Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been really sensing the Lord calling us to a 40 day fast, to pray for a great awakening in our City and the Nation. Greater Manchester where we are based, has a population of about 2.6 Million and less than 1% regularly attend church! That’s just not acceptable!

We as the church has got to rise up with contending prayer believing God for a breakthrough. Throughout history, great outpourings of the Holy Spirit have always been preceded by extraordinary movements of prayer crying out to God to send forth revival. A revival can be expected when Christians have the spirit of prayer for a revival.

IF My people who are called by My name will…

[1] Humble themselves,
[2] Pray,
[3] Seek My face,
[4] Turn from their wicked ways

THEN… I WILL

[1] Hear from heaven,
[2] Forgive their sins,
[3] Heal their land.

- 2 Chronicles 7:14

Please note that this is a conditional promise. God can only do what He can do when we do what we can do.

The Church is responsible for the spiritual condition of the Nation because God has given us the authority to release His kingdom into different spheres of society. We do this through fervent, persistent and faith filled praying.

When we as Gods people humble ourselves and seek His face He will hear and respond. God will not fasten our souls to a dead end vision. There’s gonna be a great awakening but it starts right here – humbling ourselves before God, praying and fasting, turning from our wicked ways and seeking His face!

Joel 2:28 says; “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.”

The question to ask is; And after what? Many times we forget what precedes this promise.

Verse 12 says “Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning…” and verse15 says “Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly…”

John the Baptist was a burning and shining lamp – It was the quality of his life the fire of his devotion that captured a Nation. His authority to be a voice was in his lifestyle. Through prayer and fasting he prepared the way of the Lord. The same applies to us, through prayer and fasting we will prepare the way of the Lord. For Him to do a great work through us He first has to do a great work in us. Revival starts with us.

So, we would like to ask you to consider joining us on this 40 day fast. The fast will start on the 11th of January 2011 and finish on the 19th of February 2011 – with a Prayer Storm Gathering.

CLICK HERE for Fasting 101: Practical Tips and Helpful Guidelines..

Here’s our focus for the 40 day fast.

1. A prayer revolution in the church
2. Revival in your City
3. Revival in the Nation

As we humble ourselves before the Lord may He send a great awakening to the UK!

With hugely popular youth prayer gatherings and movements in America like The Call and IHOP, at Cross Rhythms we were encouraged to hear about a brand new initiative in the UK called Prayer Storm. Based in Manchester and led by James Aladiran, it’s a movement of radical worship and intercession, crying out to God for a great awakening in the UK. Rebecca Duffett caught up with James to find out more.

Rebecca: What does Prayer Storm involve?

James: Prayer Storm is a day of prayer. The vision is to summon the youth of the nation to a lifestyle of intercession. Over the last few years the Lord has really been stirring our hearts to pray. The more we gave ourselves to prayer, the more we realised that many young people don’t seem to be catching the passion for prayer. A load of prayer meetings I went to were mainly your stereo typical prayer meetings; older ladies and very little men and virtually no young people. We started to see the need for our generation, the young people, to arise in intercession and prayer.

I went to America a few years ago for a youth gathering called The Ramp and the Lord massively impacted my life. My heart was stirred for prayer in a way it had never been before. What I realised, was because I was around people that carried a heart of prayer and intercession, I caught something that really stirred what was already inside me. When I got back, I thought, maybe people that are not praying or giving themselves to intercession are not doing it because they’re not around people that are giving themselves to intercession and prayer, so they can actually catch the heart of prayer. Intercession and prayer is more caught than taught. It’s a spirit, it comes upon you. It’s not like someone tells you how to pray; it’s not even about the words you speak; it’s more about the heart… CLICK HERE to read more.

One the ministries that has a massive impact on me and what I’m doing is an American movement called ‘The Ramp’, which is a youth gathering whose aim is to awaken a generation out of spiritual death and religious complacency (video).

The Ramp started out when Karen Wheaton met with a small group of teenagers to pray. This group has now turned into a regular gathering of hundreds of young people.

