March 12th-14th saw us gathering from across the Nation to seek God in prayer together. This was similar to last year except that this year we chose to overlap with the Baptist Union Council meeting for 24 hours including 2 hybrid meetings.
8am and midday gathered ministers and leaders and were led by a variety of ministers including the General Director of BMS who was joining us for Council following these themes: It was so inspiring and unifying to pray together with others leading across Scotland.
Our Morning sessions focused on and were led by:
Psalm 23 – Jonathan Tink (Tues)
Exodus 33:7-11- Rab Donald (Wed)
Matthew 14:13-14 Matthew Marshall (Thurs)
Midday prayer sessions
Increase in spiritual depth – personal growth Rosey McFarlane (Tues)
Increase in growth across the world – Kang-San Tan (Wed)
Increase in people coming to know Jesus – national growth Dee Jess (Thurs)
Thursday evening created the opportunity for people from across Scotland to gather to pray together on zoom – some joining alone, others with family or friends and some of our churches together in their church space including Westray, Wick, Leven and Motherwell.
We began by focusing on Romans 8:18-28 reminding ourselves that we begin in our reality – personal struggles, local difficulties and global challenges but we know that we have hope – there is more than this! We know the end of the story and the Lamb wins… and our praying, even groaning is what links us both to reality and hope as the Spirit enables us to pray.
Odele Harding led us in a personal meditation based on Psalm 46, Adam Oellermann encouraged us as we went into breakout groups to pray for our local areas and Tim Proudlove expanded our vision to pray for various areas of the world. We concluded our prayer time – offering ourselves to God afresh, naming aloud the areas where we lived and calling out across the zoom the nations God had laid on our hearts and then praying the Lord’s prayer together – a beautiful cacophony of prayer – voices heard across the nation calling out to God to touch and transform this land.
Lisa Holmes
Deeper Church Lead, BUS
