Prayer for Peace in Belfast

On the 15th December 2012, at 8.30am, a call to prayer for peace will ring out at Belfast City Hall.

People from every background and community in Northern Ireland will circle the City Hall building in a response to the trouble and the distressing scenes witnessed across our land over the past weeks.

This call to prayer is free from any political, social, organisational or denominational agenda. It is free from any motivation other than the fact that we believe in the power of God and the power of prayer to change our circumstances. We believe that God is alive and able to heal our land if we humble ourselves and pray.

It is not a protest. It is not a protest against protests. In a spirit of unity, this is an expression of prayer and blessing for our city, our politicians, our police, our society, our shopkeepers and hard pressed businesses.

We want to hold on to the Northern Ireland Tourist Board slogan that this is 'Our Place, Our Time' and pray simply and boldly for the peace and prosperity of Belfast and Northern Ireland in this season of goodwill and thanksgiving.

- We want to pray for peace to reign
- We want to pray for the return of hope

This is an open invitation to prayer and so, at this time, we have no idea as to the number of people who will turn up but we expect representatives from all branches of Christianity across Northern Ireland to take part. We have been in contact and have complied with the advice of the police by gathering at a time that will cause least disruption to local businesses and thereby cause no negative impact on this city which we love. Furthermore, we will be encouraging all those who gather to tangibly bless the city centre traders who have lost so much business over the last 10 days.

This time of prayer will be short, private, silent and reflective. It is avowedly non-political.

Please try and arrive between 8.15 and 8.20 on all sides of the city hall where stewards will help organise people into a line. At 8.30 you will hear a whistle to commence the prayer and 8.35 a whistle to end it.

What if and what else?

The leader of 24-7prayer in Ireland Adrian Eagleson has just written this little update of the first 4 months of our year of prayer. Adrian is not really this small....

Pop over to the 24-7 Ireland site and check the full article out. Here's a little clip:

"In the year of What if I would not be surprised that we end up with more Holy Spirit collisions and unexpected opportunities that we have not even thought about. We have at this point a plan for prayer rooms up and down the nation, however this might just be the beginning, the donkeys part of the story what God wishes to do in Ireland at this time. More and more we are finding others who we have not been connected with who have a similar commitment to build the kingdom. 24-7 it seems, is simply another way of joining the dots together.

And in all of this we have been amazed by the 80 prayer rooms that have already taken part in our first four months. At our monthly gatherings in Carnmoney, Lurgan, Dublin and Belfast we have heard stories of people encountering God in a new and personal way in the place of prayer. One of my favourites is of a prayer room in a rural part of County Armagh where a woman who has been a Christian for over 30 years felt comfortable enough to pray out loud for the first time in a prayer gathering. This speaks to me of the freedom that can come to our nation through the place of prayer, we can apply it at an individual, community and national level.

We are excited about the opportunity that exists as we travel the length and breath of the island, provoking, stirring and encouraging the fullness of God’s Kingdom.

Yet in and through it all, we will remain vigilant continuing to be committed to what God has called us to, and asking the questions what if and also what else?"

Like

I don't know if you use facebook, I do, I like it although I can find it a little addictive.

I was talking to someone at the weekend who feels that in the end the amount of friends people have on facebook will drop to a more concise and true representation of your friendship circle and that twitter will be for a wider audience.

What I like about facebook is photo's, the chat and groups.

If you haven't already I would really love you to join this group 24-7Ireland facebook group

I really want to push all that is going on in Ireland and the more people who join the better, it just keeps you informed and helps you stay up to date on all that happens in N.Ireland. You don't have to live there to a be member we would just really love to spread the word.

Also check out this latest article about an Inter-Chapliancy Prayer Room  in Queens University Belfast.

I am really feeling Ireland on my Heart at the moment.

"We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English." Winston Churchill

Hope

I was deeply saddened and moved by the death of a policeman in N.Ireland this weekend. Ronan Kerr, 25, was killed by a bomb which exploded under his car. I watched his mother talk about him on television yesterday and found it so sad that this lady had to talk about her murdered son on Mothers Day, actually it's wrong on any day....

