prayer meetings or social events.
  • When you do an OUT activity/event together, do something ‘low-bar’ (unless you have a group of raving evangelists!), perhaps something that offers a little challenge for the most nervous of your group, but which most people would be comfortable with.  You could prayer walk the area upon which your missional vision is based, hold some OUT-focussed social events to which people can easily invite their friends – perhaps a charity fundraiser of some sort, or a wine tasting evening, or a walk in the local park followed by the pub or a picnic –  or maybe undertake some kind of project together which helps someone else – Besom projects where you offer your time to help others are especially good for this kind of thing.
  • If you have a few people who are itching for something ‘higher bar’ such as treasure hunting, or starting a discussion group or going out on the streets then release them to go and do those things, with the expectation that they share testimony with the MC and continue to encourage others to go out with them.  Doing something scary feels much safer if you’re with people who have been there and done it before!
  • One MC that I used to lead had the vision of supporting and encouraging each other in the various areas of work and ministry to which God had called us.  To create a sense of adventure together we would occasionally all turn up to support an event or something that one of the members was involved in e.g. a community Easter kids party, some detached youth work…but we would regularly do something ‘missional’ all together as a group as well.  For a couple of years we did some fundraising as a group to buy refugee and asylum seeker kids in our city Christmas presents (through a relational link one of our group had to a midwife);  another time we held an Easter egg hunt in the city centre & gave out small Easter eggs to passers by, and still another time we held a mission day where we found various projects we could all go off and do in smaller groups and then reconvened at the end of the day for worship, testimony and debrief.

It almost doesn’t matter what you do as a group together to begin with, just make sure that you do something!  Set the culture of mission as soon as you begin the MC and keep it high on the agenda!

Helen Askew lives in Deal, Kent along with her two young children and husband Ben who is training for ordination. She works for St George’s Church with responsibility for everyone under 30. They have just planted a new MC for young adults there, are working to establish youth MCs and also work with 3DM UK from time to time!

Jul 24 2012

Abiding: as a community

 

So far we have explored the idea of  ’abiding’ in an individual, personal context – and this certainly needs to be part of the story – but it’s not the whole story.  Since we believe in a 3-dimensional lifestyle we also believe that ‘abiding’ can happen in the ‘in’ and ‘out’ dimensions as well as the ‘up’ dimension.*

So, how do you abide with others, in community?

Firstly, set aside 4-6 weeks of the year (often the school summer holidays) which is going to be ‘abiding’ time for your MC.  This is a time to stop the regular meeting pattern you might have and adopt a new rhythm for this time.  Abiding doesn’t necessarily mean stopping meeting altogether (although it might if that was appropriate), but rather to slow down together in fun, laughter and in a much more relaxed pace of life.

Eat together – lots!  If the sun is out, BBQ or picnic with everyone bringing things to share. If it’s wet, well eat indoors!  If it’s not a financial barrier to anyone, eat out.  Do day trips together – explore new and familiar places together.  Go to conferences or festivals together. Some Missional Communities have even been known to go on holiday together!

If you have children in your MC use this as an opportunity for them to spend more time together – especially good if they go to different schools.  Book playdates in your homes, the park or elsewhere…you could even use this as an opportunity to invite other friends along.  Invite those who don’t have kids to be part of this too, they and your kids will both benefit from this, and parents might appreciate some respite whilst someone else pushes them on the swing!

Look for simple opportunities to serve each other.  Offer to feed people’s pets or water their plants whilst they’re on holiday.  Leave a meal in their fridge for when they return.  Take their kids out for the morning.  Trade your glut of runner beans with their glut of tomatoes! If people can’t afford to go on holiday see if you have friends in other parts of the country who could house swop.

You don’t need to stop doing any ‘God stuff’ over the summer…why not all agree to read the same book together (biblical or other Christian) as holiday reading material, or do some informal, spontaneous prayer and worship times. Use 1 Corinthians 14:26-33.  You might decide that some of you want to all want to study the same theme through the Bible over the summer and compare notes as you go.  Share what God has been speaking to you personally too and encourage each other. Remember to keep it low-key.

Above all, invest in friendship with each other.  Fun is an important part of that!  Sowing into friendship in this time will reap rewards when time is tight and life is busy. Be spontaneous and informal as much as possible.  Feel free not to meet.  Get others to organise anything you are doing.  Respect people’s need for rest and introvert time so don’t worry if they need ‘time off’ from other people. Don’t do anything that requires much more than 10 minutes planning!  If you are a church leader, strip back all evening meetings to allow people space to ‘be’ community together and keep services shorter, more family friendly and relaxed.