Karen Wheaton, who now heads up The Ramp’s team, came to Manchester, where I’m based, and was moved by what she saw: young people getting drunk and falling over in the street. She approached a group of girls and started talking to them. Intrigued by her American accent, they asked what she was doing here. Karen explained that she was attending a conference and singing. The girls asked her to sing, which she did, and the girls were reduced to tears. Karen left Manchester determined to keep praying for the city, saying that a piece of her heart had been left there.

I first heard about The Ramp in 2006 and, a year or so later, I emailed their team saying that I was thinking about going to one of their gatherings. They emailed back to say that she was really excited that I was going, as Karen had been praying for Manchester for years. The fact that I was coming from Manchester was almost like an answer to prayer.

While there, during one of the meetings she said, ‘There are some people here from England – why don’t you come up on stage?’. It wasn’t planned and I had no idea what to say! I just started speaking from my heart, saying that there was something at The Ramp that we needed in England: an expression of passion for God and a heart for revival. I began praying and the Holy Spirit moved so powerfully that everyone spent about 20 minutes praying for England and Manchester.

I came back excited about what I’d experienced there and just prayed for hours, crying out to God for Manchester. I was deeply impacted by their integrity. Prayer wasn’t just for the gathering, it was their life. I not only wanted the same for my life, but for Manchester and England…

The Prayer Storm gathering on 1^st May 2010 was an indescribable experience. It was incredibly significant and there was a massive breakthrough, it was such a pivotal moment. The atmosphere was freeing, sincere and there was a strong feeling of unity in the prayer meeting.

The main focus at this gathering was praying for the general elections and also praying for a great awakening in our nation.

“As we prayed I felt God saying that he was going to bring transparency to the people put into power. They will have a hunger for justice and righteousness. There will be such clarity in the spirit that their eyes will be opened and a nation restored to holiness and purity.” – Rebecca Sullivan.

“God brought His Presence. There were prophetic songs, dramatic acts of dance, loud declarations and specific scripture being read out. It was time where God imparted a message of holiness, a call to be an intercessor and led us to pray prayers, dance and make declarations that no doubt will have brought more of heaven to earth.”  – Alan Taylor

We prayed over issues such as child trafficking and abortion. There was a thirst for God’s justice, compassion and freedom that people were crying out for mercy and healing.

‘Bring your Word, bring your Truth,

Bring your healing to this broken land Oh God!’

The sound of the body worshipping as one voice was so beautiful, it felt like division was breaking. Once there was breakthrough, freedom came and our worship and intercession changed. It was from a position of victory and there was a new level of faith which impacted everyone there.

“The one thing that stood out is the war dance. The drums, the type of dance which others joined in.  A powerful time of spiritual warfare that I believe has shifted things in the heavens.  The whole day was engaging with the spirit and I sensed we had done more than we could understand” – Joan Thomason

“The last Prayer Storm was just beyond words… The level of unity in Intercession was really on a whole new level. When we were praying for parliament and declaring the Word of the Lord over the Nation, one could feel the breakthrough . It was Intense! I felt like we stepped into a river… I know there was a SIGNIFICANT SHIFT in the spirit over the City and Nation when we prayed. Wow! Wow! is all that comes to mind when I think about it!” – James Aladiran

Last week, Gordon Brown announced that the General Election will take place on 6 May. With less than a month to go, now is the time to pray and fast, to seek after the Lord, asking Him to bless us with a Parliament that will uphold Christian values, including religious freedom, social justice and sanctity of life.

We are currently in a season of fasting and prayer. Why not pray and fast with us every day until the 1st of May Prayer Storm Gathering?

Sign the Westminster Declaration, and pass it onto your friends.

Find out when and where hustings are taking place.

Find out how your local MP has voted on key issues in Parliament.

‘Shining’ and ‘burning’

I have been challenged recently by what Jesus says about John the Baptist in John 5:35. Looking back on John’s life, Jesus describes him as a ‘burning and shining lamp’. John had served Jesus, going before him preparing the way for him like a lamp. What captivates me is that Jesus points out that John was more than a ‘shining’ lamp. He was also a ‘burning’ lamp. Jesus drew attention to what was going on inside John as well as outside.

Productivity is not enough

It seems to me that there is a tremendous amount of pressure on us to be productive and to be seen to be doing well as Christians. I have discovered again that, as good as the external productivity may be, what makes the difference in God’s eyes is the internal conditions of our hearts. This can create a culture where we allow our performance to measure how well we are doing with God. It is possible for us to believe that how well we sang, preached or even prayed is the thing that qualifies us.

