​Write Non Fiction In November : #WNFIN Day 3

If I am honest I've had a dream for a prayer group that would take God seriously since February. When you hear a prophetic word that cries out for an active response, and the leadership doesn't lead everyone to that active response, the desire builds to be in a place where God's messages and instructions are sought and acted upon 'pronto'.

A little before that there had been a prayer group of three of us, but three isn't a good number. Too often with three members there are two strong and opposing wills and one undecided and that makes discernment and developing common vision very difficult. Six is far better as a starting point. Before you quote me Matthew 18:20, let me say that the Lord is still present but He's harder to find with less than with more.

There's been a time slot begging too, because the youth group meets fortnightly on a Sunday evening. On the off week, the venue is empty.

Why haven't I done anything about it? Good question.

Everything I have initiated in recent years has turned to custard, i.e. spectacular failure. The willingness is there to risk again, but I can't face another failure of stepping out and doing something I believe He wants done and going face first into the concrete again. There has to be a reasonable hope of success. At this stage the only way I can see that coming about is if several people came up to me and independently expressed a desire for an intercessory prayer group, and at least six of them had truly genuine desires that they would follow through on. That's as likely as a grade A 'mountain moving' miracle at the moment. If it is to happen, it has to be God initiated, not me initiated.

At Pentecost in Rome the workshop on Prophetic Intercession - which I watched online – was a revelation. We need to be as servants waiting for the master to tell us what to do. We need to be waiting upon the Holy Spirit for what He wants us to pray about, and how He wants us to pray about it. Nothing less will do. But it requires a big mind shift, we are all too pre-programmed to pray about what we want to pray about and generally we are not good at waiting and listening.

The only way around that is good preparation. Everybody comes with baggage, whether it is health issues, financial worries, relationships in crisis, a friend dying, a relative with addictions, or something else. We need to pray for each other, so that these burdens and baggage can be set down in order for us to be free enough for God to share His with us.

We all come with sin, too. Normally just the dusty stuff that a good foot washing would remove, you know, the hasty angry words, the moments of selfishness, the complaining, the impatience in traffic. For these we need to seek forgiveness, so that they won't be an impediment to the action of the Holy Spirit.

It is easy enough to pray for baggage and burdens of the person on your right, and to pray for cleansing and purification of the person on your left. Details don't have to be mentioned, it is enough that God knows what they are.

Intercession is warfare, so something has to be done about protection from the attacks and counter attacks of the enemy. Use the holy water, call on the power of the precious Blood of Jesus, enlist the assistance of the guardian angels and warrior angels, ask the great prayer warrior Saints to join their prayers to ours.

Then collectively beg of the Holy Spirit that He would help us see what God wants us to see, to hear what God wants us to hear and to feel what God wants us to feel. Turning everything over to the Holy Spirit we wait for Him to act and lead us in prayer. That time of invocation and pleading might be expressed in praying in tongues together. There will be silence and waiting. Because God is a God of order, it is OK after a period of waiting to ask for a brief report about what people have been experiencing. If more than one is experiencing something similar, work with that. But sometimes there will be observable things that we can respond to – if we keep our eyes open. I'm talking about the classic signs of God's activity that John Wimber noticed, eg a sheen of peace over the face, eyelids fluttering, trembling hands, tears, laughter, inner glows. If you observe any of them happening, go and pray with that person asking the Holy Spirit to complete and increase the work that He has already begun in them.

Should all we have done is wait, and wait, then so be it. God is the boss. Maybe we need that silence and waiting to increase our hunger for Him. Maybe that's a prelude to something extraordinary in future weeks, something that couldn't be given without persistence. None of us open up our deepest secrets to a new friend, they have to be proved worthy of trust before that can happen.

This is different to a classic charismatic prayer group. They usually begin with songs of praise and lead into worship. During worship and the times of silence that fall afterwards, prophetic words are often received, discerned and shared. Theoretically there is a time of response to the prophetic words, and then there's a short teaching and maybe a short testimony, followed by some time praying for individual needs and situations, and a cup of tea with conversation to end with.

