Friday 27th November

Friday morning prayer meeting at 7.30am
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2834792744?pwd=eGdSc3A5UGZzUytwZXgxY0pXUDRVUT09
Meeting ID: 283 479 2744
Passcode: PRAYNOW

Friday evening prayer meeting at 7pm
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9765963584?pwd=alBvT2RzWm9DTDlJUVhCRk1QWFV5dz09
Meeting ID: 976 596 3584
Passcode: PRAYNOW

For our final day of Prayer and Fasting in 2020, we’ve updated the as a helpful prompt for you to use to pray.
Click here to view or download the Daily Office Guide for 2020.

We’ll also send out three short prayers by text message at various points in the day.

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Here’s a short video from Stevie explaining about our commitment to prayer and fasting:

Fast…. forward

At a time when so many of our “freedoms” are seemingly being taken away, it might feel a bit counter-intuitive that the leadership team are asking the body of Christ here at Kings to combine our prayers with some times of fasting! And we are!

Traditionally, this would involve the foregoing of a meal (or meals) but a similar experience is possible with the giving up of say sugar, caffeine or whatever thing in your life might leave a sufficient gap for God and His Word to fill. The thing that we give up speaks to the need we have, not of the thing per se, but of Jesus in our lives – to nourish and provide for us. Perhaps this is most powerfully experienced in the foregoing of food, as we experience hunger and come to realise that Jesus is indeed the bread of life, just as He said he was.

As we experience our deep need, we come to realise just how weak we are – in fasting there comes a sense of humility. Not primarily that we understand we are base creatures, but we catch a glimpse of the majesty and awesomeness of God. He is God in heaven, sustaining the universe by his Word, and here we are on Earth, wondering when we can eat again?

As Jesus fasted alone in the desert for 40 days and nights, his only recourse was the Word of God. Although fully God (and fully man), Jesus knew the power of Scripture to defeat the temptations of the enemy, and it was in this time of fasting and temptation that the Word prevailed. Fasting drives us into the bible and thus a closer communion with God.

And for Jesus, this time in the wilderness of fasting prepared him to launch into His ministry.

There are other numerous examples in both the Old and New Testaments of the importance of fasting and the critical characters and moments where this took place. Consider Daniel, Esther and Ezra – even the Ninevites managed it. It was endemic in the early church as we read in Acts. Before that Jesus used the injunction, “When” you fast, not “if”. So there is clear precedent in practising fasting alongside prayer and evidence of its efficacy as we read how these stories turned out!

However, the central thing in these instances is not an attempt to manipulate God, but it is an aligning, a seeking after and a wrestling in body and spirit to see Him move in the world around us, and to move in us. Deeply, Transformatively. Ezra put it this way: “To seek of him a right way for us and for our little ones”

As we look ahead together for the next chapter in the life of Kings Church, can we commit to humble ourselves through prayer and fasting? Will we deny ourselves (even for a time) to hear his will for us more clearly than ever and to allow ourselves to be changed?

If his power is made perfect in our weakness, will we submit ourselves to his tender care and his still, small voice? Fasting alongside praying helps us posture ourselves so this can happen, and the next opportunity for us to do this is on Friday 30th October. We have designated this as a day of prayer and fasting and that evening, we will come together via zoom at 7pm to share what God is speaking to us and what we think He might want to do among us and through us. It would also be a chance to give glory to Him for the breakthroughs we have heard and seen! Let’s fast, to move forward. With Him.