Everywhere I go I get asked the common question of ‘So, when are you launching the church? Or ‘Have you launched yet?’ I have to stop and ask myself what people mean by this. I think the question being asked is ‘Have you started Sunday gatherings?’ It’s not that I’m against this having gone to church on a Sunday pretty much every week of my entire life. In fact, I think I was under a week old when I first went to church and that's if you don’t include the fact that my mum started going into labour with me whilst playing the piano in church. The answer to this question of ‘have you started Sunday gatherings?’ is a ‘no’ in the sense of what people are asking.
For the past 2 years, I have spent time pretty much on my own exploring an area that is new to me - walking the streets, catching the DLR (Docklands Light Railway for those not from London!) and driving my car around. Although only just a few miles down the road from me, I’ve realised how different the area is to what I grew up in. Of course there are similarities as they are both in East London but if you know anything about London you can just catch the tube a few stops and feel like you are in a completely different area. I have had to allow this new place that God has led me to, to get into my heart and soul! As I have explored, I have prayed, I have listened to God and I have tried to keep my eyes open to where He is leading me.
I knew that the next step was to take a team on this same journey as me. They needed to see what I was seeing, feel what I was feeling and hear from God what He was saying.
When I go on holiday, I tend to be the holiday planner. I know this is not something everyone loves but for me, I really do love it! I like looking for the best price on flights, finding a good hotel, seeing all the different areas we can explore, finding the good food spots, seeing areas that others might not see. I know that if I just arrive somewhere and ‘go with the flow’ I won’t truly see everything about the place and might miss out on a great experience of a new culture. I’ve found this to be so similar to my journey of church planting. If we don’t go in prepared, we may well miss out on so many opportunities for God to guide us!
And so, we are ‘Prayer Launching’ or ‘Launching Forward in Prayer’. When people now ask if we have launched, my standard answer is ‘Yes, we are launching in prayer’. It may not answer exactly what they are asking, but it certainly opens up the conversation. In this blog, I wanted to share some of our learnings from prayer launching when it comes to church planting…
We need to create a decent MAP.
“So Joshua said to the Israelites: “How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you? 4 Appoint three men from each tribe. I will send them out to make a survey of the land and to write a description of it…” - Joshua 18:3-4
Just like I need a map when I visit a new place on holiday, we have seen the value of creating the same for walking into a new space to ‘take ground’ spiritually. We want to know the streets, the key places, the areas of stronghold, the places that need more intentional prayer and know the people we are praying for. We are educating ourselves before moving into an area. There is a website you can go on to look at the street where you may be buying a new house - you may want to check the crime rate of the area or know all the details like how much council tax is in that place? It’s no different for us. We want to know the area to be able to pray in preparation for moving in and bringing the light of Jesus. Joshua did the same before taking ground, by sending in people to ‘survery the land and write a description’. It’s simple but effective.
In the book ‘Informed Intercession’ it says,
Meaningful intelligence on our communities is readily obtainable through spiritual mapping which makes it easier to abandon our primitive hit-and-miss approach to spiritual warfare (sometimes called the piñata method)
If you know anything about piñatas you are blindfolded and hitting in an attempt to smash it open and get the sweets inside, but it's difficult because you can’t see! We certainly don’t want to go into an area without knowledge of what we need to be praying for. This would be spiritually silly!
Practical outworking: From our research we have created a daily prayer calendar with specifics to pray for - you can see this below!
We are living in ‘real time’ answers to prayer.
“Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him….and the disciples found it just as he had told them…” Mark 14:13 & 16
I love this passage as Jesus instructs the disciples in what to do, they follow His instructions and it all comes together exactly as He says! I guess we should not be surprised - this is Jesus after all! There are some prayers we pray over long amounts of time and have to wait a long time for answers. But I think there are other times where God answers a little more in ‘real time’ as we would define it.
A little while ago, myself and a friend who had come to spend the weekend praying with me, went to explore the areas we are looking at planting in. We walked the streets, observed what was around us and prayed together over what we saw. I had been praying for some venues for us to be able to get to pray in. One of the particular areas we went into is a brand new re-development area with very little community spaces. I had been told that any spaces there were, were not open to churches. I walked around the area praying that God would guide us to the right place. This was when I came to a community space that had frosted glass. There was a little window to look through and see what was inside. I had expected to just pray outside but not get anywhere with hiring. As I looked in a man came out and asked if I was there to play table tennis. I slightly panicked and didn’t know what to say so blurted out ‘yes!’ To be fair, I’m always ready for table tennis but can’t say this was part of the ‘aquire a venue for prayer’ plan! We went in, played table tennis and then spoke to a woman about hiring the building to pray which she was overly positive about. We came out with it somehow agreed!
