NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE week beginning Sunday June 15th 2008
‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)
WELCOME TO THE NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE
Big thanks to those of you who take the trouble to give us feedback, those that contribute regularly and those who give one off input. It is so encouraging to know that watchers are up to date with the work and very helpful in providing interactive content. This week we will make use of some particularly challenging feedback and focus one more time on Jesus’ words in John 10, then we will pray into an excellent report from Macedonia and stir up prayer for this week’ important climax to the Europe/Africa Reconciliation Process. Finally we will consider the implications of last month’s report from the Council of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe.
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We will send you a brief outline for prayer each week according to the prophetic direction coming from the contemporary prophetic movement in Europe. You will not always agree with everything in the watch material. Go with what you can and trust the Lord to help you with the rest. This Nightwatch began in November 2003 and we are looking to carry on until the end of September 2008 after which there will be a transition into a different form of intercessory support. If you have to miss an occasional watch it’s OK as the rest of us will carry it. A three month commitment is probably a good place to start.
THE CONTENT OF THE WATCH FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY 15th JUNE 2008
1. TAKE TIME TO PRAY AND REFLECT OVER THE FEEDBACK TO LAST WEEK’S NOTES ON JOHN 10, FOUND BELOW (15 minutes)
a) Meditate and pray once more over these words of Jesus, declaring them out loud (5 minutes)
"All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. … I am the good shepherd, and I know my own and my own know me, even as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from my Father." (John 10:8-11, 14-18)
b) Notice that Jesus describes himself as the door to go in and out by (5 minutes)
Last week I wrote: As a child I could not understand this. The Christianity I grew up with portrayed Jesus as the door into a subcultural community in which you stayed while on earth and would remain in for eternity. So why would anyone want to go in and out again? But Jesus is not the door to a church ghetto or a future distant heaven, but to the kingdom of God lived out in this world and one day coming everywhere for ever when Christ returns. Jesus is the door into an intimacy with the Trinity that we constantly carry out into world by sowing ourselves into the situations in which we live and work.
Pray into the following feedback: “I've wrestled endlessly with the question of whether that's the whole Body of Christ that's going out/in so that some parts ‘stay in’ and others ‘stay out’ due to their personality, giftings, and callings or whether each individual is to go out/in. I think it is probably both. There will be more outward and inward focused individuals and groups, but each expression, from the individual to the whole Body of Christ, needs to be expending effort to go both out and in. In my heart, I'd like to see a house of prayer in our immediate area, but I'd love for it to have built-in to its regular ‘schedule’ times of serving outside of the prayer room and/or taking the prayer room to different contexts, etc. At any rate that's my prayer...that as this seed continues its gestation that it would be birthed as a place that facilitates going both in and out.” (5 minutes)
c) Notice what distinguishes the Lord from the devil (5 minutes)
I wrote: “He lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus states this five times in these few verses. The word ‘martyr’ and the word ‘witness’ are the same in New Testament Greek (as in Acts 1:8). This is the clue to overcoming Satan. He wants to kill us. But we have given our lives to the crucified one. Therefore we are dead already (as in Gal 2:20). Take time to list those things most important to you and deliberately rededicate your life to Jesus including each of these things. Thank him for dying for you and tell him that you want to be identified with him in his death even if it means losing everything. Don’t panic! God is good and you can totally trust him. Then tell the devil several times over: “I am dead and my life is hid with Christ in God. You cannot harm me, you cannot kill me; I am dead already.”
Pray into the following feedback: “I like the fact that you don't say ‘Don't Panic, it probably won't be that bad,’ rather ‘don't panic! God is good and you can totally trust him.’ Those are two very different perspectives and I need to move from the former to the latter! Thank you also for the tip about witness/martyr. When I read the Strong’s dictionary definition, I see basically that in every situation where we witness to/testify about Jesus, it's with a willingness to take that witness all the way...even to violent, physical martyrdom. That changes our perspective a bit in the motivations we have for sharing the reason for the hope that we have within us!” (5 minutes)
2. GIVE THANKS AND PRAY OVER THIS REPORT FROM MACEDONIA (15 minutes)
“On the Global Day of Prayer May 11, 2008 ¬ in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, we asked all the churches in the city to close their doors, and come together as ONE Body of Christ in Skopje. Together we were about 450 believers gathering together to worship the Lord. Diversity in unity was expressed through the worship time. There was celebration, there was shouting there was silence. The presence of the Lord was upon us and moving in our midst. Out of this time of extended worship, the Lord moved us into a time of repentance. All of the pastors and church leaders were invited to come forward ¬ to pray and to cry out to the Lord, repenting of the sins of the church and the nation. It was very impressive to see 20 or more leaders coming before the Lord in the presence of all the people. This was something new and refreshing from the Lord and all the people realized it! The prayer movement in His Church in Macedonia and the region IS growing and needs to KEEP growing.”
