The Catcracker.

Hey.

Inspired by reading Neil Cole's 'Organic church' a few people from our community have been looking around for a pub. The idea is to pick a pub and visit it regularly, drink there, chat to the other locals and get to know the staff.

So we'd kind of got a bit stuck and things weren't really moving, until....

Ricky turns up and says 'I've been hanging out at the Catcracker and guess what?' It turns out God's been having private meetings with the landlord and although he can't come to church because he has to be in the pub on Sunday mornings, he's happy for us to take church to him!

So he gives us the use of the function room and says do what you want. We're planning a three night event, taking; acoustic worship, prayer, testimony, the gospel and the Holy Spirit into this great pub with a slightly dodge rep.

The landlord can't do enough to help us and as we've started to frequent the place and introduce our friends to it he offers pool lessons to our Northern Irish transiteer and we begin to see how once again the simple things can make a huge difference.

Now for some background:

We spent some time praying about this whole thing after our house meal on Tuesday night and a certain person recalled a few things from back in the day when the pub first opened.

The Catcracker is not just a weird name, it is in fact slang for a piece of machinery used at the oil refinery down the road. The Catalytic cracker, heats the crude oil allowing it to be split off in purer forms and then sent out to be used for all the things oil is used for.

Our friendly pub it is believed was also birthed in celebration. When the first landlord's daughter married some famous pop star the whole town turned out to celebrate and the Catcracker was the centre of the revelries.

How exciting is it that we have an open door into a pub birthed in celebration with a name derived from a machine for purification.

Watch this space for updates of what God is doing in the Catcracker, Stanford-Le-Hope.

In the mean time please join us in praying about this fabulous opportunity.

The White Lion of Judah

So last week was our first 'learning week', where we cancelled a couple of boiler room meals to make space to get together and spend some time studying in twos and threes.

After careful planning (a couple of emails), Simeon and I had decided to tackle John's gospel and promised to read the first two chapers. For a venue, we decided that the White Lion in Fobbing ought to be pretty quiet on a Tuesday evening (we were almost right). Simeon had a discrete NT and notebook, whereas I strolled in with my study bible and IVP complete bible commentary. Not sure what the landlord thought, but he served us anyway and we found a nice quiet table in a corner.

I don't know if it was the preparation, the environment, or the real ale and scrumpy, but somehow it worked. I can safely say this was the best conversation on the nature of the incarnation, the supremacy of Jesus over everything else, and what it really means to 'know' Christ and one another, that I have ever had in a pub on a Tuesday evening. In the car coming back we prayed that we would come to 'know' each other as a community. Scary, but we decided that the idea of looking back on life and realising that we had never dared go there was scarier still.

Really looking forwards to the next study week (thanks, Sim). I'm just going to have to find a smaller commentary... I wonder can I get one via the internet on my phone?

Getting excited!

On Saturday we finally get to meet the 2009-10 24-7 Transit students in the flesh (rather than just by facebook, email, skype, text, and the gazillion other ways of communicating which are out there these days). So stand by to give a big 217 welcome to:

Angelique from Australia;
Sara from Sweden;
Shirelle from Texas;
Kike from Northern Ireland;
Joanna from England,
And Steve Lawton as host, minder, and local lad done good.

Saturday is going to be a brilliant day: food, serving and praying together, and new friends from all over the world. The fun starts at 10:30. C'mon!

Summer daze

Summer feels pretty relaxed at 217. The Transit students have left (well, except Gemma is still here... and Carla is around... and Angelique has been staying over for a few days prior to her 'official' arrival in September). We have had some down-time as a kind of 'sabbath'. We do so much during the year, and it's good to rest as intentionally as we serve and pray. The bus is having a holiday for a month too.

Lisa and co. have taken the opportunity to give the prayer room a makeover. It was looking a bit shabby, but now it is once again a creative and inviting space to pray. See photo for just a glimpse of one section; the 'rain down' corner. This was done by the year 7 posse of Holly and Ruth!