I was reminded in this moment, that God has gone before us and has made a way, we just have to join in on his plan and be directed to the right places!
Practical outworking: We are trying to record what we think God is saying on a googleform to keep track!
We are reminded it’s about God’s timing, not ours.
"Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia..." Acts 16:6
This passage gives us a clear picture of how we need to be led by the Holy Spirit and not just by our clocks! I’ll be honest, I like to get things done fast. My brain tends to be moving from one thing to the other quite fast. It’s a blessing and a curse. When I cook, it means I can do lots of things quickly but it does tend to mean that my kitchen looks wild after cooking as I get too ‘focus-driven’ on getting the food prepared and not the kitchen cleaned! I love coming up with a timeline and a plan of how I will keep to it. I am learning though, that I need to be a lot more like Paul in the above verse, being led by the Holy Spirit and recognising when a door closes or one opens and not trying to open them too early!
One of the most challenging but also refreshing things on this church planting journey has been just following the lead of God at every step. In order to do this, I have to allow myself to sit in the presence of God and reflect on what He is doing. That's enabled us to see some patterns. For example, at the end of this year, I had every intention of giving the first 3 months of the year to prayer and then getting out there and ‘starting something!’ We had a local vicar come and speak to our team and it became so apparent that the needs of the area are even greater than what we realised - there is a long history of what I can only describe as ‘anti-Jesus’ activity. It made us as a team realise we need to give more time to spiritually preparing the ground through prayer. Without this, I’m not sure what we do will last. I have also realised on this same line, that this is not just about God preparing me, but Him preparing my team too! As we have moved into this year, the year of sharing heart and vision is paying off and there appears to be a shift in people’s change of mindset on the team - I need to allow God to work in their hearts as much as mine!
Practical outworking: Journaling! This is a personal practice but one I am trying to share with the team as God is speaking or showing us different things. I am also making a practice of sharing this with mentors so that I am talking through what God is sharing.
We are learning to paint a picture of the future in prayer.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. Isaiah 61:1
In our first pioneer night (our gathering of those on the church planting pioneering journey with us!) we looked at the passage from Isaiah 61 and the picture it paints of the future. We know it is a prophetic statement of what is to come! One of the areas we have been focussing on over the past couple of months is prophetic declaration. In many parts of East London a negative narrative is spoken of. If you look at the news you will see how much crime is in the area, how there is a huge homelessness problem, how there are so many stabbings particularly of young people. The news does not paint a positive picture, but we know we have an opportunity to do this in our prayer.
I was chatting to a friend about this recently and she told me how growing up in a church that my Dad led she always heard him say that Dagenahm, where I am from is the centre of the universe. He would say it all the time. As a child she genuinely believed this to be true because of how much it was! It went so far that she even looked on a map to check if it was true! It reminded me of the power of our words! And so we are trying to paint a better picture of the future. We have a canvas that every time we meet to pray, we write on it what God is saying, beginning to paint a better picture of an area. We are going to spend time over the next few months writing declarations over each area we want to plant in and then going to speak them over the areas, figuratively painting them over the streets!
Practical outworking: Our prayer canvas to help us paint a better picture!
God is showing us His heart as we pray.
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. - Matthew 9:36
Jesus had compassion. This is such a small phrase yet so powerful. Jesus looked at us with love. As we are praying we are allowing God to show us His heart. A few days ago, my friend who is on the church planting journey with us saw a post on social media that moved her so deeply that she shared with our team. It was of a man who had decided to seek out assisted suicide due to his mental health. He did not believe he could go on. Before going through with this he started something called the ‘last supper project’ and asked if anyone would like to have dinner with him. Thousands responded to this and as a result are influencing his thoughts on this. At our prayer meeting, this friend began to share her heart for reaching people and how we could reach those struggling by offering a meal and sharing the gospel in a non-threatening way. What was special for me, looking on was that my friend who is on the journey with me had caught the heart of God and could connect it to the area we are looking at planting in. Not only do I need to catch the heart of God but my team too. On another occasion with a different friend we were walking around another area we are looking at and she said ‘this place just needs love’. She too was beginning to feel the heart of God for a new place.
Practical outworking: We are trying to do as much prayer walking/driving as we can, praying over each individual street as we go!
And so for this year, prayer is central. I hope it will always remain so. I think this is the secret weapon that will move things in the spiritual realms. We have launched our church because prayer is the launch. It’s like the petrol in the engine that makes the car move. What I am loving about this is that it relies on God and puts Him in focus rather than my or my team's efforts. God will make this happen if it's of Him and that is certainly a relief!
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