Relay Prayer

We started praying for St Matthew's Church Luton in September 2019. It's a dark, spacious, cathedral-like church, suited to contemplative prayer. We simply couldn't find a time when we could all pray together, so instead we noted anything that came to us in prayer in a little book to share; it became a prayer relay.

St Matthews was due to be incorporated into the town centre St Mary's parish and closed. We were praying for a new Christian expression in the church, Ian's (project manager) vision was for a 'new Monastic community'. Here are some things we wrote in the Relay+ Book.

Ezra 3:11-13 speaks of the need for Lament for the past, and care:

And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

Write the vision:

And the Lord answered me:
“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it." —Habbakuk 2:2

Do not fear:

Fear not, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save; —Zephaniah 3:16

A challenge to build the house of the Lord

This is what the Lord of Armies says:
“These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house." — Haggai 1:2

Final glory

The final glory of this house will be greater than the first, says the Lord of Armies. — Haggai 2:9

An Initiative Without Walls

Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls because of the number of people and livestock in it.
The declaration of the Lord, ‘I myself will be a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory within it.’ — Zechariah 2:3-5

These are all excellent precepts for any spiritual 'building' of God's kingdom. They are wisdom, and they strengthen the heart for the task.