One of the meals got replaced by an afternoon cream teas and scones bake-and-eat time. Awesome! It was great to see people who can't usually make the evening meal times there.

Lots of plans coming together for September. The Transit house is being prepared for the arrival of 6 new students (there is a another gardening morning on Saturday 22nd if you can make it - contact Jon Biddle for details). So much blog and facebook traffic is flying around that we feel like we know each other already! Plans for a more strategic approach to 'learning' are well in hand (again, Simeon seems to have managed to pull this together from Kosovo and various road stops in Europe; the wonders of modern communication!). If you want to find a 'study buddy' but haven't been paired up yet, let us know.

Take time to pray during the few short weeks of summer that we have left. If we lose our focus on Jesus, or cease to be 'centred' in his presence, everything else means nothing. We want our emerging 'rhythm of life' to be something that keeps us focussed more fully and deeply on Jesus, not something that acts as a substitute!

Summer Prayer Plan!

A group of us just went to the Staff Day in Guilford. It was a beautiful day to gather and worship, tell stories, encourage, and pray for healing, financial needs, and thanksgiving. It reminded me yet again the strength that come from putting a call out to a community to lift up the needs for each other. So i thought I would whack out a list of some of the immediate needs this community is faced with and ask you to please join us in lifting them up too. If there is other stuff that i have forgotten feel free to list it in the comments. 

"My dear children, let's not just talk about love let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shutdown debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us then we do ourselves." 1 John 3

1. The Call of our community to Step Out;

  A. Pray for the vision of adopting a local Cafe in the community and encouraging it to be used as a ministry to build relationships.

 B. Pray for the vision to adopt a local pub. there is call on this community to beginning reaching out to the 20-30 year olds. stepping out to places that they naturally gather is one of the important ways that this can be done. pray for the new 20-30 year old that have begun to hear the call of God in their lives that they would catch the passion for reaching out to their peers.

2. The New Transit Team: We have a new group of eager souls coming to draw into the will of God with this community. As of now, there are 5 transit students signed up. Pray for the 5 transit students, that this summer would be one of preparing them for coming to this community and that God would begin to move their hearts desires to be those that He has inspired this community to chase after. 

3. New Leaders of Transit: Jon Biddle has official agreed to be the liaison between the Transit Team and the Big Wigs of 24-7 Prayer. Steve Lawton has committed to be the Host of this next years Transit Team. Please pray for them as they take on added responsibility this coming up year. Pray that they would have wisdom in leading next year transit, that they would be inspired to dream bigger and more creativity for the team, and that they would build relationships with Christ in the Center of them.

4. Pray for 217 During the month of July as they take a two week break to rest. Pray that the community would really be freshened by the Holy Spirit and that a new zeal of energy would spur them on into the next season.

5. Pray for the community to never settle but to keep pushing into worshiping God in new and radical ways. 

  A. Starting a Movie Night

  B. Starting more Structured Learning Nights

  C. New people to be inspired to pray, to teach, to lead!!!!

6. Pray that the dream of being a sending community really falls heavy on the hearts of this community. That people would be inspired to be leaders and pioneers of what they learn while being a part of the Christ centered community that exist at 217. That the community would not be afraid to have faith in the promises of God... "Blessed to be a Blessing" and stepping into the Great commission of "making disciples". 

7. Pray that God would really bless the leaders at the 217 Boiler House. It takes loads of responsibility to keep the 217 Boiler Room life running. The leaders sacrifice loads of time, finances, and personnel expectations to be make life at the Boiler House work. Pray blessing and protection for their families,  finances, time, dreams, and energy. 

so lets get cracking this summer and PRAY!

thanks loads!

