We are not 24-7 Vomit

As a team we have been reminding ourselves that we are 24-7 prayer in Ibiza not 24-7 vomit. The reason we call ourselves 24-7ibiza is that 24-7prayer in ibiza doesn't slip of the tongue so easy. We are 100% committed to and part of the wider international movement that is 24-7prayer .

What we have found is that dealing with vomit and people in distress is surprisingly easier than actually talking with people about their spirituality and offering to pray with them. In fact if you are feeling a little under the weather spiritually you will default towards looking for drunks to help rather than people to pray with.

We are 24-7prayer not 24-7 vomit.

We will never walk by a sick distressed or lost person, we will never refuse to go and help a bar or the health centre at our core we are a praying group of individuals.

As well as being the prayer, by helping and assisting we can also offer prayer for the deeper unseen problems, the pain and trauma that people go through on an everyday basis. This is harder to step up to than help an actual messy situation, but time and time again when we do it, people appear to be really blessed.

Prayer is the key.

The vomit is a symptom of a deeper problem, vomit is the search for something that in the end will not make you happy. There is a prophetic significance in vomit.

I have supped and drank deeply of all the world has to offer and it has not made me happy, in fact it has made me sick.

Are you a FOMO?

I was chatting to friend of mine she said she read in some girly magazine about a new condition people could be suffering from. It's been around for a while but living a secluded, sheltered life here in Ibiza I had never heard it before.

It's called FOMO, which just means Fear Of Missing Out - the fear you feel that you will miss out on something huge if you don't do something/participate in an event.

'I want to stay home tonight but I have FOMO so I will push through the fatigue.'

Fear that you will miss the best party, the best sunset, the best gig, the best night at the pub, the best conference, the best church meeting, the best speaker, etc.

Fear that stops us from resting, from stopping, from taking it easy, from stepping back and relaxing.

I see far too many people who are just too busy. I was reading somewhere about a church leader who was so busy he had to mow his lawn with a head torch on at night, whilst he was doing this he had a sudden realisation that all the busy ness of church life wasn't good and asked himself: "What exactly is it about my life that would make my neighbours want to become a christian?"

Are we too busy? Do we need to implement some changes in our lives so that we live a much more reflective lifestyle?

I was talking to my younger brother who lives in the UK, he was telling me how that if he wants to have a meal with other people in the church once they get their diaries together it's normally a minimum of 6 weeks before they can meet up. Surely this isn't right? or am I just being naive? 

24-7 Ibiza's new leaders

Let me introduce you to Charlie and Abby Clayton. Charlie and Abby will be taking over the leadership of 24-7 prayer here in Ibiza from Tracy and myself next July.

They both live in Birmingham, and have just got married at the end of April. Abby is a dancer, masseuse, wonderful prayer warrior and people connector. I don't know if Charlie can dance but he was the leader and one of the directors of a charity in Birmingham which amongst other things developed a drop in centre and street work!!! One of the best statements Tracy thinks she heard Charlie make was "I love spreadsheets" Charlie has a heart for the lost and tremendous organisational abilities which are so essential for the work here.

They will be based in the UK until February/March next year, just getting used to being married and fund raising so that they can live and work effectively out here. If you'd like to become a regular supporter just talk to me and I can hook you up.

Tracy and I will still stay involved in an oversight role from the UK but Charlie and Abby will be our on the ground leaders of 24-7ibiza.

Charlie and Abby have started a blog so please pop over and give them some love and encouragement as they step up to the mark for an exciting new adventure, their blog is called Clapping the son .

We can't tell you how excited we are by all of this, God is all over it and we just sometimes have to stand back and be amazed by how well he plans and grows His church....

Praying with people on the street

It's so hot and humid here I had to get up at 6am and go and lie outside! Tracy had been out on the street tonight and has just got in.

We have 19 adults here including Tracy and myself serving the work of 24-7 prayer here in ibiza, 8 of those are our first two week team and they are doing a great job.

People in our world still really want prayer, even if they wouldn't call themselves christians. Even though this is our 7th season I still find myself amazed and humbled by the amount of opportunities we get to chat, listen to and pray with people on the street.

Here's a little bit about how it goes when we pray for others on the streets.

Number one prayer request we get is always "others" people generally always want you to pray for someone else. At first I think they feel it's selfish to ask for individual prayer, often saying things like "I don't deserve your prayers but could you pray for my Granny" or a sick loved one, or friend who is having a hard time.

People often ask us to pray for dead people, we do pray for them but generally turn the prayer to pray for the bereaved family and friends. Often it's like they want us to get a message to their friend or family member, or they just miss them dearly and want us to pray that they will be ok in heaven.

Once we have prayed for others we tend to ask "Is there anything we can pray for you about?" mostly we get prayers about future, meeting the right partner, getting enough money, good employment that kind of thing.

Often as we talk and listen to people it goes to a deeper level, 5 areas that people talk to us a lot about are: guilt, regret, fear, pain, failure. I think this tends to happen because we just take the time, we pray before we go out, we ask to be led, allow the Holy Spirit to prompt and guide us and we don't rush. People are also on holiday so they tend to be more relaxed and also in less of a hurry. This is where you really have to believe God will show up, he does. We get a lot of emotional response as we pray for people and it's always beautiful to watch God show up and start to interact with people who maybe hadn't given Him a lot of thought.

