Praying Across Scotland!
24/7 Week, National prayer gathering and voices from every corner of Scotland!
By Rev Lisa Holmes, BUS National team
“Ephesians 6:18 reminds us:
“Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
It was really exciting to gather for our National Prayer Gathering on the back of our first 24/7 prayer week. This 24/7 week of prayer ran from 7th-14th December and as a network of churches and individuals we signed up and prayed for around 120 hours, all across the country!
We themed our 24/7 Prayer week to ensure many aspects of our life together were covered:
- Younger Generations
- Increase across the BUS
- The Revitalisation of Churches
- Evangelism and Church Planting
- Leadership and Emerging Leaders and Government and National Issues
It was so encouraging to see the slots being booked out by individuals, small groups, leaders meetings and church prayer meetings. Special thanks to those who signed up in the middle of the night and Leith Baptist who had a whatsapp prayer group at 3am and really sensed God’s presence and him revealing himself to them.
It was encouraging to see some churches book the same morning slot for most of the week – praying consistently into our themes and I loved receiving the emails that simply said – we are praying with you.
Inverness BC shared with me the passage from Exodus 17 and how they both sensed others “lifting up their arms” and had the privilege of supporting other churches in prayer in the same way.
It’s within the DNA of our union to make prayer the foundation of all we do together and the 24/7 prayer week was the most encouraging and inspiring way to begin our Autumn Gathering weekend.
As people arrived there was an almost tangible sense of coming together with expectation and anticipation at what God was doing among us and might yet do.
We began by focusing on Jesus, as Allan McKinlay (Hopeman BC) and the team led us in worship. This moved into some beautiful, creative and uplifting prayers from the 4 corners of our nation, as were led by Robert Adair (Alness), Euan Johnston (Galashiels), Abi Ngunga (St Andrew’s) and Tracy Taylor (Lochgilphead).
The National Prayer Gathering focused around the theme “The Kingdom of God is Near”, from Mark 1:15, where we briefly explored what Jesus was saying through this Scripture and then prayed.
We prayed with hope as we heard tales of the Kingdom working out across Europe and the Middle East from Alan Donaldson, General Secretary of EBF and Scottish Baptist minister, we prayed with faith with Adam Grant (Falkirk) for continued stories of people coming to meet Jesus and as we prayed with heartfelt compassion as Al Purss (Dumfries) led us both vulnerably and authentically in praying for our prodigals to come home. Irene Campbell (Westwood) encouraged us to pray for the new General Director that God has for us in this time of increase, and for us all as a church family across Scotland.
We concluded with a video version of the Lord’s prayer (including in Gaelic) from Lerwick (Lee Williamson), Selkirk (Jaaziel Soles), Tiree (Ruth Kelso), Arran (Andrew Clark), and Peterhead (David Mccaig) and we joined that together to simply pray “Your kingdom come”
And that IS our prayer- that His kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven and we pray that we would see ever increasing evidence that his kingdom is near and tell the stories of the goodness and kindness of our Saviour.”
We would love to share more about what God has been speaking to you and your church, and stories of Him changing lives and communities around our country.
If you have an encouragement or story to share please get in touch with lyndsay@scottishbaptist.org.uk
