A church full of life and love, working for the good of the community in which God has placed it, is the proper end of mission. Transformational development that does not work towards such a church is neither sustainable nor Christian .. it is impossible to imagine a transforming community without a transforming church in its midst. Bryant Myers.

The Worship Files

Over the next few weeks we will be asking the LORD to search our hearts with regard to our worship of Him. We will be doing it in two parts, using Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman, that the Father seeks worshippers who will worship him in spirit and in truth, as our guide. 

4 December

After asking, it seems that there are 6 things the LORD want to speak to about our worship of Him in ‘spirit’. We will do one a week with action steps.
We asked the LORD to show us the first thing that isn’t pleasing in our worship of Him in ‘spirit’:

1.    Lack of agreement of our spirit with the LORD’s

We spent time praying for the month.  Prayer times have been changed from 4-6 in the afternoons to 8-9am and 4-5pm.We spent some time asking God what His purposes for this month of prayer are:

1.    Renewal- For The Warehouse, as a group and on an individual level. Revival of our spirits, and burning away of chaff.  Also that this renewal goes beyond us to our families and households.

2.    Unity- Building a people of power, binding with chords that cannot be broken.  Building a team that will be ready for new challenges.

On our first proper gathering of this period we started with a time of worship.  In this time God drew us to Isaiah 58, partially because of an interaction a few of us had with a young lady who had been sent to us by one of the churches.  God drew us into repentance for seeing her as a programme to be solved rather than "one of the least of these".  This brought us to ask God to search our hearts corporately at the start of this month and to show us the sin that so easily entangles  (Hebrews 12:1 ) as we start this race.

 The Lord spoke to us about four areas :

Blow the ram’s horn in Jerusalem!  Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting.Gather all the people– the elders, the children, and even the babies.  Call the bridegroom from his quarters and the bride from her private room.Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence,  stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar.  Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord!  Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery.  Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say,  ‘Has the God of Israel left them?Joel 2 : 15 – 17

 A number of us within The Warehouse have been experiencing God breaking our hearts more and more about the condition of our city, our nation and our churches – Jesus has been confronting any belief that we may in anything other than him to change these things.  In keeping with the last few years I believe (as do the Trustees) that God is calling us to a period of fasting, prayer and reflection, allowing God to search our hearts, to show us the things hindering his work amongst us and calling us to a greater and deeper hope in him. I want to propose the following for the time:  1.  Each of us ask the Lord if and how He would have us fast through this the month.2.  We individually work through the “Preparing for Renewal” document during the month.  It is a document that was prepared for the Tacoma gang but I think will work well for us.  When it raises stuff for you (and it willJ) please make sure you ask others to pray with you – chat to Elizabeth or I to coordinate this.3.  We shift our corporate prayer times to the end of the day from 4pm to 6pm to enable others to join us.  We will use these times as God leads us but they will in all likelihood include times of worship, listening, intercession, repentance and possibly action.4.  We make the hour from 8am to 9am a “Quiet Time” at The Warehouse where people can spend time with the Lord if they want to.  The “work” day will start at 9am with a short corporate gathering to read a Psalm or something similar.

Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will considered to be accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them."- Isaiah 65:20-23

This morning we lifted unemployment in South Africa up to God, with tears and frustration about our 'tattered' economy that robs so many in South Africa of the fullness of life which God intends. What really is on God's heart is repentance: for competitiveness with other job creation initiatives, power struggles, paternalistic attitudes- all of which stand in the way of his purposes for employment and the restoration of his people here.

This morning we spent time praying for Caroline of The Besom in South Africa- an organisation with which we are closely linked in terms of purpose. God spoke to us about how in the heavenly realms there is much thankfulness for the work of Besom; and how testing of The Besom will refine its purposes.

A lot of us are sick at the moment! We prayed for healing, restoration of health and replenishing of that which has been lost.

We spent this morning praying and listening to God about his view and purpose for unity and agreement.  This is something we desire. 

 The pictures and words that we prayed into were :

A beautiful vibrant, musical stage performance – saw each one of the actors, each doing something different…doing what they were made to do.  We become more of who we are made to be when we are in unity and agreement because it gives us the space.  Watching the dancers combine in routines where timing and unified movement were part of the achievement.  One person dancing is so much less ???? than a group of dancers moving in interdependence.   Each walking in their own gifting.

Starting with self….each understanding their own role and gifting and part of the whole.

New fruits and gifting emerge from the unity, gifts that won’t emerge in individual.  Some of our gifts have been around for a while but others will emerge.

There are no places of shame in the place of unity and agreement.  We do not need to keep managing our sin.

The unity isn’t something new, it is part of what God has been doing for a while.

A picture of the family tree with the lines linking us, us kneeling in mutual submission to each other.  The lines are a covering and protection.  Developing specific unity within our “areas”.

Each of us were given an overhead sheet with a pattern on it.  When they are placed together they form a bigger picture, a new picture.  A sense that this is particularly important in the place of intercession.  The unity will be key to understanding things, God saying that he has solutions but that it isn’t just going to be one person, it is a combination of the people in the group…the solutions are a picture of the whole.

Sense that God is saying that he has brought us together because of his heart for the poor.  Our submission and love allows the gifting to flourish has a purpose …remember the picture of Saul.

A fighter jet with all its parts with the thrusters.  The unity and agreement must be total submission to God otherwise the thrust.

An army marching in uniformity…when the army marches not only one gets the honour they are seen as one.

One of the journeys that God has The Warehouse on at the moment is a new understanding of God speaking to us about our daily work and lives. He speaks in through pictures, in scripture and through our encounters with the people we work with every day. We have been keeping records of what God has spoken and done since we started praying together every day two years ago.