More reason than ever to pray for our nation, I know in my heart that this incident will not push us back but it reminds me that below the surface tension still exists.

Which leads me to a story of hope, check this out it's an article written by laura brown on the 24-7Ireland website.  West Belfast a story of hope.

Prayer for Dublin

This month 24-7 prayer in Ireland is praying for Dublin and the surrounding area, here are some of the areas we are specifically praying into:

Pray for our newly elected leaders - Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore as they begin working together as part of a coalition government.

Pray for a change in the atmosphere of the Dáil (Irish Parliament) as it reconvenes on Wednesday, 76 of 166 TDs (Members of Parliament) are new to the Dáil.


Pray against the growing number of suicides in Dublin over the past year as a result of the recession

Pray for a change in people's attitudes, pray that the Church would be bringers of hope in Dublin.

Give thanks for all the churches who are holding prayer rooms for the first time and pray that even more churches will come on board! Prayer will change this nation.

Also pray that no one gets uptight about these prayer requests! We know people and churches have been praying for years, we understand that we are part of the answer not the answer. We just want to see God touch the land.

  

Belfast Child

I am in Northern Ireland  with the family we are having a great time and it has been sunny everyday which is fantastic. We have been doing a little mini conference called "Stumbling Journey" which went really well, I have also had a couple of other talks which has been great. 6 talks in about 36 hours.

We now have 2 days of relaxing and then Tracy and the boys fly home and I stay on for a few meetings with the guys from www.24-7prayer ireland.com which I help over see. I spoke at a 24- 7 prayer gathering in Lurgan on Saturday night and there were over 120 people there which is fantastic. Some great stories and wonderful stuff happening here, the guys are now moving down to Dublin for a month of prayer, the regional break up of the year of prayer is fantastic, with a celebration story telling event at the end of each month in what ever region they are in.


The theme for the year is "What if?"


I love Ireland, Ireland fills me with optimism and hope. As a nation I think we are very hospitable.

Please pray for Ireland

24-7 Ireland

24-7 prayer ireland have a newly revamped web page we are currently under going a year of prayer for Ireland.

"24-7prayerireland in partnership with Alpha are trying to facilitate a year of prayer for 2011. The plan is to get people right across the nation of Ireland (north and south) praying for a whole year as much as possible night and day!! We have sensed God leading us strategically to focus prayer on a particular town/city/county each month and to couple this with a gathering in that particular area each month. These gatherings will allow people to share and celebrate stories, pray and worship God together. Our aim through this way of facilitating the year of prayer is two-fold. First, that this will lead to intentional prayer in each area, uniting the local church provincially and seeing significant changes in the communities represented. Secondly and more nationally that this will catch the imagination of people all over the land as we call all of Ireland to prayer and that through this a increasing movement of kingdom people will be connected and mobilised.

So please join in with us…."

I will be in N.Ireland at the end of February, we are doing a weekend in Newtonards, so if you'd like to get along and hear about what we do and how we do it along with some challenge and teaching around the whole subject of prayer and mission, let me know. In fact I'll put the details up soon.

Visit the 24-7prayer Ireland website to check out all that is going on in this wonderful nation.

You should read this....

Read this on John Alderdice's blog he's leading one of our 24-7 prayer two week teams in Ibiza, you should read his amazing stories

One of his team member read this out in a team time, it's from Bill Hybels book “Holy Discontent”. I think his words really summed up my feelings:

“If you expose yourself to all that´s broken in our world but neglect to view the brokenness from heaven´s perspective (which promises that everything is in the process of being restored), then you´ll get into an impossible, downward spiral of aggravation and anger….. Once that frustation and anger is understood as being your holy discontent, though – your spiritual connection to the God who´s working to fix everything – it´s as if an enourmous wave of positive energy gets released inside you…. this energy causes you to act on the dissatisfaction that´s been brewing deep within your soul and compels you to say yes to joining forces with God so that the darkness and depravity around you gets pushed back…. your perspective shifts from that which your eyes can see to that which God tells you is true. And it is in this reality that what is enslaved can still be set free, what is broken can still be mended, what is diseased can still be restored, what is hated can still be loved, what is dirty can still be made clean, and what is wrong can still be made right.”