Fire will test our work

It’s true that God will test our works. First Corinthians 3:13 says that in the final analysis, God will test the works each of us have done by fire and the quality of what we do for God will be tested not for what size it is, but what sort it is. Some will be revealed to be gold, silver or precious stones. These will withstand the fire. But some will be exposed as wood, straw or hay and all that will be left of these is ashes. The truth is, two people could do the same works – preach the same sermon, pray the same prayer. But in God’s eyes one would come out as gold, one would come out as ashes.The only thing that differentiates it is the internal condition of the heart that offered it.

Prayer is the remedy

This is where prayer makes the difference. Alone before God, my heart is as plain and as bare as it can be. No external signs of success can disguise it. Leonard Ravenhill says, ‘The pulpit can be a shopwindow to display one’s talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off.” I want my heart to burn for God consistently like John the Baptist.  His ministry diminished as soon as Jesus came on the scene (‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ John 3:30). I want that to be true of me too. If God brings pruning and decrease then that’s OK.  My heart must still be a burning lamp!

James Aladiran

A few months ago, I felt the Lord showing me the number 11/11.

It seemed like this number was everywhere – I don’t know if this has ever happened to you – I just couldn’t escape it. There were times when I’d be praying, open my eyes, and the time would be 11:11; it all seemed really weird! I started asking the Lord what He was trying to show me, but I didn’t really seem to have a clear answer until November 11 2009, which just happened to be my birthday.

I had an unexplained sense that there was something really significant about my birthday, and I also felt the Lord calling me to do a 40-day fast. Since I’d be in Hamilton, USA for a youth conference called ‘Winter Ramp’ (amazingly for 11 days!), I decided to do it when I returned. I picked a date without really thinking about it.

Not long after putting the date in my diary, I got a text from a work colleague, asking me if I’d consider doing a 40-day fast, starting in January. I took this as confirmation that this was of God – I mean how many times do you get a text from a friend asking you to join in with a 40-day fast?! So after all this I just thought it might be worth checking up the date I had put down for the 40day fast just to be prepare for it etc… And guess what date I had it down for? 11th January!!! and if you write out the date it’s 01-11-10…

On my birthday – 11/11/09 – while I was praying, the song ‘Prepare the Way’ by Eddie James came on. You can hear Lou Engle at the beginning of the song, praying for a great awakening – it’s really powerful! The song always has a big impact on me; Lou’s prayers, and passion, just wreck me. So this song started playing and I was weeping, crying out to God, and I felt the Lord say that this number, 11/11, was significant to John the Baptist and his call to ‘prepare the way of the Lord’ (Matthew 11:11 talks about John the Baptist).

That morning I knew the Lord was calling me to be someone who would follow in John’s footsteps and ‘prepare the way of the Lord’. God used another friend to confirm this: while she was praying for me (without any prior knowledge of what was happening to me), she said, ‘I feel the Lord saying, “A voice of one in the wilderness crying, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’” She went on to say, ‘I feel like this is going to involve fasting.’ For me, this was amazing, and I had a sense of this being the Word of the Lord.

A few weeks after this, I was at work talking to a friend (who, again, had no idea what had been happening), and he looked at the Prayer Storm flyer and pointed out to me that the meeting is going to be on for 11hours. I hadn’t even noticed that! That led to us talking about how I had been seeing 11/11 everywhere and he said, ‘Wow! I saw that number this morning in prayers and didn’t know what it meant, so I guess it’s linked to this somehow!’. Right after that conversation I went into the prayer room, turned on my phone to play some music in the background, and guess what the time was… 1.11pm. I was checking the emails on my iphone later that day and it said ‘downloading 11/11 messages’.

Prayer Storm is a movement of radical worship and intercession, crying out to God for a Great Awakening in our City and Nation.

“It’s not just an event, it’s a lifestyle.”

We are passionate about praying for our generation and seeing the Lord release a great move of His Spirit in our Nation. On our site, you’ll find information about who we are, details of our Prayer Gatherings, videos and blogs which focus on prayer.

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