Snow finally arrived in Goldthorpe this week, and led to the prayer meeting on Thursday being cancelled. This morning, however, there were willing workers clearing the driveway so that the coffee morning could go ahead as usual:

It didn’t stop us carrying on with the third prayer walk of January, either! In fact, there is something rather good about seeing exactly where your footsteps are in the snow and it was quite reminiscent of Joshua 1:3! (“I will give you every place where you set your foot.”)

We started where we left off last week and prayed over the Job Centre, asking God to give jobs to people in the area and to help those struggling with unemployment, illness and low paid work. We moved on to the side streets off High Street:

One of the streets we prayed for is called Hope Avenue:

Hopelessness or despair seems endemic in many local villages. A recent BBC programme entitled ‘A Tale of Two Villages’ looked at the contrasting fates of Grimethorpe and Thurnscoe. “A palpable sense of hope now fills the village of Grimethorpe and people feel their future is once again secure. But five miles east in the pit village of Thurnscoe residents are still waiting for regeneration to make a difference to their daily lives. Many people there feel that the village is dying on its feet and that the money spent hasn’t delivered jobs or hope. So why the difference? How did they take the grim out of Grimethorpe?” the programme asks.
‘A Tale of Two Villages’

The fact remains that no matter what regeneration programmes are implemented from outside, people need hope. As we prayed for Hope Avenue and for Goldthorpe, we prayed that the hope of the gospel would be real in Goldthorpe. Our physical eyes see the same streets from which people long to escape. But we look with spiritual eyes also that say God can make a difference; God can turn things around; God can give us hope. The song ‘Jesus Saves’ starts with the bold declaration ‘Hope is here! Shout the news to everyone.’ That is our cry. Hope is here, in Goldthorpe, in the snow in January 2013, because Jesus is here.

As a church, we have set aside this first month of 2013 to pray and fast. We want to hear what God has to say to us and we want to know His direction and guidance. We want to rise up and do His will.

On Sunday, we sang a song that was very popular in the 1980s: ‘Rejoice, rejoice, Christ is in You’ by Graham Kendrick. That song urges us to recognise who we are in Christ and to ‘arise, a mighty army, we arise‘. The first verse says:

“Now is the time for us to march upon the land
Into our hands, He will give the ground we claim
He rides in majesty to lead us into victory
The world shall see that Christ is Lord.” (‘Rejoice, rejoice’, Graham Kendrick)
‘Rejoice, rejoice’, Graham Kendrick

As we have been walking the streets of Goldthorpe and praying, there is a longing in our hearts for us to see people coming to know Christ as Lord. We are engaged in a spiritual battle, for two kingdoms compete for our allegiance (see Eph 2:1-10). Psalm 68 starts with the prayer ‘May God arise and may his enemies be scattered’, but there are also many exhortations in the Bible for us to arise and wake up (eg Rom 13:11, Eph 5:14, Rev 3:2). We can be confident and have hope as we engage in this spiritual battle, for we know the One who goes before us, who stands behind us, who is at our side (Ps 139:7-12). We are not alone!

“I know who goes before me
I know who stands behind.
The God of angel armies
Is always on my side.
The One who reigns forever,
He is a Friend of mine.
The God of angel armies
Is always by my side.” (‘Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)’, Chris Tomlin)
‘Whom Shall I Fear (God of Angel Armies)’, Chris Tomlin

Stephen preached last night from Luke 9:1-6, looking at the disciples’ commission and the challenges of following Jesus.

As a child, Stephen always loved the adventures of Paddington Bear.

Paddington was always ready for adventure! When planning holidays, there are various stages: deciding the destination and booking the holiday; getting provisions and clothing ready; saving up money and then eventually setting off with anticipation and excitement. When Jesus sent His disciples out on their first mission, He commissioned them to go and preach the gospel and gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases (passing on to them the authority He Himself had, see Matt 28:18-20). He told them, however, to set off with no staff, no bag, no bread, no money and no extra tunic – not at all like the baggage that accompanies us on holidays!

We choose to follow Christ, which is the first step on our journey. The journey then does not follow our preconceptions or expectations, however. All Christ really demands from us is that we trust Him. We are not allowed any ‘external’ props to hold us up; we are to trust that God will provide for us on this journey. TRUST needs to be in capital letters, for it is absolutely fundamental to our journey as Christians!

