NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE week beginning Sunday 23rd September 2007
‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)
WELCOME TO THE NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE
Thank you for your excellent responses to last week’s watch. We will first of all pray into an excerpt from the word Martin Scott put out this week (full text from martin@3generations.eu) and then pray into some of your responses, praying again for Turkey. If any of you have sent responses and not heard back, please accept our apologies, we will try and do better than ever over the coming weeks, so keep them coming!
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 at admin@passion.org.uk
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. This Nightwatch began in November 2003 and we are looking to carry on for another year and two months, 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 23rd SEPTEMBER 2007
Once again this week we will pray into the prayer and worship initiative in Trier that is taking place from September 5th- 13th.
This initiative has been put together by Rusty and Janet Richards of PrayBig. Rusty’s details are available from rustyjanet@earthlink.net
1. WE BEGIN BY PRAYING INTO THE FOLLOWING ADAPTATION OF A WORD FROM MARTIN SCOTT (20 minutes)
“We are now experiencing a major new opportunity for a shift forward.
These past months indicate that the door is open to be touched by heaven at a new level. Signs of God's presence have been so strong and at the same time the desire to be sown into all of creation has increased. This can only be good news. Perhaps this is the experience of the minority but the minority is usually where the signs take place.
Signs in themselves are very important - they point to the reality so give us sight, and they draw the reality of what they point to the earth, so open up the door of experience for us. This 'going higher' and 'going deeper' has been wrongly separated. The early disciples knew how to access heaven and how to care for the marginalised. This move of God began as an ecstatic type of move but with earthly manifestations.
Two moves of God: 1906 and 1994
Six years into the 20th century there was a major move of God that took years to really see the effect of its impact; six years before the end of the century there was another major outpouring - we still are waiting to see the impact of this one in its fullness. Jesus spoke in this latter move that he 'was asking for his church back'; asking for it back so that he can sow it into the field of the world for the sake of harvest (Matt. 13; parable of wheat / weeds). We are now being planted into an environment where Islam as a political faith and the New Age as an alternative spirituality are challenging our faith (a faith which has major political implications, hence Paul's passion to see Caesar, and carries a spiritual dynamic of new birth and all the unpredictabilities that accompany that rebirth). This new context is both uncomfortable and yet vital for us. If we do not deal with the Christendom/Imperial paradigm we will be of the same spirit as Islam, which looks for an Islamic nation.”
2. LAST WEEK WE PRAYED ON THE BACK OF THE WORK DONE IN TRIER TO DEAL WITH SOME OF NEGATIVE POWERS BEHIND CHURCH AND STATE IN EUROPE. LET’S PRAY INTO THE OLLOWING RESPONSE (20 MINUTES)
Last week repented again for all desire to rule over or dominate others in our own hearts, church expressions, towns, cities, nations and continent and prayed for this Nightwatch and all the church of God to be an intercessory stronghold against empire together with all sons and daughters of peace across Europe
“I found the words ‘rule over’ and ‘dominate’ led me to believe that perhaps I didn't have these problems in my heart. These words have somewhat ‘extreme’ connotations in my mind at least. But as I went down the list and hit ‘towns’ and reflected on my own town's project to install video surveillance camera's I found, perhaps, a different expression of the same spirit that more easily applied to my own heart (unfortunately). It struck me that in my town there is a tourism image that they like to promote and preserve. With ‘image’ as their goal/focus (god), naturally that which could tarnish their image, they want to eliminate. So, instead of having a heart to serve (especially the youth and the disenfranchised...who are more likely to be engaged in crime) as motivation number 1 and letting the Lord worry about ‘image’, they work at ‘controlling’ that which could tarnish their image.
Then I realized that I have a HUGE problem, personally, with that. Then I could see that with my spouse or my children, a dictatorial side emerges all too easily when ‘image’ is in jeopardy. Image is really another name for ‘identity.’ In Babel, they were seeking to create an identity for themselves. When we seek to protect our image, we seek to create our own identity. At that point we have to expend enormous amounts of energy and resources to preserve that identity. Of course, the original design of the Lord is that our identity originates with God before the foundation of the earth and is passed down initially through our earthly parents. In our western culture, we've so rarely gotten that right that constructing our own identity instead of seeking it from the Lord is seen as normal and natural. Once we are the CREATOR of our own identity however, we must be the GOD of ourselves to protect our CREATION. Then we easily ‘lord it over’ people for all sorts of secondary
reasons/motivations on the surface (‘proper behaviour’, etc.), but down deep, we (I) have a problem in that I'm trying to preserve and protect my own identity instead of realizing that I have died and my life is hidden with Christ in God."
3. LAST WEEK WE PRAYED INTO THE SITUATION OF TURKEY AT THE GATEWAY OF EUROPE AND ASIA. PLEASE PRAY OVER THE FOLLOWING RESPONSES FROM FRANCE (20 minutes)
“You ask for feedback about Turkey. I would like to point out Nicolas Sarkozy's thinking on this which is strongly influences by Judaism and Christianity (his advisors include rabbis and bishops). He is against Turkey being integrated into Europe. Yes, it is a gate, but 90% of its territory is in Asia, and Europe has to stop somewhere. On the other hand Sarkozy does suggest the formation of a Mediterranean Union, which seems very interesting to me for lots of reasons, especially economic, historical and spiritual reasons. To link Christian Muslim and Jewish countries into the same dynamic makes sense whether towards peace or economic development. So for my part, I am praying this way.” (10 minutes)
“My opinion is that Turkey is a gateway of monumental proportions. I think it is not a coincidence that that 7 churches of Revelation are found there. The last specific word that Jesus gives to the Body of Christ is given to that gateway region...and by all appearances; it was not heeded by those 7 expressions of the Body of Christ in Turkey … I think it is vitally important that the Church NOT be influenced by this or that political argument with respect to Turkey. Those speculations could go on forever. We must simply be obedient to the Lord when He says it's time to take our place at that gate and realize that we are laying down our lives when we do so.” (10 minutes)
