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Mike's Manse Message
November 2011
Dear friends

When I was the Minister for Ripley Methodist Church we initiated a regular 24/7 prayer time. This was just as its title describes, where we would spend a week usually from the end of a morning service on one Sunday to the beginning of the following weeks Sunday morning service, in prayer. Everyone in the Chapel would commit themselves to visit the designated prayer room for one hour during the week. Often people did far more than one hour, and there would be a `battle` to get to the rota sheets in order to sign up.

Why? Because times spent in the prayer room were so special and I particularly liked the idea of getting away from the telephone, the letters, people and the world in general. There's something wonderful to be amongst the first to see a new day dawning and I would often spend a few minutes in the early morning standing in the Ripley doorway listening to the birds starting to emerge from their slumbers.

In recent months Rev Jim and I have both looked at the New Monastic movements and consequently have relearned the importance of the monastic disciplines, lived these days through communities such as the Northumbria Community, the Iona Community and others. The rhythm of life which holds such groups together is based around regular prayer times.

I'm also reminded that this was an exercise that was followed by many of our great spiritual leaders; John Wesley woke up at 4.00 a.m. every morning to read scripture and pray, AND he expected his preachers to follow the same discipline!!

Of course it is an exercise that goes much further back than that. We look in Mark 1:35 which says of Jesus "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." Notice the scheme of things:-

  1. Very Early - Dawn
  2. Still Dark - Determination
  3. Got up - Discipline
  4. Left the house - Discomfort
  5. Went to a solitary place - Disturbance
  6. Where he prayed - Devotion
Within our Circuit there are several prayer gatherings and we seek to double the number, for we truly want to see people come to Jesus and find their salvation in Him. Our mission logo is "To know Christ and to make Him known" and I believe that is best achieved when we are a people of prayer, because it is in that prayer that Jesus reveals both Himself and gives us direction as to how we might share Him with others.

Prayer, of course, is both communal and private and I wouldn't want to detract from either for the sake of the other. The Christian is called both to pray with others and to pray in private. I urge everyone (myself included) to look back at points 1-6 above and in the light of them look honestly at our own prayer lives, to see if we match up.


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