The Friday Fax - Intercession

Germany & Africa: reconciliation process

nospam@example.com (Friday Fax) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 12:22:00 +0100

"The Berlin Conference from 17-19th November, 2005 was the climax of a six year process of relationship building between European and African Christian leaders," reports intercessor Brian Mills. In 1884, twelve European nations, the USA and Russia met to "cut up Africa like a cake". The process of reconciliation involved "uncovering the sins that contributed to and resulted from that 1884 Conference."
The November conference culminated in a statement drawn up by Roger Mitchell, Chris Seaton and Brian Mills: "It is our prayer that this will lead to many continuing acts of love and restitution from our nation towards those nations sinned against. We recognise that this is not the whole story. The Africans were gracious to remind us of the legacy of the Gospel that was brought by European missionaries, and of the contribution made to their well-being through education, medicine and certain infra-structures. In reference to the 1884 Conference which did not include any representative of any African nation, we confess:
"We as the nations of Great Britain & Ireland confess and repent of the sins we have committed against Africa and Africans from many nations, and against the Living God – Father, Son & Holy Spirit. We repent with a deep sense of guilt and shame of the following: Competition with our fellow European nations for imperial domination in the world; The imposition of the Empire Spirit upon Africa; Taking rather than giving; Dehumanising and degrading Africans, treating them as goods, calling them "black ivory", perpetrating the evil of the Transatlantic Slave Trade; Covenant breaking as we lied and deceived African leaders into signing away their rights to their lands for trivial returns; Imposing concentration camps in South Africa which created the ground for apartheid; Creating unjust trade patterns; Cultural domination through the imposition of the English language; Presenting the gospel to the African peoples without separating adequately the unholy alliance of the Church from the Empire and the Empire Spirit, which included imposing denominations, and failing to recognise that God had opened Africa to Britain for the expansion of the Kingdom of God."
Source: Brian Mills, (full report available)

USA: the Luke 10:2b virus breaks out

nospam@example.com (Friday Fax) — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 15:49:00 +0200

Something very special happened when house church coach John White and Kenny Moore, Southern Baptist Director of Church Planting for the State of Colorado, had breakfast together on October 2, 2002. Both have a passion to see Colorado covered with living expressions of the Body of Christ. While lingering over the last cup of coffee for the morning, their thoughts were turned to the ninth and tenth chapters of Luke. They observed that this was where the Lord was really shifting gears, where the foundation was laid for all that would follow till the end of the age. Up to this point, the Lord was doing the ministry. Now he was sending out the 12 (Luke 9:1-6) and then the 72 others (Luke 10:1). "Now there were 42 two-man teams to establish the presence of Christ — to plant churches — everywhere," writes Jim Montgomery, a respected missionary and publisher of The Great Commission Update. "I would have been ecstatic," says John White, "if I had 42 church-planting teams for the state of Colorado. But what Jesus was saying really astounded us. 'The fields are ripe but these 42 teams are so few.'" The harvest is not the problem. The critical missing component is an adequate number of harvest workers. How do we get enough apostolic church planters? Luke 10:2b says to do one thing: ask the Lord of the harvest for them. John and Kenny covenanted with each other to pray this "10:2b" prayer together every day possible from that moment on. So every day either John would call Kenny or Kenny would call John to pray. If they didn’t connect, they would leave their prayer on voice mail.

800 days later
In the following 30 months, they have followed through on this pledge about 700 or 800 times, saying "God, here we are again, John and Kenny, pleading for more harvest workers for Colorado, just like every day." "Regular prayer, like the poor widow in Luke 18," says White, "can and should become a healthy, regular and hence relentless intercession." Kenny and John started inviting others to do the same, regularly praying the 10:2b prayer in teams. There are now between 200 and 300 people praying 10:2b with a partner virtually every day. The 10:2b virus is spreading!

Amazing results
"And the results have been amazing," says White. "We're to the point where we get a phone call or e-mail almost every day from someone saying something like this: 'It’s in my heart to plant a (house or simple) church. How do I do that? Can you help me?'" Kenny Moore used to get six or eight people over the course of six months who would indicate a desire to start a new church. He now has a steady stream of inquiries, and there have been around 100 Southern Baptist Churches established in Colorado alone from the time he and White began praying 10:2b together.
Tim Pynes had been on the staff of a large, post-modern church in Denver. With so many programs in this mega-facility, Pynes found he had merely turned into a project manager. "This is not what I signed up for," he told White. "I want to invest in the lives of people." He left the megachurch and started meeting White. He now has a growing network of 8 house churches in Denver.
Guy Muse, a Southern Baptist missionary in Ecuador, has been encouraging all of his house church people to pray the10:2b prayer on a daily basis since May of 2004. "In that month of May alone, 30 new congregations were established," he reports.

"Cast out", not "send forth"
The Greek word for "send forth" in Luke 10:2b, ekballein, was a very forceful, almost violent, term. It is the word used when casting out a demon, for example. White and Moore realised that they should not pray for potential labourers who may be interested, but for highly-motivated people who God had taken and, as only he can, placed with gentle force in the harvest. It seems to work...

Source: Jim Montgomery and John White, DenverWH[at]aol.com

Germany: Berlin's most peaceful 1st May in 20 years

nospam@example.com (Friday Fax) — Fri, 13 May 2005 18:09:00 +0200

Berlin was infamous for the violent demonstrations on 30^th April and 1^st May, International Workers' Day. "That's going to change," reports Kerstin Hack. The 'spiral of violence' was broken last year, with only 'minor incidents' in places known for major violence, and only one single street battle. 2005 was "The most peaceful 1^st May since 20 years!", according to the press. Kerstin Hack: "There were no real street battles, only a few thrown stones and bottles, and one upturned car which lost petrol but did not burn. That's certainly partly due to the many people who celebrated a peaceful May Day and the Police's wisdom, but also to the Christians on the streets praying, both in 2004 and 2005. There was an open-air service, and cleaning teams and prayer teams were on the streets. In 2004, it was relatively peaceful wherever the intercessors were; violence only escalated in places which we had too few people to cover. This year, with only one exception, the violence stopped almost before it began."

Source: Kerstin Hack, e-mail info/at/down-to-earth.de, tel. (+49) 30 822 7962