By Chris Ledger, LLM and Gill Beard
THREE years ago, our vicar at Greyfriars Church, Jonathan Wilmot, suggested drawing together a group of like-minded people to pray about development of a healing ministry. Six of us began to meet monthly to seek God’s heart for His vision. Over 18 months we came up with a lot of bright ideas but as we learned to listen to God we kept hearing ‘Wait – now is not the time.’
In the meantime we became more passionate to reach the people of Reading with Jesus’ healing love, challenged by these verses: ‘Go into all the world . . . and these signs will accompany those who believe . . . they will place their hands on sick people and they will get well.’ (Mark 15,18)
Just before Christmas 2006 God spoke to us, saying ‘it’s time to get your feet wet’. So a small team of somewhat nervous individuals took a step into the unknown, and the Prayer Café (PC) was born.
We set up a ‘prayer tent’ outside the church, filled our church room with mince pies and coffee, put on our hats, gloves and scarves and went onto the street to invite the passers-by inside for physical and spiritual refreshment. We were overwhelmed with God’s goodness and power; people flooded in and we saw our vision of God pouring out his healing love come to fruition as we came alongside people, listening to their stories, praying with them.
Since then our team has grown, with over 300 people from Greyfriars, and from 11 other churches, involved,whether making cakes, being Prayer Partners, or being involved on the day when we have a team of between 50-60 people (and even then they are often stretched to our limit).
We thank God for the answers to prayer as we share Jesus’ love with all the nations, faiths and facets of our hurting society. Some people in the street are now saying, ‘Thank you. Prayer works’. At our last PC one man became a Christian and a woman said she was healed of thyroid cancer having received prayer with us a couple of months ago.
About 20-30 of us pray before a PC, and God gives us many pictures and words for our guests who visit. We have seen people moved to tears as we have shared these. It’s God’s work, not ours. After the PC we have a mopping up session where our teams share their experiences, and it is so exciting to hear what God has been doing amongst the people of Reading.
A sister to Prayer Café has been born this year – Prayer Stop (PS) which operates monthly in the week for three hours. It is a much smaller, quieter event inviting people in for prayer in individual prayer booths.
In the first three months of 2008 through the ministry of PC and PS we have prayed with about 200 people (mostly non-church) and have been requested to pray for another 60+. We are developing the ministry all the time, humbly wanting to bring His vision into ‘being’ - to bless and heal the people of Reading:
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