We will also pray for people to be healed, you'll be surprised by how many people won't want you to do that, but we are never frightened to ask! We have prayed for a number of people who have got better.

We work hard at not using religious language. I use certain phrases that I really mean for our generation. I pray for God to smile on people, to bless their families, to help them in work, to provide all they need. I often also pray for peace, people need peace. We do of course ask the Holy Spirit to lead our praying but it does help to have given some fore thought to what you are going to say.

If people don't want us to pray for them there and then on the street we ask if they would like to fill out a prayer request form that we will take back to our prayer room and pray about for them. A couple of tips: get them to write it if they don't want to write it you write it but get them to sign it. You then end up praying their prayer more accurately.

Of course over the years we have had comedy prayer requests like guys asking for longer willy's or some asking if Leicester could win the FA cup. We still pin them on our wall and pray for the person but not the request!!!

These last 4 days alone we have prayed with over 30 people on the streets here in Ibiza.

Celebrate risk taking

We live in a risk averse world! A world where we talk about risk assessment.

I wonder what the risk assessment situation would have been around Peter getting out of the boat and walking towards Jesus?

The thing is Peter actually failed, he started to sink, it wasn't a success. Yet we are encouraged by the fact he got out of the boat and went for it.

I was talking to some friends about a church in california that celebrate risk taking, I loved it. We tend to celebrate success we don't celebrate risk taking.

This summer as a team we want to celebrate risk taking more than we celebrate success. We need to encourage each other to take more risks when it comes to sharing our faith. Lets not play it safe lets take a few risks, if we fall flat on our faces thats ok, at least we tried, we gave it a go, we took a risk.

Ask yourself whats the worst that can happen? actually don't ask yourself that question! Ask yourself whats the best that could happen? Live with the expectation that the risk you take is going to pay off. Something in me balks a little against my own statement, but thats because I am slightly risk averse and timidity occasionally shapes me.

 Take a risk celebrate risk taking even if it ends in failure.

Christian tourism

Just got in from picking up our first two week team, it's been a busy day, it wasn't meant to be but thats how it turned out.

Earlier we had our little community service which had a very eclectic mix attending, from ageing anglicans to young bar workers and everything in between. Probably about 28 people in attendance which is very good.

Then off to pick up the two week teams. i know some organisations see short term missions teams as an inconvenience but we don't. I have heard other people refer to short term teams as "Christian tourism" that doesn't work for us. We could only do what we do here with short term teams they are a necessary and essential part of the work here. In fact every nearly everyone who is here for the whole summer has been on a short term team. People who have moved out here to live have first rocked up on a short term team.

We also get overwhelmed with the workload and during the busy months the two week teams give us the energy to get through.

Our philosophy is that the teams have come to serve the work, the work isn't here to serve the teams. That doesn't mean that those of us here full time aren't servant minded or hearted, it's just if you start adjusting your programme for the teams it becomes about them. If you fit them into what you are already doing they enhance what you are doing and grow in the process.

We don't work our teams into the ground, we try to keep them fresh and make sure that rest is as key as work. Some peoples attitude to short term teams is to get them and flog them to death on the alter of servanthood!!!

Anyway we love teams and I am excited what the next two weeks will bring with our Irish Methodist 24-7prayer team.

Where's your hotel?

Just got in, it's 4.30am. I have forgot how much I enjoy posting at this time of day. Just been out helping various people home.

What was particularly lovely about tonight; was that the Spanish health centre phoned us twice and we were able to help them get some people home. Basically people get taken to the health centre, they have no money or are covered in too much vomit, so they can't get a taxi home and the health centre can't authorise and ambulance so they phone us and we are more than happy to come and help.

It's always funny trying to get people to remember which hotel they are staying in, one guy had completely forgot. Often when asked the only info they will give you is that it is by the sea!!! when you ask for a little more than that they may tell you it has a swimming pool..which believe me is not helpful.

Anyway we took some girls back to their hotel and left guy who couldn't remember at the health centre by the time we got back for him he had remembered his hotel. So happy days.

So I am off to bed now, which will be nice.

I've so got my faith back now!

A friend in the West end poured his heart out to two of our summer long team last week, telling them all about his friend being arrested and put in prison. 

He had spent 3 days doing everything he could to get him released, using every contact he had back home to help. He was quite emotional as with our guys the responsibility, helplessness and frustration he felt. 

So they all stood in the middle of the street outside a strip club and prayed that his friend would find favour with the law and be released rather than sent to Barcelona prison which was the potential outcome. 

The next day one of our team went to see how he was. She was given a huge hug of relief and news that his friend had been released and was now flying back to UK!  

They celebrated the news together and as she was leaving the guy whispered ‘I’ve so got my faith back now.’ 

Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free..."

   

Evangelism as dance

I think this is a beautiful prophetic picture of what sharing our faith should look like. Evangelism as dance, following Jesus is a rhythm that we move our lives to. What if other people saw how we moved, saw how we danced and captured the rhythm? What if that rhythm spread, or the beat became louder, people moving to a rhythm of love, harmony, forgiveness, grace and freedom?

Watch the video it's inspiring. I found it on my friends Tims facebook, thanks Tim.

A good book to compliment this video would be More ready than you realise, Evangelism as dance in the post modern matrix poncy title, but worth a look.