Power of a Prayer Room

The life of the prayer room at 217 is buzzing. In the boiler house there is a dedicated room to prayer.  Creatively decorated, spaciously open, always inviting; it has ushered in a simple and radical space for building up our relationship with God. Today was a perfect example of how the prayer room at 217 is used to inspire prayer in so many different ways. starting at 7am individuals from our community can dedicated to pray for hour long shifts. from 7am to 9am we have two people from our community regularly booked in to prayer each for an hour. At 9am the transit team, along with the other members of the community that participate in our Monday teaching day, came in to open up their day in prayer and to keep the chain of praying flowing. Following their shift, two elderly women from the community dedicate an hour to prayer.

For the better part of the morning and afternoon the prayer room changes gears, as the Transit Team and the other involved in the Monday teaching, have their sessions in that room... and so the prayer continues. Following that today, a group of young people enjoyed a few relaxing hours of fellowship. Drinking teas, laughing through questions that self graded how much rejection controls your life, and skyping one of the members of the community that is serving for 3 months in Kosova....  we pray on. People moved in and out of the room and soon, the room vibe was transformed into a quiet haven for book lovers and a couple girls lounge reading their bibles and novels... praying still. slowly the stream of people moving in and out lessens and the relaxed vibe takes on a stronger hold as a few members of the community choose to relax and just soak in a very real and loving vibe that hugs the whole prayer room. Bags are moved about, laptops are plugged in and soon other member of the community are filling out job applications and checking e-mails and connecting with the cyber world... praying still. As the spirit of God lingers, a young and old women take time out to pray for each other and encourage each other on their journey with Christ. As night begins to fall a busy and buzzing prayer room marches onward as a group of faithful servants join together to give thanks to got for the amazing year they have had and to bless each other as our Community says good bye to their first ever Transit Team...

As the day wraps up, the prayer room in the Boiler House in Stanford- Le-Hope screams LIFE... all of what makes up life. the deep and meaningful moments, the short distracted, the laughter, the business, the facebooking, the mentoring, the learning, the worship, the resting, the skyping, the planning, the job seeking... all of it defines the lives of people within our community and also, is prayer when you choose to intentionally live a LIFE surrendered to Christ. And so with that, we ask our father to see our lives and we dedicate everything we do and every way we live to him. We cry out to God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus the Christ, to keep inspiring our community to 'pray with out ceasing'!

Transit Team Last Night at Bar N Bus!

So the transit team rocked up to the ever famous (Somerfield / in transition to Morrisions) car park. A normal car park, with normal people, making an anything from normal impression on the community they live in. It was a perfectly warm night and the kids seemed genuinely interested in our farewells and dreams for our next stages of life. Loads of questions were asked about why we came, why were were leaving, why we lived the way we did. It brought such a smile to my face to tie all three to our center Christ!

the night in and of itself was pretty non-eventful. Kids came on the bus getting teas and coffee and cold drinks, groups of girls stumbled in and out of the prayer room, relationships continued being built with the tribe of motorbike boys. Its in that moment, that we really see how God is just so saturated in the work that is going on in the streets of Corringham and Stanford. One of the afternoon sessions that we had this year in Transit covered the true meaning of poverty. We talked about how true poverty is not the lack of certain things, but the the absence of opportunity. That idea really resounded a call that many communities around the world are experiencing spiritual poverty and thus the lack of opportunities to meet God. As i took a step back and looked at the crowds of kids peppered through this car park and park, each interacting with staff from the bus in one form or another... i realized how we are bring wealth to this town in the riches of ways. In all the ways it matters most. 

As we wrapped up our last night, my heart over flowing with satisfaction with how the good work this year has been. i also felt such a deep longing to call out and encourage the workers that are staying on, and the ones to come, to be inspired. The work here in Corringham and Stanford is just beginning and the harvest is ready!! Ready yourself because God is showing up in a mighty way and getting involved in this work is fulfilling that part of the prayer the Christ taught us "Your kingdom come, Your will be done"! 

Boiler House day!

Today the transit teams spent the day at the Boiler house. It was a perfect way to end our last Boiler House day. We arrived at 9am for morning prayer and spent the better part of the hour talking about how we deal with conflict, relationships that are hard to deal with, and the best way to respond in love. Then we gave our whole conversation over to God and prayed into some of the kids lives we interact with on a regular bases. 

