A Cambridge God Adventure* 36) Freezing night, prayer on fire.

(*please skip if you have not been following this story) Tuesday December 22nd 1981 was a bitter night which decimated numbers for our end of year prayer meeting. Only nine were present and I imagined it would be a real downer. Yet, it turned out to be a tumultuous time - prayers cascaded throughout the session. It's glorious when people really want to pray. So much had happened in the previous months. All the initiatives of the previous year like the Open Church at Harvest and Christmas, the gift, care, healing groups and prayer cell, accompanied an amazing growth of congregation and membership.  Thanks came very easily.  The prayer book noted that all these good things had come from God alone. In block capitals it states: THE ONE ALL-IMPORTANT FACTOR IN THE CHURCH'S GROWTH WAS PRAYER.

At the same time we recognized areas of failure that humbled us which required an extended period of confession. In spite of the big freeze and our small number this was real engagement with God.

Of course we reflected on the most controversial part of our prayers through the year - that we grow by 50 new members!  We weren't at this target...actually numbers of new members had slowed down in the last part of the year.  It took us many more months to see this prayer answered and it taught us lessons about stepping out in bold faith yet not presuming guaranteed timed outcomes!  The new church text for 1982 was chosen: Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive...(Matt 21:22). We continued to be an expectant people.

We prayed about a new prayer agenda for the next months. Again, targets were specific.  By now our missionary Marion was in Djibouti, Chad so we could focus directly on her prayer requests. Issues such as a Scripture outreach distribution and further development of groups were included. But there were two new items which were to dominate the next year in ways we could not have expected.