What extra baggage do we need to shed in this new year? Jesus said that His yoke was easy and His burden was light, but so often we hold back and try to work things out with our own reasoning. Jesus gave them all they needed (the power and authority to deal with the situations they would face which were beyond their natural abilities) and promised to be with them always. All our requirements will be met in every way, but we need to learn to trust God for everything we need.

Garry continued his series on 2 Pet 1:3-9 this morning, looking at adding self-control to our goodness and knowledge.

Self-control (translated as ‘temperance’ in the KJV) is having power or force or strength over one’s self. Temperance reminded Garry of ferrous metals which need ‘tempering’ (a process by which the hardness or elasticity of metals (such as steel) is improved by heating and re-cooling it.) If a metal is heated and then cooled suddenly, it becomes very hard but is also very brittle; if a metal is heated and cooled gradually, it becomes softer and more pliable. The ideal is somewhere in between!

Christians are often characterised as soft and pliable, this being seen in negative terms (‘soppy’, ‘wimps’ etc.) We need to have backbone, a strength of character that allows us to bend without snapping, even if others are urging us to go one way and we know that we need to go God’s way. Sin no longer has mastery over us (see Rom 6:5-6), because our old self has been crucified with Christ. God has liberated us from the desires that ruled over us (see Eph 2:1-2). We have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, but the Spirit does not make us slaves (see Rom 8:15). God has purchased us with the blood of Christ and is our rightful owner now, but it is as if He has given the remote control back to us. We are now free to choose to obey and to surrender to Him (or to give in to the old way of living and to the temptations of the devil.)

Paul talks about self-control using the imagery of athletics in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. Self-disciplines is required in any aspect of life if we are to succeed. We don’t hate our bodies (see Eph 5:29), but at times we have to push through the pain barrier and do that which is the right thing to do, regardless of our feelings. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit and is something that, although instantly accessible to us through God’s Spirit, tends to grow within us as we learn to say ‘no’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (Titus 2:13).

Paul urges Timothy to spurn all that is evil and to ‘run away from infantile indulgence. Run after mature righteousness—faith, love, peace—joining those who are in honest and serious prayer before God.’ (see 2 Tim 2:19, 22-23, The Message.) We have been given the power to choose whether we serve God or serve our own appetites, whether we ‘become the kind of container God can use to present any and every kind of gift to his guests for their blessing.’ (2 Tim 21, The Message)

Some of you may wonder what exactly we do on a prayer walk. The clue (as Dave so often says!) is in the name: we walk and we pray. But prayer can, of course, take many forms. Mark has written a prayer for us to read out at the end of each street. That asks God to bless the people who live there and their homes and to release His Holy Spirit to work in these streets and to bring people to a knowledge of Christ as Saviour as well as to guard and protect us and local people.

We often pray silently, asking God to move and to show us exactly how He wants us to pray. Sometimes we may pray outloud, just talking to God about what we see and what we long to see. I often sing as I pray, but then that’s just me!

Jesus sent His disciples out in pairs, so we often walk with other people:

Malachi 3:16 says “Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard.” Sometimes our prayers consist partly of our talking with each other as we walk and lifting up the things we share to God.

To help with this blog, we also take photographs during the prayer walks. We are planning to put up many of these photos in church as a visual stimulus and aid to prayer for the streets of Goldthorpe long after the prayer walks are completed. God is able to use many different forms of prayer and we believe that people respond to different things when praying, so we want to use everything we can to inspire and encourage people to seek God.

Yesterday we finished the walk on High Street. The intersection of High Street and Barnburgh Lane houses the Dearne Enterprise Centre and the local Job Centre is situated on High Street:

We prayed for economic regeneration and for local people to benfit from training and find jobs, for the unemployment rate in Goldthorpe is much higher than the national average and can be a major cause of poverty and deprivation.

Because JJ’s Chippy were celebrating, some of us also joined in their celebrations!

(You can tell we weren’t fasting yesterday!)

All you need to do these prayer walks is a heart for God, a longing to see Him work in our village and an hour to spare from 12 noon until 1 p.m. (or thereabouts) on Saturdays. Come along and join us next week!

Last week on the prayer walk, we prayed over the water tower and asked God’s Spirit to flow into people’s lives in the same way that the water flows from this water tower into people’s houses.

Today we prayed for the BT communications hub in Goldthorpe:

We pray that Jesus, the Word of God, will speak to us and will reveal Himself to the people in Goldthorpe. We come alive when He speaks life to us! Mobile phones are practically ubiquitous now in our country. We have a God who is not simply ubiquitous (appearing to be in more than one place at the same time) but who is omnipresent (present everywhere at the same time!)