Laurence Sharman is the Executive Director of the World Prayer Centre and he shares how God is leading the World Prayer Centre for the next season.
For many of you who have travelled on the WPC journey, you will know that there have been some significant moments down the years. We feel that coming into 2021 is a significant moment on the journey.
Our Challenge & Response
As a team, during these challenging days, meeting most days of the week on Zoom can be a pressure, but we have found that as we gather, share and pray together, God has been leading us in an extraordinary way and the feeling has been quite the opposite. Each step, or move forward we are constantly asking ourselves ‘what does the Lord require of us at this point’ and ‘how should we respond?’ Working remotely also has its different issues to face, and so we content ourselves with not being able to be in the same physical space as each other and ask the Lord to keep us connected in different ways. He has been leading us through many scriptures – particularly in Psalms and Isaiah but realising that where we are is the right place in God’ s time table for WPC. We have a sense of expectancy that 2021 could be the year that sees the beginning of the build for World Prayer Centre UK.
Jehovah Jireh
In continually looking to the Lord for everything, whether spiritually, physically or God’ s provision, since the start of 2021, we have been praying for the people that He is going to bring to work at World Prayer Centre, those who sense a strong calling from the Lord, and those who will respond to the promptings of Holy Spirit as and when. It is an encouraging time for us, as we take steps forward on this part of the journey. It feels like a time of divine meeting, when the physical building of the World Prayer Centre connects with the development of a larger team of people, who will be involved in such areas as hospitality, welcome, worship, serving the marginalised and those down-trodden by society, those to whom God has given the gift of serving families and those who have gift of sharing the good news with others, plus many more, but we feel the preparations for the foundation of the building are being put firmly into place.
Rhythm of Prayer
In this time of taking steps and moving forward, we have been spending time praying and listening to the Lord regarding our rhythm of prayer. How to develop it, how to create times of prayer with more definition and where changes need to be made. We have been developing what we call a ‘Canopy of Prayer,’ which is initially intended to provide continuous prayer cover for Birmingham, however it is a very simple tool which can be used across any city, town or region, or even across any nation. We know that prayer changes things, and as we invite you to increase your involvement with as many of the different prayer watches as they come on-line, we believe that the combined power of God’ s people praying will have a seismic effect and impact. Let me encourage you to daily strengthen yourself in the Lord as David did at Ziklag (1 Samuel 30:6) – even when faced with impossibilities – because at that point, in our weakness, God’ s power is shown in perfection and for His glory (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Preparation, Preparation, Preparation………..
Everything that we are, and everything we do, is in preparation for when Jesus returns for His bride, the Church. We feel that the Lord has shown us, during this time of seeking to behold His glory and what that looks like in every facet of our lives, that He has prophetically given us the words ‘conception, gestation and delivery.’ The conception we feel is the provision of new resources – we are not totally sure how that will come, but it may be that now is the time that God wants to add people to the WPC team. The gestation stage is usually a given period of time for the development of what has been conceived and the delivery happens at a specific point in time. Also, we feel that God gave us the words ‘hope’ and ‘mercy’ at the beginning of the year. As we looked deeper into the meaning of mercy, we found that in Hebrew, the word ra-cha-mim is derived from the name of the most motherly organ in the body, the womb (ra-chem) and connecting the conception, gestation and delivery together with mercy, there is natural correlation in the steps that we have taken so far this year.
We are encouraged as we journey on. we trust and pray that you will also receive encouragement from reading this and as you too carry on the journey.
Coming soon…