We then headed out to wait for our ride. Lisa one of the ladies in our community heads up praying for one of the local parks in our town on Tuesday. She comes over and collects us and we head over there for an hour. The day was absolutely brilliant. As we walked around this park that was completely bathed in a gorgeous summer sun, it just oozed change. We walked through the tunnel that normal is covered in vulgar language and negativity to see it freshly painted. We thanked God for the ways he is moving. We wound our way through the park, stopping to pray over abandoned bits of trees, to the still burned remains of play ground equipment, to the little wooden jungle gym.... just believing and reclaiming in the name of Jesus.

We headed back to the boiler house where we met up with another lady from our community named alisa. she gives one day a week to the boiler house. She was helping host this mother/toddler lunch so we just helped set up tables and food and drinks. I ended up sorting the art room, while Charl was able to have some really good conversations with some of the moms that really are not used to boiler house community. It was so cool to have part of our team in deep God conversation in the kitchen, some of us tiding the house and praying, and some of us serving by playing with the kids... it really reminded me of the body of christ and how when we give our day to him and choose to do all that we do in worship to our God and with an attitude of being kind to other... rocking up for Jesus isn't that hard!

While the day moved on at the boiler house, with mom chasing kids, people moving in and out of the prayer room, garbage being taken to the street... I was reminded how God calls his holy people to live out really radical lives by being completely normal... yet totally intentional. As i was leaving, a young couple named Ben and Beth that just this month have started getting involved in our boiler house rocked up with their dog jake and a car load of food for tonight house meal... i just shook my head and smiled because "choose for yourself this day who you will serve... as for me and my household, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD" never rang so loud and clear at a normal little house, on a normal little road, in a normal little town, in this normal little world!

Life this week!

The Boiler House has been stepping up to this "stepping idea" for this season. The core team had a meeting June 7th were we talked about really digging into this idea. We broke off into teams to talk about  starting up the idea of adopting a pub or a cafe and living out Christ centered relational lives in our community. Another group talked about the year with transit and the next coming up transit year to come. Over all it was an incredible encouraging meeting that show our community how we are supporting this idea and also pushed us to question in what ways we need to be stretched. 

Our community also really got behind the Prayer for Parliament this year. It kicked off Monday June 8th with a group from our community going into a prayer event that was held in the chapel in the House of Parliament. The serious presence of God and the importance of leadership played an intricate part in motivating our prayers for parliament. Tuesday the transit team and a few other members from out community headed in to prayer walk around parliament and spend the day engaging with a few different activities that included a bible study lead by Pete Greig and a prayer meeting in a very secure looking building! The rest of the week our community took on the responsibility of praying for parliament as we engaged with prayer space that was set up in our prayer room. Loads of prayers were written up on the wall praying for the local council, MPs, and national and foreign affairs.  

Loads of our community also got involved with an out reach event called Teen Challenge. A few area churches linked up to host an afternoon of reaching out to our community. The Bar N Bus team was invited to join in, a free BBQ was set up, space for a prayer area was made, and people came together to hear stories of addiction from the team challenge guys as well as be involved in worship. God really showed up on the day (or more we really brushed up against Gods will) and the prayer space turned out to be quite phenomenal. 

House meals this week have been breaking into some new territory. Monday night we prayed creatively for Muslim Christians by using some of their cultural identity to inspire us. The girls and the guys had a good time stepping into roles that men and women in that culture would have and it took everyone out of their comfort zone putting a different rhythm and spin and dress to prayer. Over all the house meals pushed us as a community to commit to each other, to encourage including people from all stages and walks of life, and to love as christ would. Hopefully they also are inspiring people to recognize the ease of including this type of mission into their normal lives.

more to come soon!

pictures!!

Getting OUT!

