NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE: week beginning Sunday October 22nd 2006
‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)
WELCOME TO THE NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE
First of all a final reminder that last week we noted that the Midnight Watch properly begins at 9:00pm and goes to the middle of the night, specifically, 12 o'clock. So strictly speaking the Night watch is from 9pm until 6am. So from now on, we are aiming to find an hour to watch each week between 9pm and 6am. Thanks for the positive feedback on this!
Steve Lowton and a small team of intercessors now have only three weeks left of their continuing walk from Athens to Istanbul, as they roll back the empire spirit through prayer and prophetic action. As most of us are aware, they began last year from Whitby in the North East of England to Rome, following the route along which much of the invasion of the empire spirit into the European Church and continent spread. They are taking 40 days for this walk, and we are asking the Holy Spirit to shape our watch to follow their initiative during this time.
The second of Steve’s reports is now available and many of you will have received it. This week we will use some of the points raised in this second report. We will also pray into the outcome of last week’s Connect Europe gathering in Istanbul, and finally for the ongoing work of realignment, reconciliation and healing in the nations of the islands of Britain and Ireland.
Although the night watch prayer and training event (for the weekend of Jan 19th - 21st 2007 at Ashburnham, Sussex, UK) is now booked up, there has been some ongoing interest in this and so we have extended the number of places to make room. If anyone else would like to come, please contact us immediately. Thank you for those who have let us know your interest in a follow up event, possibly in Brussels later in 2007. Let us know your thoughts please. The purpose of these events is to do a weekend-long watch and to provide training for each other so that we can take the watch deeper and further. For this reason we are keeping the events quite small at around thirty or forty people.
If you know of anyone who would also like to receive this night watch prayer bulletin each week, they can subscribe by going to www.passion.org.uk/announcemail and submitting their details on the web form. Alternatively they can email us.
IF YOU ARE A REGULAR YOU CAN SKIP THE NEXT 2 PARAGRAPHS
If you are receiving this material unexpectedly it is because someone has suggested that you may be interested to join in. If you do not want to keep receiving it please inform us immediately and we will stop sending it to you. We want to let those of you who are newcomers know that we are very pleased to have your partnership in this watch. We are simply asking for a commitment of an hour a week some time between 9pm and 6am whatever time zone you are in.
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. We are looking to carry on for another two years, while realising that some can’t commit right now for as long as that. We are pleased for you to enlist for as long as you can. If you have to miss an occasional watch it’s OK as the rest of us will carry it. A six-month commitment is probably a good start.
THE CONTENT OF THE WATCH FOR THE WEEK BEGINNING SUNDAY OCTOBER 22nd 2006
1. TAKE 25 MINUTES TO READ, REFLECT, PRAY AND GIVE THANKS OVER THESE EXCERPTS FROM STEVE LOWTON’S LATEST REPORT
“As we have walked across Europe these last months there have now been four times when severe weather patterns have seemed to mark out our journey, as if the groan of creation is be giving voice, with the heavens responding in turn. At no point, so far, has there been loss of life. When we left Whitby in August last Year, and Rome in March of this year, we had little idea of the untraceable paths of the Lord we were seeking to track with. Yet here we find ourselves in Autumn 2006, positioned between the gates of Christendom (Rome), and the gates of Islam (Istanbul), surrounded by major disturbance in the cradle of western civilisation that is Greece. Standing in this place we refuse to be squeezed by all that would steam roller us down demonic paths that call afresh for blood across Europe and beyond. Rather, we declare that there is space in the gates for something new to open up; that there can be a shift in the mindset and spiritual atmosphere over Europe that calls through the breaking of the dawn and the wild ways of the Spirit. I now carry two photos with me that I value beyond all others. One is of the setting sun through the Colosseum in Rome, setting over the Roman ways and all that we walked for leading up to the 21st December, 2005. I can now add a photo of lightening over the Parthenon, declaring to me that there is space for a major shift between all that is squeezing Europe at this time. The cradle of western culture is being shaken!!”
Declare with Steve and the walkers that there is space in the gates for something new to open up. That there can be a shift in the mindset and spiritual atmosphere over Europe; that a resurrection of the church that truly stewards the kingdom of God for the world will be seen in our days. (15 minutes)
(b) Steve offers the following important comments about prayer walking:
“The wonderful thing about prayer walking is that our declarations have not been cheap. We do not fly in to cast a few prayers about then beat a hasty retreat. No! Rather we sow our lives into the birth canal of the purposes of the Lord, matching our words with every mile walked. Behind the sweat and blisters line up a whole other range of choices, as to how our time, finances and families are positioned to enable us to flow with all the untraceable pathways of the Lord.”
Pray for any prayer walkers known to you using the points he makes. (5 minutes)
(c) The next team will fly out on Saturday 21st Oct, to pick up the baton and take the walk through to the border with Turkey. Steve will not be on this team as he needs to be at home. His friend Andy will lead it, with four others joining him; Val, Andrea, Debbie and Steve.
Pray for Steve at home in Leeds and for the new team as they move forward to the Turkish border. (5 minutes)
2. TAKE 15 MINUTES TO PRAY INTO THE OUTCOME OF LAST WEEK’S CONNECT EUROPE GATHERING IN ISTANBUL
Marc van der Woude [info@connecteurope.org] writes:
“As a team we sense that Istanbul 2006 was our last Connect Europe gathering in this format. Over the past two years we've provided 'vital space' for reformation-wired people across the continent to build friendship and learn from each other. Now it's time to move on in a different mode. It's like the drummer in the Sigur Ros movie - there was a time to beat the drum and mobilise the tribes, but now it's time to cast the drum aside, run uphill and jump off the cliff. If we're not careful, the good can become the enemy of the best.
So will Connect continue? Yes, but in a different mode. We're moving towards a more intentional (dispersed) community, see the need to invest ourselves in our regions and professional fields, and believe it's time to see apostolic teams Luke 10-style visiting places and breaking open new ground for the gospel. Yes, it's time to leave our safety-zones and live more dangerously.
It's clear that Istanbul was a stepping stone into the Middle East and Asia and through the meetings in Australia and Malaysia God is moving Connect even globally. But in all this the time to talk paradigms is over, it's time to live it.”
3. TAKE 20 MINUTES AND PRAY FOR THE ONGOING WORK OF RECONCILIATION IN THE ISLANDS OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND
(i) Thank God and pray for the extraordinary outcome of the St. Andrews talks about power sharing in Northern Ireland. Give thanks and pray especially for the real possibility that Ian Paisley (for forty years representing the extreme end of the protestant faction) and Martin McInnes (previously an acknowledged senior leader of the Irish republican army) may be first and second ministers from March 2007. Thank God that the Republican leader Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley both said that they were prepared to make this massive step for the sake of the coming generation. (5minutes)
(ii) Thank God for the courage on intercessors like Harry Smith whose book about the need to repudiate false covenants in Ireland has uncovered, and is shifting demonic powers. (5 minutes)
(iii) Pray for the ongoing work of the reconciliation coalition in Britain and Ireland. Pray especially for the initiative that is now beginning to pray and research into the acts of union between England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Pray for the wrong alignments and injustices to be uncovered and that the Lord will show what needs to be done in repentance so that the right unity that God wants will be established. Pray for other nations that have divided people groups, to learn from and/or contribute to what is happening. (10 minutes)
