Heart For calne newsletter 11

No. 11 SPRING 2014
A Heart-for-Calner has come up with a new idea. We haven’t yet reviewed it, nor prayed it through, but on the face of it it surely must appeal to a group of intercessors for the town as we claim to be. We are setting out the bare bones of the idea here so that everyone can ponder over it and make suggestions. If people like the idea then hopefully we shall have the time to do the necessary detailed planning.

Calne Festival of Prayer

This suggestion would be for a weekend of prayer, probably running from Friday evening through to Sunday evening. It would be good to encourage every church to hold some form of prayer event/meeting at a different time over the weekend. These will be according to the churches’ own traditions and even if they want to hold these as closed meetings they can still play a part. My vision would be that this would be publicised across the town and churches and local residents would be invited to share anything that they would like prayed for. We could also approach local businesses, the council, police, fire service, health service and so on to ask what needs they have for prayer. A prayer sheet could be compiled and circulated based on requests received.

It would be good to have some teaching on prayer over the weekend: we could cover matters such as intercession, prayer warfare, prayer walking etc with opportunities for carrying out prayer walking over the weekend. I am aware that other surrounding towns have ‘Healing on the Streets’ so perhaps we could invite people from those towns to come along and share about the work of HOTS and offer a couple of sessions where people can come and be prayed for. We could also go down the route of having some guided prayer and meditation opportunities available.

The word Festival is chosen because it is lively and varied. Although the focus is Calne, I think that we will remember that the church is a house of prayer for the nations. It would be great if we could run a 48-hour prayer vigil right across the weekend, setting up a prayer room with (say) hourly slots in one of the churches Adrian Bray


BOOK REVIEWS

Red Moon Risingby Pete Greig and Dave Roberts

ISBN no. 978-1-842910 955Pete Greig is the founder of “24-7 Prayer” and this book is the exciting and inspiring account of his vision for 24-7 Prayer and how God brought it all together. It’s not “another dull book about prayer”, but rather a challenging account of how God can and does use those who are willing to listen to His voice. 24-7 Prayer is certainly not a new idea but the way it is used today is an eye-opening model of contemporary prayer. Do read this book and expect to be changed in your thinking about prayer.

God on Mute by Pete Greig

ISBN no. 978-1-842913-17-8This second book on prayer wrestles with the thorny issues around why God seems to answer some prayers but not others. How many of us can think of occasions when we have felt confused and frankly let down by God’s apparent silence? Pete writes from a very personal situation and offers his own understanding of “the tough times”. This is a very encouraging book to read and is a real help in opening our hearts towards understanding God’s heart a little more.

Thanks to Ros Mills for drawing our attention to two books so close to Heart for Calners’ hearts.

By the way, the Christian Bookshop in Phelps Parade will order them for you if they are out of stock: they need the title, the author, and the ISBN number.

Intercessors’ Calendar

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The 2014 schedule of Heart for Calne prayer times is now available; please make sure you pick up your copy at the next HfC meeting (some churches have them on display, so you can collect yours there or you can ask jk for a copy – tel. 816314).

The next Heart for Calne meeting is:

Saturday 15 March between 9.30 & 11.30 as usual in the Holy Trinity Academy. This is the former Holy Trinity School (Quemerford).

You may recall we met here last year; the Head Teacher (Mr. Heal) wrote and thanked us for praying in the school and told about the small prayer room that was being constructed.

A separate Heart for Calne programme is to meet in Calne schools specifically to pray for that school.

Dates for the upcoming prayer times are –

for praying ‘at & for’ Fynamore School are 27 March, 15 May, 26 June, 25 Sept., 20 Nov.

for praying ‘at & for’ St Dunstan School are 6 March, 1 May, 12 June, 11 Sept.

By some quirk in setting these dates, they are all Thursdays; the praying at Fynamore is at 5 pm, and at Dunstan’s 4.30 – each lasts between half an hour and one hour.


These schools would really appreciate more people coming to pray: we hope the timing is not too difficult for many folk – would anyone like to suggest better days or times to which they could commit? My guess would be that most of the pupils would not otherwise have their names mentioned in the Lord’s throne room; so for that reason it would be worthwhile to see if we can make changes that would enable more people to attend.

Women’s World Day of Prayer is 7th March.

Clocks go back 29th March (Saturday)