Update from August. So, though news on here has been sparse, that far from means that we as the Standford Boiler house have not been busy. A few quick updates to bring us up to speed from August. 

Transit joined us starting in September and have added an enthusiastic team of Four Girls to our community. Everyone joined into helping get Carla, Charl, Gemma, and Tina settled by providing furniture, love, and space in the community. Transit also provided a day of teaching,  that is held at the Boiler House, and the transit team was joined by 3 local guys (James, Jon, and Steve) from TCF church, as well as 4 other people from our community (Jon, Lois, Carolyn, Simeon). The transit girls also give a day to the Boiler House, where they have helped set up prayer rooms, serve community meals, plan community events, and helped with hospitality. They have gone on three pilgrimages this year to (Colchester, Wandsworth, and Ibiza) to learn from other Boiler House communities. The team also serves the youth with the Corringham Bar N Bus and having been inspired by that work and started street prayer walking on Friday nights; opening up their garage and offer to pray for the kids, as well teach them about prayer and tell bible stories.

In November 2008 the community in Standford was busy participating in a Week of Thanksgiving. During the week we encouraged thanksgiving to God, thanksgiving to each other, and thanksgiving to our community. It was held during the week of America's Thanksgiving day in honor of our American Transiteer. That week we participated in a prayer evening (thanks to God), planned destination dinners to host dinner in each others homes (thanks to each other), and baked cakes for people who serve our community  (thanks to our community).

Over Christmas we hosted various celebrations at the Boiler House and on New Years Eve members in Community went round each others home and prayed in the New Year. February we hosted our first 24-7 Prayer week of the year. Transit, with the creative inspiration from Lisa, helped set up the prayer room for that week complete with a dream corner, floor to ceiling rock (thanx to our N. Zealand friend Mel), amazing sculpted thinking head, an outdoor labyrinth,  and loads of other bits (we had a prayer tent, but due to random snow fall it did collapse... but for those who did see it, it was amazing). 

The Boiler House has also had the honor of having two individual from the community commit to giving a full day at the house. Alisa and Steve each take a day a week to spend at our Boiler House. During their day at the Boiler House they would serve our community by visiting various members in our community, offering prayer support, general hospitality, house tiding, and loads more support.

There has also been lots of encouragement from Monday and Tuesday House Meals. Wendy has done an amazing job running the corporate prayer and adding lots of variety to those evenings. The community has also decided to study through the book "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster and so spend every other Tuesday evening going through a chapter of that book. Thanks to the Core Team for taking the added responsibility of teaching those nights. 

The Boiler House has also hosted many visitors coming from Albania, N. Zealand, Sweden, and other various parts of England. We also have done loads of other bits such as mentoring, core team meetings, prayer walking, Besome projects, etc. 

This Spring we had an encouraging sending, as the Boiler House officially sent one of our own (Steve) out to Kosova to serve there for the next 3 months. It was an amazing time of stepping out as the Church and living in the promise of "God blessing us so that we can be a blessing to the nations". We also said good-bye to the other year out guys, Jon and James, as they begin their overseas-missions-part of their year out.

Off the Back of this, our community is stepping into a stage of "Getting Out". We are looking for different ways to take what we have learned over these last 7 months and take them out into the community we live in. Seeing God move in our community has been truly amazing and i look forward to sharing more of the stories with you!

Transit hits the road

Transit is coming the Thurrock! Not the white van (we've got plenty of those already), but the discipleship training course run by 24-7 prayer.

Three students plus a ‘host’ will be with us from 15th September to the end of June 09. They will live together in a shared (rented) house, and be learning and serving as part of the Boiler Room community and alongside local churches. Some of their activities will happen jointly with young people from Thurrock who have already committed to spend a ‘year out’ serving God this year. The Transit programme follows the practises and values of 24-7 Boiler Rooms:

Prayer: the team will pray together daily, have times of personal prayer at the boiler room, and also get involved in weeks of 24-7 prayer during the year.