Below are some ongoing plans for the region
September 2008: 30 Days prayer initiative: mobilizing the Church to pray from September 1-30
September 2008: Global Day of Prayer Leaders Regional Meeting: bringing together GDOP prayer leaders in all the nations of the SE Balkans ¬ to pray together, build relationship, share testimony, and hear from the Lord about what He is doing and wants to do in His Church regionally.
October/November 2008: Prayer Summit in Macedonia and possibly Albania as well.
3. PLEASE PRAY OVER THIS WEEK’S CLIMAX TO THE EUROPE/AFRICA RECONCILIATION PROCESS IN KINSHASA, CONGO (15 minutes)
This initiative began in 1998 in Switzerland at a meeting of the International Reconciliation Coalition where a group of European Christians discovered a common focus on the Berlin Congo Conference of 1884-85 as a key to dealing with the corporate sin of Europe. Since then it has resulted in the formation of a partnership relationship with African leaders and a revelation-sharing process involving intercessors from the 13 nations of Europe involved in that conference together with the USA. This resulted in a prophetic replay of the conference in Berlin in 2005 but this time with representatives of the African nations. Since then we have carried the grace of that conference to both Anglophone and Francophone Africa (Zimbabwe and Gabon) and this week June 18th-21st brings the initiative to a climax in the Congo where the sins of Europe had perhaps the greatest impact. Please pray for the fullest possible resolution and completion to this process and clear direction for the ongoing way ahead. Many of us have found ourselves increasingly concerned to discover and press for genuine ways of reparation from Europe as well as ways to proceed in partnership for the manifestation of the kingdom of God in both continents.
4. LET’S PRAY INTO THIS RESPONSE FROM THE COUNCIL OF THE COMMUNITY OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES IN EUROPE TO THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE’S MAY WHITE PAPER ON INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE (15 minutes)
“In a statement welcoming the Council of Europe’s May white paper on intercultural dialogue, the CPCE said that the increasing cultural diversity of Europe presented new social and political challenges. The Council of Europe’s white paper was agreed last month by the 47-member Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg. The paper stated that intercultural dialogue had an ‘important role’ to play in the fostering of a European identity by helping to ‘prevent ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural divides’, and by enabling Europe to ‘move forward together, to deal with our different identities constructively and democratically on the basis of shared universal values’. The white paper went on to stress the important contribution that religious communities could make to ‘an increased understanding between different cultures’ through engaging in inter-religious dialogue.”
This subject suggested helpfully for prayer by the UK Prayer Alert [andy@prayer-alert.ccsend.com], raises several important issues for European intercessors.
The first is the question of social and religious pluralism that is central to the EU project. Some Christians have real problems with this idea, and yet the only alternative seems to be forcing a Christian world view on everybody by law, and if necessary backing it up militarily. But it seems to us that freedom of ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural expression is good, and comes within the terms of 1Peter 2:15 “For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men. Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God. Honour all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honour the king.” If such freedom as this is God’s will, then it seems right that we should work for a political framework that allows for all to be free, to be honoured and to associate and worship freely.
The second question is the subject of Christian unity, as the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe is associated with the World Council of Churches that some evangelical, charismatic and pentecostal Christians have considered to be nominal, political or worse! Let’s thank God for, recognise and pray for all expressions of the body of Christ that recognise the trinitarian God and salvation through the incarnation, cross and resurrection, as revealed in the scriptures. Let’s ask for grace to see past and as far as possible ignore the often strange and confusing structures, beliefs and behaviour patterns that have limited and divided us.
MANY, MANY THANKS FOR YOUR ONGOING INVOLVEMENT IN THIS WATCH,
