Elizabeth Webster
8 May 2024
My Facebook is full of people sharing stories of places around the Western world where God is on the move. The Asbury Revival, young people in London choosing to spend whole nights worshipping God, prayer rooms thriving, large-scale baptisms in largely secular nations. These stories are incredible and encouraging. But at the same time they can be discouraging, when that’s not what we’re necessarily seeing in our city and in our churches.
Whenever a move of God has taken place across history, it has seemingly been preceded by a move of confession and prayer. People in their private spaces, and in larger gatherings, coming to their knees to cry out to God to truly see his kingdom come here on earth.
Over the last six months, I’ve had some very random but clearly God-ordained conversations with a range of people about exploring a unified approach to prayer across the diocese. This has been led by a heart to reach our city and see the Anglican church flourishing, supported by the Canon for Church Planting, the Reverend Bree Mills.
Read more: Prayer and meditation services hope to kindle peace, stillness, connection
Those conversations have led to an initial small group of clergy and lay ministry staff from a range of churches meeting to discuss what this might look like. We believe God put us in conversation together at a time when we were all exploring this need for prayer so that we might not only pursue this in our churches but pursue this collectively across the Anglican diocese.
We would love to invite you and your parishes to join us at St Paul’s Cathedral on Thursday 16th May, 7pm to pray. The desire is not to have a big “event”, but rather to come together before God and pray for our city and our diocese. Our hope is that we would grow something that regularly brings people from across the diocese together to pray earnestly for renewal of the Anglican church and for the welfare of our city.
With many vacant parishes and retiring clergy, it can look like it is a hard season for our diocese. But God is on the move in new church planting ventures, renewed parishes and individual churches who are growing in their devotion to prayer. My own church, St Hilary’s, has just launched a prayer room and our monthly prayer nights have just gone weekly. Similar things are happening in many places. If prayer precedes a move of God, then let us pray fervently for God to move powerfully in our city for many more to come to know him!
Read more: May the vision of Jubilee inform our prayers
Come together to pray for the diocese on Thursday 16 May, 7pm, at St Paul’s Cathedral.
The Reverend Elizabeth Webster is Parish Minister at St Hilary’s Kew/North Balwyn/Mont Albert North where she leads the prayer worship ministries.
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