Revive’s Blog

REVIVE Mission 2009 : Day 1

‘Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for You are close beside me. Your rod and Your staff protect and comfort me’ (Psalm 23:4)

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Thank you all so much for your prayers – our faithful God has held us and met us by His power today. He has been stirring our hearts for a desire to see His Kingdom come in the town of Cymmer, and He’s been breaking our hearts for the lost and broken people around us.

We began the day by immediately worshipping God, celebrating His victory and declaring His majesty. It was an exciting time where we once again focused on the cross, and surrendered our all in response to His beautiful sacrifice. It helped us to point our gaze and focus our hearts on the reason for our ministry, which raised our hopes, expectations and excitement for the week!

During this team time Paul shared some challenging thoughts on a passage from Luke 5, when Jesus called His first disciples. He encouraged us to begin the week by capturing a deeper glimpse of God’s character, and allowing Him to impart to us a true revelation of Himself, before we step out and serve Him. Paul reminded us that revival must always begin in our hearts, so we can truly know and follow God’s heart for a particular mission field. We need to be walking alongside God, hearing His voice, following His footsteps and discerning His Spirit. Please pray that this will be a constant process…. and that we would never begin to raise our voices so loudly that we can’t hear His.

Kids club was amazing! We had an hour of games, craft, a talk and general mayhem! They listened well to the talk by Jon and Esther (all about the authority of Jesus) and some good conversations developed afterwards. It was so encouraging to hear young children ask, ‘Will Jesus really forgive me if I say sorry for the things I’ve done?’, knowing that they’ve lived lives of brokenness, sin and complete rejection of God. (After a moment of silence, this young guy followed by saying: ‘I’ve just said sorry to Him’.) Please pray that God will be continuing to demonstrate His incredible love and grace to these children, and that they would gain a deeper understanding of the mercy that is available to them if they choose to accept Jesus.

Our youth club took place later in the evening, which went really well. Dave did a talk on the authority, judgement and mercy of Jesus, which deeply engaged a number of the young people, and provoked several conversations with team members. It excites us to see the way the young people are beginning to hear and understand foundational truths about Jesus and His authoritative, yet compassionate heart for them. Also, some members of the team went out and prayer-walked around the area, and returned with really positive feedback – there was a particularly peaceful spiritual atmosphere around the town tonight, which is very unusual for Cymmer, as there is so often a strong sense of darkness and hostility. Praise God for an incredible answer to prayer! …… ‘If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday’. (Isaiah 58:10)

Throughout both sessions, we also had ‘detached teams’ going out on the streets to pray and seek God’s direction for ministry in the town. Some teams gave out flyers, others covered the streets with intercessory prayer, others knocked on doors to invite local residents to Church, and others were even led into pubs and engaged with some desperately hopeless people who poured out their hearts to them.

We’re thoroughly excited and encouraged by the sense of openness and vulnerability that we encountered this evening – please pray for an increase of this, and for God to break down more of Satan’s strongholds on these lives. Please also pray that we, as a team and as individual servants of Christ, would be continuing to learn to listen to our Father’s voice above all, to desire His presence above all, and to obediently walk in His perfect will for Cymmer.

Thank you!

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