PRAYER FOR THE CRISIS CENTRE STAFF(Wild Goose Christian cafe serving the street people in St Pauls) :

Please pray for the pressures on the Crisis Centre staff at the moment. Pray especially for the Key worker, Sam Colgan who has been very ill, pray she will be refreshed, empowered and blessed mightily by the Healing presence of our Loving Heavenly Father and that she will have suitable support and accommodation provided. Pray also for Jane as she takes on extra responsibilities in Sam's absence that she will cope. Pray for the discipleship and follow up of new converts to continue.

PRAYER FOR EVANGELISTIC/HEALING MEETING:

Please could you pray for a meeting on 8 August at the Elmgrove Centre
in Redland, Bristol, where an Austrialian Christian called Gary Payne
will be holding an evangelistic/healing meeting. The meeting is from
7:30pm to 10:30pm, and all are wlecome.

Yours in Christ,

Dez Futak.

PRAY FOR THE NOISE social action PROJECTS in Shirehampton, Lockleaze, St Pauls and Nailsea - weekend of 24th to 26th August organised by Revive/NFI and Soul Survivor where hundreds of young Christians will seek to demonstrate Faith in Action in our city.

Pray also for the teams sent by New Wine to do similar projects in Bristol in early August.

PRAY FOR VISIT OF YWAM MERCY SHIP TO BRISTOL.

August 30 – September 10, 2002. This is an exciting time, as it has been 8 years since the ship last visited Bristol. You are getting this email because one of the desires of Mercy Ships is to partner with the local church body in each port it visits around the world. (If you don’t know about the ministry of Mercy Ships, this is a good time to check out www.mercyships.org.uk).

Although time is short (29 more days!) and the summer is slow, there are many things still to happen in August to prepare for her arrival. More information will be arriving over the course of the next weeks how you can be involved in the ship’s visit. I ask that you help me to pass along the message through your church/ministry and to others who you think might benefit. My prayer is that the Mercy Ships visit to Bristol will be an encouragement to the church body and that many would get to experience the unique opportunity of having the foreign mission field come to their own city.

Some things that you should know right now…

For you and your ministry staff: Save the date for a church leaders reception to be held onboard the Anastasis in Avonmouth on Tuesday, 3 September at 2:00 pm.
There will also be a Missions Night, Youth Night, Ladies Coffee, Technical Night and Medical Night that will be open to the church community and opportunities for public tours and group tours. Dates and times for each of these events as well as posters and flyers will be sent to you in the next 10 days as soon as the ship’s arrival date is confirmed (see prayer requests below).
For the entire month of August Mercy Ships is collecting “Bibles for Africa”. We are aiming to collect 3,000 Bibles to take into the war-torn nation of Sierra Leone where Bibles are very scarce and many pastors only have pieces of the scriptures. There is a collection point at Wesley Owen on Park Street (they will give a 15% discount on Bibles for Africa). Good condition used Bibles are also acceptable, but no KJV please. Churches are challenged to set up their own Bible collection point and see how many Bibles their congregation can collect. Email or call for details about setting up a Bible drive at your church. Bibles for Africa flyers and notices are available. As well, Children’s Bibles, Bible story books and Sunday School teaching materials are needed.
Youth groups and holiday clubs are invited to participate in a missions project to put together school packs for the children in primary schools, orphanages and refugee camps in Sierra Leone who lack even the basic school supplies such as pencils and paper. If your youth, or another group in your church would be interested in collecting materials and making school packages, please email for details. (we are hoping to get 1,000 packages here in Bristol!)
We are still looking for opportunities for our outreach teams to partner with local ministries and to share at churches during the ship’s visit.

If you only remember one thing from this whole email… (since it is rather long and full of information) Please make a note to your church- verbally or through your notices- that August is “Bibles for Africa” month. You can set up a collection point at your church or encourage people to drop off a Bible at Wesley Owen.

If you have any questions please email zitos@mercyships.org or ring the Bristol Advance Team office at 01454 414049 (o) or 07733 112809 (m).

The Call was the first stadium prayer event that I’ve been to, and I’m not sure whether there has been anything like it before in this country. It wasn’t an evangelistic event or a Christian festival, it was a call to pray and fast for our nation with a particular focus on the Youth. Although there were ‘big names’ there, this wasn’t advertised before hand (Lou Engle, Cindy Jacobs, Sharon Stone, Matt Redman, Phatfish, Ed Silvoso were names I recognised). People were there because they felt a serious need to seek God to turn the fate of England. I cannot tell you specifically what was accomplished on that day, but I’m sure that thousands of Christians joining together to intercede in this way will have changed something in the heavenlies.

A theme of the day was turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and vice versa. It was a tri-generational event with a youth focus. Older people repented of the state of the church that they are handing over. Younger people repented of not respecting their parents and elders. Church leaders gave the younger generation permission to move forward with God. In some ways it was a ‘passing of the baton’ occasion.

Holiness was also a focus. Suggesting that our generation needs to be more radically holy, doing what we believe, not giving into the lusts and selfishness of the world we live in. This is always a challenge to Christians: how do we live in the world, but not become part of the world? However, it definitely feels like this is becoming a more urgent issue, and one which needs constant prayer.

Prayer for the spiritual state of the nation focused on the history and potential of England. Someone stated that, apart from Israel, no other country has played so strong a role in spreading the gospel. Where we used to be a spiritual giant we are now weak spiritually, but he prophesied that before Jesus comes back this nation will be a spiritual giant, at least one more time. We need to seek a Godly empire, the Kingdom of God.

Much prayer was lifted up to do with cultural influences. We prayed for Christians to be raised up in music, media, the arts, sport and government. Martin Scott prophesied that a future prime minister was in the stadium. A woman who had been involved in the music industry commented that when the Beatles had a no.1 all over the world: one song changed the way the world thought. What would happen if it was a song in praise of God? Since the 60’s Britain has had an international influence on what music is listened to. We need to redeem this influence and use it for God. Pray for British rock and pop stars.

Why don’t we do events like this more often? I’m looking forward to when we have our own stadium prayer event in Bristol. It will encourage us to be dreamers of God’s dreams. By Jenny Lyus

PS. A few things which struck me about the Call - Martin Scott prayed for a Spirit of Humility on us - very important; Also there was an emphasis on us receiving the Nazarite Spirit - this is about the need for us to be set apart for God's purposes and pursuing holiness and single-mindedness for God. - Also Colin Dye repented on behalf of the nation's spiritual leaders for not practicing what they have preached. Derek Prince who wrote a book called Changing History through Prayer and Fasting was the original inspiration for the Call and appeared on Video praying for the event. - Naomi Knapp