Mission: the students will join the bar’n’bus team, and together with other volunteers we aim to expand to a second night with the bus parked in the Stanford area.

Learning: the team will studying through the Bible in a year, alongside our local ‘year out’ young people. There will be regular visiting speakers. They will also have a 2-3 day training block once a month on specific topics and a ‘retreat’ each term.

Creativity: individuals will have regular time set aside at the boiler room to explore creativity, and we will offer an inspiring and training session once a month.

Justice & Mercy: the team will give time to Thurrock Besom, which will enable Besom to take on more projects in the local community.

Hospitality: the students will act as ‘hosts’ at 217 at various times during the week. They will assist us in welcoming visitors and ‘pilgrims’ during the year.

Their programme will also involve living together as a community of believers, and taking time out to practise the spiritual discipline of Resting!

Last chance to go HOME

The annual 24-7 prayer gathering is a brilliant chance to meet people, share stories, and be encouraged and inspired by what God is doing all over the world. This year the event is being held in Southampton, UK from 12th-14th September, which means that us Brits have no excuse not to get along. We already have 18 people booked in from Thurrock, which must be a record!

To get the low-down on the programme, click here. To book your ticket before the closing date of 29th August, visit here. And to hear people explain why they will be travelling from all over the world to be there, try here.

BRC News Edition 11

Click the image above to view a full size version.
See 'Resources' box to right to download a printable (.pdf) version.

Issue 11 looks back at our first year and forwards to 2008. There is also news of a team from YWAM Denmark coming to stay with us in May.

BRC News Edition 10

Click the image above to view a full size version.

See 'Resources' box to right to download a printable (.pdf) version.

Issue 10 is the Christmas review, and contains information on 24-7 in parliament.

BRC News Edition 09

Click the image above to view a full size version.

See 'Resources' box to right to download a printable (.pdf) version.

Issue 9 contains information on the 24-7 Prayer Week 11th-18th November.

24-7 Prayer week 11th-18th November

Our next week of continuous 24-7 prayer will run from 8pm Sunday 11th November to 8pm Sunday 18th November.

As always, it will be a chance to spend time alone with God or gather with others; a time to pray creatively in art, music, writing, drawing, silence, reflection, and meditaion as well as words; a time to cry out for our lives, our community, and our nation.

The week has been chosen so that we can participate in the Tearfund Global Poverty Prayer Week. There will be acitivities to help us pray into this, and a daily soup meal at 217 Southend Road which provides an opportunity both to stand with those who have less and to donate the money we would otherwise have spent on a western-style meal.

To help us focus on what it means to be a praying, missional community, Andy Freeman (24-7 international co-ordinator for boiler rooms and authour of the new book 'Punk Monk' will be with us on Wednesday evening and staying overnight. Get this in your diary now!

As always with 24-7 weeks, the life is in the prayer, the relationships among and between churches, the encounters with God by his Spirit, the spontaneous, and the unexpected. However, the structure that makes this all possible comes from a 'backbone' of individuals who commit in advance to take a 1-hourprayer slot at some point during the week.

PLEASE can you sign up now to be part of of what is happening? With grateful acknowledgement to the technical support of Kate at the TCF office, we are trialing a web-based sign-up which allows anyone to add themselves directly onto the rota.

To sign up now online, simply click here.

Alternatively, the web pages have a print-friendly version which allows you to print off a copy and take to your church, cell group, or youth group for your friends to sign up!

Home thoughts from abroad

Thought you might like to see what Ulf and Emma Jetter wrote on their blog about their time in Thurrock:

http://ulfandemma.blogspot.com/2007/08/stanford-le-hope-boiler-room.html

http://ulfandemma.blogspot.com/2007/09/funny-things-about-thurrock.html

http://ulfandemma.blogspot.com/2007/09/blessings-come-in-buckets-at-stanford.html

BRC News edition 8

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Issue 8 contains information on weekly 24-hour prayer Friday to saturday, the next 24-7 prayer week, and more.