24-7 Spaces for lent

This week I am doing the 24-7 prayer spaces, all hosted from Ibiza. Hope you enjoy them?

2. A commitment to life long learning and discipleship

A healthy community will display a commitment to life long learning and discipleship. I want to live a life worthy of my calling. Paul exhorted Timothy to watch his life and his doctrine. Jesus said go make disciples.

To make disciples we need a commitment to being disciples!

Here's what I find challenging, "If we create a church culture that is about entertainment and promote a devotional life that involves getting pumped up to whatever the latest christian worship song is we will inevitably start to flag in our growth as christians"


I heard Bill Johnson say something like "I can pray that God imparts what he has given me to you, but I can't impart my history"


Your history as a disciple is something that has been refined over the years, once again the challenge in an immediate culture is to stick at it!

If you are serious about being a disciple you should read the bible every year. Thats not even rushing through it, 4 chapters a day 10 minutes, even if you go ultra slow with a highlighter and take notes 30 minutes, thats all it will take.

If I want to be committed to lifelong growth and learning I must "hide his word in my heart" or "Meditate on His word day and night"


Without wanting to sound harsh or smother myself in a cloak of religiosity I have had to tell myself "Brian if you are serious about being a disciple you need to read the bible" I see on lots of blogs people doing book munches and reading 52 books in a year etc, I've tried it but in the end if it gets in the way of me reading the bible I put the other books down.

Sorry there is so much more to discipleship than bible reading but it's the one area I think our generation has to get hold of.

I'm off to the UK for a few days, I'll do a more comprehensive piece on on learning communities when I get back.

1. A prayerful community is a healthy community

I was at a meeting earlier this year where the leader of a big church said that they were moving towards there people never being more 24 hours away from the opportunity to participate in an organised prayer event of some shape or form, I thought this was excellent.

He was building prayer into the life of the church. I know there is a responsibility for us to have our own personal, disciplined, responsible prayer lives, but when you are part of a community that places high value on prayer it cannot help but affect you. The Macro affects the Micro and vice versa.

That is the reason I think 24-7prayer has been so successful it has given the body of Christ a tool which they can take, individualise and adapt to fit their local setting which in turn facilitates and encourages prayer. 24-7 prayer helps the church to pray.

Of course it is not the only way and really our heart is not on selling a model it is that people and communities pray. I don't care if you never have a 24-7 prayer room, I care that you pray.

A healthy community will have a healthy corporate prayer life but will also be full of people who have healthy personal prayer lives.

A few brief simple thoughts on prayer they are not meant to patronise you and this is not a comprehensive list:

Do you set regular time aside on a daily basis to pray? Pete Greig says that a remote control and an alarm clock would be your greatest tools in this. I would also hasten to add the ability to turn your computer/ipad/smart phone off.

Do you fast? Jesus did, start small, but at some point you should be looking to do 3 days without food!

Do you practice petition and perseverance? Write it down, keep a notebook, don't give up! Don't let the instant culture we live in shape us.

Get to prayer events, attend prayer meetings, read about prayer, educate yourself, learn about prayer, this will all help you.

One last thing: I have noticed over the years that participating in a prayer room is a wonderful time, but it can be a very individual and quiet time, often spending an hour, contemplating, painting, writing, talking or ranting on your own. We have to be careful this doesn't cause us to lose the ability to pray out loud with others, there is power in the prayer of agreement, I can't agree with you if I can't hear you!

Healthy communities and churches will have healthy prayer lives.

What makes a healthy community?

I am still a fan of Count Zinzendorf and many of his friends who lived by the rule of "Being true to Christ, kind to others and taking the gospel to the nations"


If a community is full of people who are living like this then it can't help but be healthy.

I would be looking for a healthy community to display these signs of health

1. That they would be living prayerfully,

2. Are committed to lifelong learning and discipleship,

3. Engage in mission and evangelism,
4. Celebrate creativity,
5. Practice hospitality
6. And express God's mercy and justice.

I'm going to try and unpack my take on all 6 of these practices over the next few days.

I do think if communities get all of the above right, they cannot help but grow. I see these values expressed in small missional communities but also in large churches.

They have slightly different titles but if you scratch the surface of some of the more vibrant large churches in the UK you will find these practices.

We need to be more positive and generous and hold up a multiplicity of models as good examples of the kingdom coming.

If it's healthy it will grow

What sort of growth are communities looking for?

Personally I think that the kind of growth we should aim for would be "If we disappeared tomorrow would our local community miss us? 

We should be looking for growth in local influence and societal change this a much healthier growth to focus on than bums on seats every Sunday morning.

I once heard someone say that too many churches concentrate on growth, when they should be concentrating on health.  I think it might have been Rick Warren?

I believe in growth and want to see christian communities growing in number and size but if growth is the primary aim it may never happen. Alternatively if you concentrate on health your community will definitely grow. Look at the roots of your community if they are healthy they will enable your community to be fruitful. A tree produces fruit if it has a healthy root.

Concentrate on the root not the fruit.


What makes a healthy church or community?

My only concern would be that in the process of concentrating on the root and getting healthy we become introverted communities. Not fully engaging with the world until we feel we are strong enough. Smaller communities can be a little guilty of this, I have even seen some develop a theology of small, which is scary and kind of based on fear and insecurity.

We get healthy not just by what we feed on but by exercise. For any community to grow it is important not only to have healthy teaching but also healthy practice.

We must put our theoretical knowledge into practice, a healthy community should have good praxis.

Or as James put's it "Faith without action is dead". Sounding good and looking good are not good enough.


A healthy well rooted active community will grow, both in influence and size.

We still pray

We have had Scott Bower and Chris Stone out with us for a couple of days filming for the Lent prayer spaces podcasts. It's been great fun but very tiring as we also did a series of podcasts on prayer and mission which will be released in June.

In the middle of all this Charlie and Abby have finally arrived which is so cool.

On Thursday we were in the street filming when we got into a conversation with a guy. He was english speaking and going through a bit of stress, and worried about a member of his family. He is also probably an alcoholic, it was weird because we were out filming about prayer and mission, breathing in and breathing out and how that prayer can't stay in the prayer room.

So we had a wonderful opportunity to pray with him, it reminded me of the summer and how we get to pray with so many people. I also had a pang of sadness as I realised I wouldn't be doing this in Ibiza much longer, but the good news is I can still do it in the UK. Prayer is prayer and we can do it anywhere.

Anyway you should check out the lent series of daily podcasts here on 24-7 prayers You Tube channel.

book writing

Ok there is a reason for the lack of blogging. All my writing energy has been put into writing about our experiences here over the last 7 years.

It is like writing a giant debrief form!

We are well into 12 chapters, got the bones together now we need to flesh it out. It's cathartic but also challenging.

We think we will call it "Curious in Ibiza" could work but will need a strap line. Something like "A journey into expressing the life and mission of Jesus in Ibiza" I'm not too fixed on that, we'll see what develops.

At the minute our mantra is "just write the stories", the other stuff will become clear.

Its also interesting writing with my wife, her grammar is much better than mine.

My favourite chapter title so far is "Gay man dancing" followed by "Jesus and sex god" or "prostitutes and roses"