PRAYER F CUS Spring 2015
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PRAYER F CUS Spring 2015 100th Church Anniversary—Corringham—October 2014 Information from Member Churches of the Union of Evangelical Churches with suggested items for prayer WELCOME FROM THE CHAIRMAN Brian Wood It was in 1906 that previously independent Churches joined together by means of a Deed Poll. The effect was in the words of the modern song to, “Bind us together with cords that cannot be broken”. There was a name change to the Union of Evangelical Churches in 1956 and a change of legal entity to a Charitable Company in 2008. In the spirit of togetherness we share the sadness of our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ over the decisions reported elsewhere in this Prayer Focus to close the Rayleigh and Shoebury Churches due to numbers attending dropping to unsustainable levels. Now is not the time or the place to address the questions that arise at times like this, but I assure you that the Ministerial and Finance Committees will continue to discharge their responsibility on behalf of the Board of the UEC to seek the Lord’s will for the future of these premises that have a special place in the hearts of so many. We do not under-estimate the challenge, and, mindful of the spiritual nature of our task, invite your prayer support. As members of the UEC and with 2 Kings chapter 6 in mind the burden of our prayers for each other should be, “open our eyes,” so enabling us to be available to pray, ”open their eyes,” on behalf of those amongst whom we are called and privileged to minister. We are encouraged by recent efforts to re-introduce cooperation between our youth groups and I have included pictures from their recent games, worship and gospel event attended by around 50 in all. Read all about it on page 18. Our thanks to Clarence Road Baptist Church for the use of their premises. - 2 - CAMBERWELL Fred Hintze Greetings to our sister Churches in the UEC. Every Easter for more than 40 years we have held a week-long evangelistic event called “Holiday Special”, through which we reach out to the children and young people of our area with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is usually very well-attended with more than 100 children in attendance each day. God-willing this year Holiday Special will run from Easter Monday (6th April) to Friday 10th April—we give God thanks for the wonderful opportunity this affords to us to share the love of God through the preaching of the Cross. Please pray that many children will come, have fun, be kept safe and most importantly be brought to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. ‘Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”’ Matthew 19:14 The following UEC Churches are on Facebook—follow them to keep up-to- date with their latest news, and let the UEC Office know if your Church is on Facebook and isn’t on this list. Cliff Walk Evangelical Church (Canning Town) Corringham Evangelical Church Daws Heath Evangelical Church Southend Evangelical Church Stanway Evangelical Church Wickford Evangelical Church Search on Facebook to find these Churches or go to www.facebook.com/ UECUK and click on the links on the left-hand side. - 3 - CANNING TOWN Jonathan Findlay Praise: A few weeks ago we held a truly amazing baptismal service where 10 people were baptised. It was an awesome experience; For God’s faithfulness to us as a fellowship. Prayer: Our focus this year is on spiritual maturity; For the Lord’s people to grow in Christ; For love to be the distinctive mark of the Church; For the outreach of our evangelistic events ; For the salvation of souls; For the discipleship of new converts; For the CWRevival Youth work and J4k (= Jesus for Kids). Thank you for your prayers God Bless - 4 - CHELMSFORD Mark Parrott The LORD has been good to us as a fellowship over the Autumn and Winter months. We continue to enjoy a strong sense of fellowship and unity. We have had a number of encouragements in recent months, namely: The opening up of our premises for use as an emergency night shelter for rough sleepers in Chelmsford during the winter months (some of the men have taken little pocket New Testament & Psalms, which have been left out for them); The prospect of housing Chelmsford Foodbank for two mornings a week. Pray that this will come to fruition and that we can feed the hungry as well as house the homeless; We have had a breakthrough in our ‘street witness’ recently with one man now attending services, having been challenged on the streets with the Gospel. On a personal level, I was blessed and challenged by my trip to the USA back in Pastor Daniel Schutte and Pastor Saroj Hial (from India) - 5 - October. I participated in all ministry events in the church in downtown Grand Rapids, to which I had been invited (you can see me in action in preaching and evangelism on YouTube – see http://bit.ly/186LUEX and http://bit.ly/186LUEX). Also, since returning from the States I started a new ministry, working part-time alongside my wife Ruth in the Pastoral Centre at Mulberry House. This has led to me attending three key meetings in the House of Commons, representing The Nationwide Christian Trust on ‘The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation’, ‘The Persecution of Christians’ and ‘British values’ respectively. If anyone would like a detailed report of those meetings let me know ([email protected]) and I can e-mail you a copy. We are continuing our monthly apologetics course, Contenders, which we share with friends from Wickford. Just to flag up one of those sessions which is topical and may be of interest to some. On June 28th we have the visit of Muslim Evangelist, Jay Smith, who will be speaking on the subject: ‘How to share the Gospel with Muslims.’ Pray for this event and for our own outreach to Muslim friends and neighbours. The saints in Inner City Church Planting Mission, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA - 6 - CORRINGHAM June White ‘Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; his love endures for ever.’ Psalm 106: 1 We praise the Lord for: Over the weekend of 17th-19th October 2014 we celebrated 100 years of worship at our present building in Fobbing Road. On the Friday evening we enjoyed an evening of Tricks & Laughs from a Christian entertainer (Steve Legg). This was held at the local Junior School and used as an outreach to invite family and friends. At the church on Saturday afternoon there was an exhibition of photos etc. showing events that had happened over previous years. Brian Edwards, former President of the FIEC, spoke at the evening meeting. Sunday services were taken by Ray Thurgood who had previously been a Minister of the Church. The evening service was a celebration in the original style of the Peculiar People, singing at least one hymn sung at the first meeting in 1914. This was preceded with a traditional tea meeting. We trust that those who were able to join us at any of these meetings received a blessing. Congratulations to Dave and Rachel on the birth of their second daughter Elsie in December. Please pray for: Our Ministers, Richard and Jeremy Partridge who both have health problems at the present time. Future outreach over the coming months. - 7 - CRESSING Dennis Ivey As we reflect on the events since the previous Prayer Focus, we thank God that many of the Church events have had a positive input into the life of the village. This year the Christmas Tree Festival saw an increase in the numbers that attended. We continue the Work Place Chaplaincy at Freeport and the new chaplaincy work at Amtek in Witham is now under way, with many new contacts and a clear need among the workforce. The Schools work has increased to three primary schools which are visited on a regular basis for assemblies and less formal contact. Our monthly Café Church is still well attended and attracts those on the fringe. We have been encouraged by some of those attending on a semi-regular basis. The partnership with Cressing Events Group is working well with 50 plus attending the monthly lunch. Some of the volunteers from this group support Church events. We continue to try - not always successfully - to think outside of the box with new ideas. For example, by the end of February we will have hosted our ‘Late, Late Burns Night’ complete with haggis and Scottish dancing! In the summer we look forward to hosting the archery event with Wickford EC, - 8 - and hope to win the trophy this time! We are blessed that since the previous Prayer Focus our numbers have increased, including three musicians. The Church fellowship now includes folk from Spain, South Africa and Sri Lanka. By the time this Prayer Focus reaches you, we will have welcomed several of our regular attenders into membership and this summer be holding a baptismal service. The age range among the fellowship is from three to 89, but sadly there is an under-representation of the younger age group. This makes it very difficult for us to restart the youth work and increase the Sunday Club numbers. Please pray for those who are suffering from the ravages of time. For the safety of those who travel from distant villages to be with us.