Hopefully that has given you a few thoughts on how to abide together as community. Doing this will also give you an idea of how well people are operating as ‘oikos/extended family’ together, and help to build on it more.

Helen Askew lives in Deal, Kent along with her two young children and husband Ben who is training for ordination. She works for St George’s Church with responsibility for everyone under 30. They have just planted a new MC for young adults there, are working to establish youth MCs and also work with 3DM UK from time to time!

 

 

* For more on Lifeshapes go to www.weare3dm.com

Jun 21 2012

Sustaining a Life of Mission…Bible

 

One of the first things I remember being told in cluster leader training (clusters were prototype Missional Communities back in the day), was to avoid the temptation of letting them just become a group bible study and make sure they stayed ‘Out’ focussed. That’s still very important.

But, if we’re serious about growing as disciples, and seeing others discipled through our communities, then we’re going to have to be serious about getting into scripture together too. So how do you get your community into the bible, without turning your community into a bible study group?

One of the things we’ve found most helpful, is to focus effort on getting core members of the community excited about studying the same bits of the bible on their own or in twos and threes. When this works it means that the whole community is reading and thinking about the same things, and so you have natural things to talk about and wrestle through when you get together.

One time we set each other a challenge, to read the New Testament all the way through one summer. One of our resident geeks set up an online table so we could check when we’d done our reading and keep each other accountable. It became competitive not to fall behind, and really helped us chew over scripture together (I should say we tried this with the Old Testament as well, but found it a lot harder to keep going) and provide a catalyst for a number of us going deeper with God.

Other times we’ve read through Christian books together and then come to discuss them as though in a book group. This can work well, especially if it’s a book full of bible references. (Mike Breen’s Covenant and Kingdom might be a good one to do for a short season).

With our community right now we’re using the Old and New Testament readings from the Anglican lectionary (although we don’t tell people that’s where we got it.) You could also use the 3dm daily devotionals, or there are many other similar online devotional guides.

We’ve found that it is far easier to get people into reading God’s book when you approach it as a community. We’ve also found starting this works really well when your community is in more of a relaxed and restful season.

How have you got your community passionate about getting into the bible?

 

Ben Askew lives in Deal, in the far south-east of England. He is married to the beautiful and talented Helen and they have two children.  Ben and Helen have been involved in leading missional communities for the last 10 years and are particularly passionate about seeing the emerging generations discover God’s love.   Right now they are working for a church in Deal while Ben is also training for ordination.  You can connect with him more at benaskew.tumblr.com.

 

(The brilliant photo is by Matthew Kirkland and was found on flickr)

May 14 2012

Missional Communities Round-up

 

We thought this week we would do a bit of a round-up of various things happening in the Missional Communities movement right now.  Here goes!

3dmUK are busy with another Learning Community in Sheffield this week, the last one in the 2-year cycle for the 500+ churches.  This has been a great Learning Community with lots of people really seeing God breakthrough in new ways in churches right the way from Bournemouth to East Kent to Leicester, Liverpool and Edinburgh!  If you want to find out more about Learning Communities then click here.

 

 

If you haven’t already seen it the 3dm HQ in the US has re-launched their website.  It is full of resources, blogs and reflections on what it means  to be missional disciples and churches in our world today. Their current promo carries the tagline ‘Keep Calm & Disciple On’.

 

 

We know you’re a fan of the Missional Communities Blog, but did you know that the 3dmUK also write a blog for leaders?  Their latest posts have been reflecting on the journey of discipleship and what that looks like, especially about the times when it can feel really discouraging.

“…the process of stepping out requires us to live uncomfortably, to stretch ourselves, and often to experience misunderstanding from others. This process happens personally for us as leaders, but is also something experienced by the congregation. But take a look through the gospels…. doesn’t this sound familiar? Isn’t this precisely the place we often find the disciples?”

To read more head over to the blog here.

Finally, a story about getting started from a new Missional Community based in Deal, Kent.

I lead an MC with my husband called Imagine. We are a community of young adults seeking to share our lives together throughout the week, encourage each other to go deeper in our walks with God and reach out together to other young adults in our town. We have spent time helping one person with her regular craft fairs, another couple with the youth work they are involved in; we have done prayer walks and times of extended worship together, we have eaten together a fair amount and sought to bring those on the fringes of church into our community.

