Really getting ‘Out There’

Really getting ‘Out There’ // Day 16 // #Write31Days

So.. what does getting out there really look like? Well it looks like lots of things but something we are doing as a church is launching ‘Out There’ Sunday events. As well as our missional projects we  are going to have one Sunday a term where we send everyone out there, and this Sunday is the first one!

For this first one we have decided to build a foundation of prayer and we have 4 different prayer walks going on across Mid Sussex as well as some other events too. These walks are in areas where we feel God is calling us to be, where we have small groups of people keen to reach out to their communities and in many cases where we are also developing relationships with other local churches too. 

We’ve asked local residents and Pastors to send us prayer points and we are gathering teams in each place to pray. As I said previously prayer has to be a foundation. I wrote in that post a few days ago:

I see prayer as building a firm foundation on which we can build. As we pray we are drawing up plans, digging trenches, filling them with a firm and solid core and setting them in stone. It’s a well-used analogy but so true with prayer. I feel like every prayer prayed into an area or project is just firming up those foundations more and more.

There is something to be said for praying in our communities, in the places we want to reach rather than just shut up in our homes and churches. It seems more real, more powerful, like a physical laying down of foundations, not just spiritual. And that’s what we’ll be doing on Sunday. Preparing the ground, laying foundations, in some cases building on previous foundations, putting down a few courses of bricks. In Joshua 1 God tells Joshua he will give him every place he puts his foot. In a way that’s what we are doing, claiming some ground for the kingdom, like God is laying out the borders of the land he is giving us, extend those borders even.

So we’ve got things to pray for but we’re also asking people to listen to God and see what he is saying for any particular area. Next term we’ll be aiming to do things a bit more practically, doing some ‘social action’ or blessing communities but to do that we need to be guided by God and see where he is taking us.

I’ll write next week about how it all goes!