I'm really looking forward to getting home tomorrow

Chilling in Ireland

Having a lazy morning on holiday here in Ireland, it's been great, very refreshing.

I have had time to hang out with my great sons



See some beautiful scenery



Chill with my beautiful wife




and do some memory lane stuff with two of my brothers

Jesus Walks

I'm off to stay at Castlewellan, and am speaking with the young people at Castlewellan Christian Holiday week for the Methodist Church in Ireland. Tracy and the boys will be with me for the week and then we are all staying on in Belfast for an extra weeks holiday.

The Methodists in Ireland are fantastic supporters of all we do here and it's a privilege to be able to put something back.

We are staying in this Castle, which should be fun.

My theme for the week is Jesus Walks, based on this Kayne West song....

Ireland adventure

I have just had a great few days in Ireland, there is so much going on there and it was lovely to hang out with old friends and make some new ones.

The funniest thing I had to do was take a seminar on prayer spaces in schools, just funny because it's not something I know lots about. Tash who is part of our 24-7 Ireland team did a great job and I just added some theological padding......

We were hosting a prayer space at a huge gathering called Summer Madness, it was so well done and Summer madness is a truly amazing gathering. Loads of fantastic speakers and great worship leaders. I was also impressed by Rachel and the guys from Romance Academy and organisation helping young people find their true identity.

I heard a really great band called The Rend Collective, I think they have the potential and the humility to become a very popular band. They also had a guy called Ben Cantelon he is like a young Matt Redman pretty boy clone. I am sure he is a lovely chap, but it all sounds much of a muchness to me.

It was great to hang out with friends from Emmanuel church Lurgan, catch up with Aidy, hang out with Gillian Best and Helen and then finish up with friends in Newtonards. Generally I ate too much but felt like I had connected with loads of people, which is all good.

I also stayed in Belfast Bible College where both my parents went in the 70's, which was cool I found their class photos on the wall.

I'm off

If you're in Ireland you should get along to the day advertised above, it's the first time that we as a whole team will have traveled and done stuff together. Even my boys are coming it will be a great day. Saturday 25th 10am - 10pm.

We also have another thing happening in England it's on Wednesday 29th at a great restaurant called las iguanas at lakeside in Essex. £20 for the ticket which includes a great menu, it will be a bit of a fund raiser for all we do. I will post more details for that one shortly.

All the details are on my laptop which has charger issues, the charger broke this morning, I tried to fix it but forgot to unplug it! My Mac in general is dying, it doesn't hold it's charge, it's very slow, it's cracked, the hinge is bent, it's 3 years old and when I put it on my lap it makes my testicles hurt! Now I can't even use it until I get a new flipping charger.

I fly to Canada tomorrow doing some stuff with 24-7prayer Canada I am also speaking at a conference which should be fun, check it out here the best bit is going to be hanging out with Chris Jones and his family for thanksgiving, they have a shack up in the woods which should be fun. I didn't realize Canadians did thanksgiving but it turns out they were doing before their American neighbours.

On January 31, 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed:
“ A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed … to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October."

I am only away for 6 days, hopefully I'll keep you posted.

This is tonight

If you are in the North get along, it promises to be a great night.

Jude Sweeny is running a 24-7 Ibiza fundraiser in Belfast, if you're in that neck of the woods you should pop along, it promises to be a great night. I am flying over to sing a couple of songs. I'll probably do some of my earlier stuff but you never know I may sing one or two songs from my newest album.

I would have liked to have been a rockstar!

Other jobs I would be happy doing:

1. Hairdresser
2. Pub Landlord
3. Waiter
4. Artist
5. Farmer
6. Assassin
7. Parish Priest
8. Game Keeper
9. School Teacher
10. Photographer

I won't really be at the gig, but please pop along and support it if you can.