In the next few months we are looking to find the places where young adults hang out in our town (sports clubs, music groups etc) and go and join in. We hope to be able to run some faith-based discussion groups or an Alpha course for young adults. We love bringing people together in a community like this because it is just the right size to be able to get things done together, but not so big that we can’t know each other really well.  We are a fairly young community but we are really excited about all that God is going to do with us and through us over the coming months!

That’s all for this post!  We pray for God’s blessing on you as you seek to reach out to others with His love!
Apr 27 2012

Sustaining a Life of Mission…Prayer: Part 2

 

Yesterday I wrote about prayer as an essential ingredient of missional community life.  Today I want to suggest some practical ways you can develop a life of prayer together.

I think one of the best ways of doing this is to develop some regular rhythms that fit your context and life well.   One of the ways of doing this is to develop and maintain a steady and regular rhythm of prayer that runs throughout the year and then have specific times and seasons that you cut back on some of the other activities and focus on prayer.  We have often used Lent or Advent for this, but the period we’re in between Easter and Pentecost is also brilliant – after all that’s when Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power.

One Lent a few of us committed to meet together each week to pray for our community,  it was a great time of meeting God together;  at other times we’ve run regular early morning prayer times to get people up and praying.  These tend to work better if they’re developed “for a season” – only the very hardcore will commit to something if they think it’s forever.   We’re also big fans of 24-7 Prayer and their prayer room idea.  It’s a great way of getting a community, or a network of communities, to commit together to focus on prayer for a chunk of time.  Find out more at www.24-7prayer.com

It’s also good to remember to keep your prayers 3d!*  Get a good mix of worship and adoration for God, waiting on His Spirit to hear what He has to say, bringing the needs and concerns of the community to him together, and praying as intercessors for your friends, neighbourhood and for the world… oh and don’t forget to get people praying and offering prayer in public places to normal people – a great way of bringing the up and out together.

As you develop your prayer rhythm remember to be creative! Prayer doesn’t have to follow one way or pattern.  Often the mid-size community is a great place to experiment with something a bit more creative and discover that God’s Spirit really breathes life into it.  We’ve sung prayers, painted prayers, burned prayers, pinned them to trees, and written them on paper lanterns.  What we’ve found is creativity works great, but it’s often good to pause after “doing” a prayer to let the group reflect together and share anything they felt God was saying.  Prepare to be surprised how well creativity can open people up to God’s presence!

Right: it’s over to you.  I’d love us to get a bank of prayer ideas in the comments below.  Please write down ways that your community prays, let us know what has worked and how you’ve seen God answer you. Here are 3 to get you started:

  • Names of God

Get a large piece of paper and some different coloured pens.  Ask the group to write on the paper as many different names or descriptions of God as they can remember from the Bible.  Once the paper is filled spend a little time reading the names and ask people to respond to ones that strike them.  What do you need God to be like for you today,  what do you need to pray He is like for someone else?  The last time we did this God took us really deep into his presence quite quickly!

  • Text prayers

One of our communities decided that they wanted to go deeper with “in” style prayers.  They committed together to text each other with a prayer request each week and pray about the texts each other were sending.  They got very excited when God started to answer these!  You can also do this easily with Facebook and other social media.

  • “My frontline” prayer cards

This is an idea we pinched and adapted from LICC.   It’s great to get people thinking about where they spend their lives and what God might do there – make a simple postcard with the following questions:

  1. Where do you spend most of your day (work, home, school etc.)?
  2. What would you like God to do there?
  3. What can I pray for you?
  4. What can I pray for your colleagues?
  5. Whose salvation can I pray for?

Get people to fill these in, then swap them round.  Ask people to pray for their person in the week.  Keep coming back to these and reminding each other to pray,  so that a habit develops.

What other ideas do you have?

 

Ben Askew lives in Deal, in the far south-east of England. He is married to the beautiful and talented Helen and they have two children.  Ben and Helen have been involved in leading missional communities for the last 10 years and are particularly passionate about seeing the emerging generations discover God’s love.  Right now they are working for a church in Deal whilst Ben is also training for ordination. You can connect with Ben more at benaskew.tumblr.com

 

* By this I mean, upwards – in your relationship towards God, inwards – in your relationships with others in the church and outwards – seeking to be good news to different people and places in the world.