Fellowship and prayer …cuz they wanted to

Simon Cooper
June 17, 2010

Had a long but good community leaders meeting today. Gave a little power point on time management too, which felt good. But By 5 pm I was really wiped out. Canceled one evening meeting, but still had our regular Wednesday prayer evening at 7.30 pm. Watched some TV to unwind, since we have a big screen now in our reception area. It never really works for me, TV, when I need to de-stress.

Went up to our main hall to prepare the chairs etc at around 6.50 pm and light the prayer candle.

Still feeling a bit fried. wondering if anyone was going to come, feeling a bit shaky, I knew there were some people in the building, but hey maybe they're not up for it tonight…you can guess where my mind and heart were going. Was doing a reasonable job of coming to terms with what I had decided was a solitary evening. (God's telling me: "leave that for me to decide", not that I was listening.)

Especially by 7.30 pm on my watch, I am thinking 'yep I'm on my own'. I am half German -- everything should start as the second hand strikes 12.

Decided to go down and see if everyone had opted to watch the football instead and thought I might invite people up. But as I was going down, people were on their way up -- the guys who were in Lancaster Gate to practice for Live Lounge, Masa from our headquarters congregation, and Aska from Bromley who had been helping in the UPF office.

That prayer evening tonight was seriously the best part of my day. I felt that we could not know how precious it was for God that we came together to pray. We sang a few songs, I asked everyone for their thoughts on some notes I took from Hyung Jin Moon's talk. And then I asked Aska to pray -- she shared the most exquisite prayer that just gave me the chance to wash my face clean. Then we prayed altogether for a while.

I was so grateful to those young people for just being there and giving me the chance to pray with them. I had been pretty wound up and strung out from an intense day, and had got into my 'no one wants to pray thought-train', but they just came because they wanted to and through that example lifted me up and out of my fear. Thanks guys.