As the Coordinator of our prayer ministry at Centenary Lakes this year, my goal has been to encourage and increase prayer within the church community.

Prayer is often a behind the scenes ministry and so we can not know the extent of the commitment and zeal of some to pray, and the impact that your prayer life has had and will have.

I want to acknowledge you and thank you for your faithfulness.I also want to mention those who have had great intentions to pray faithfully this year but have fallen short. Don’t beat yourselves up. God knows your heart. And remember prayer is not about obligation, it’s about relationship.

Particular highlights for me during the course of this year have been -

• The enthusiasm and willingness of people to commit to pray for our church, our leaders, our ministries and our missionaries on one day each month throughout the year.
• Ten days of focussed prayer at the church leading up to Pentecost.
• The power of the Holy Spirit evident on Pentecost Sunday itself.
• The Women’s Prayer Retreat in August where women shared their faith journeys, encouraged each other and were spiritually fed.
• 21 days of fasting for the children and children’s ministry.
• Committed prayer warriors who pray before, during and after church.
• The establishment of ‘The Meeting Place’, an opportunity to meet with God at the church during the week.

• Homes being opened during the week to focus on intercessory prayer for the nations.

Let us be people of prayer – people who pray for our church community, for our city, for the nations and who open our hearts to hear God’s voice to direct our lives.

Angela Harding

People are God’s method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better people. What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but people who the Holy Spirit can use—people of prayer, people mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery but on people. He does not anoint plans, but people—people of prayer.” E. M. Bounds