Both types are needed.

But I long to pray with people committed to this type of intercessory prayer group.

Only God can bring that about.

After waiting months there was finally an opportunity to pray this way, but there were only three of us and it felt far more like a disaster than a blessing. Lesson learned, it has to be fully and 'clear as crystal' God-initiated.

Can God bring something like this in to being?
Of course He can.
But it's a long painful road of waiting and hoping in the meantime.
​
Will it ever happen? Only He knows. But if the wonders He has promised are to happen, these types of intercessory prayer groups will be the conduits through which the rivers of grace are released.

This is a transcription of the workshop held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with this topic as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
The speakers were Deacon Christof Hemberger and Jim Murphy, with translations in English and Portuguese.
 
Deacon Christof Hemberger is part of the ICCRS leadership team http://www.iccrs.org/en/dn-christof-hemberger/
 
Jim Murphy is the new president of the ICCRS Council http://www.iccrs.org/en/james-murphy-president/
He is the founder and president of Vera Cruz Communications, and has been involved in youth ministry on parish, diocesan, national, and international levels. In 1992, inspired by the American Bishops' letter 'Heritage and Hope', Jim undertook a 4200-mile journey on foot across America, carrying a six-foot cross in an effort of prayer and evangelization.
 
This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/H68UKXNat4E
 
Deacon Christof Hemberger: Welcome to this workshop. It is a great pleasure to see so many of you, especially – and we know this – it is very early in the morning for many of us. I want to make, use a little while, to ask, where do you come from? Asia and Oceania? Africa? Northern and Southern America? Many Brazilians! Europe? Welcome home. Welcome everyone to this workshop. It might be that some of you – sorry I forgot – Middle East? Who have never led a prayer group. With this workshop we would like to encourage you to learn how to do it. Some are leaders of prayer groups for a very long time and would like to learn how to get the group vibrant again. You will also get some tools and hints to do this. Jim and I are involved in leadership since many years. But still we are learning. And it is not, and we can never come to a stage where we can say that we know everything.
 
But we are going to use this time ahead of us to share with you what we have been learning and experiencing in the last years. I will start with some basics, some general outlines that every leader needs to know about and Jim later on will give some more practical experience.
 
No matter whether you want to start or whether you are already leading for a long time, I think the main task of a leader is to know the vision of the group. You need to have the vision clear in order to reach your goals. What is the purpose we are meeting for?
 
In every prayer group usually there is two end groups. One part is searching for a spiritual home. The people are coming and they are asking for teachings, for good prayer times, for experiences to grow in the discipleship. They are searching for 'koinonia', for community, and they regard the prayer group as a discipleship training centre for their spiritual journey.
 
But there is also a second end group, the people who are not there yet. Prayer groups also have a goal to evangelise, to make a space for those who can be brought along. Many years ago I had a conversion experience and my sister who was a member of a prayer group just told me, 'Come along'. I didn't know anything about how to live with God in my daily life. I needed teaching, I needed experience, I needed training, explanations, before I was actually able to become a disciple.
 
So when I speak about we have two end groups, leaders and those involved in prayer groups need to understand there is discipleship and the purpose of evangelization always in a prayer group. When we only focus on the first, we will start pleasing those coming for many years and we will become a cozy club. But if we only focus on the second we will not give food to those who are coming and after some time they will search for other places where they can get food.
 
Maintaining living charismatic groups means to be open for discipleship and evangelization.
 
A second aspect: Know Your Identity. 10 years ago my wife and I have moved into the village we are living now. Some man came to us, approaching us, and he said, 'Well I am responsible for the rabbit club in this village' and I said, 'What's this? What rabbit club?' And he said, 'Well, we are the ones that raise rabbits. But we are also open for those who have horses and chickens, open for all, but we are the rabbit club.' Well, I didn't have rabbits, I didn't have chickens, so I never became a member of the club. But I was thinking, why is he inviting everyone raising anything if he is the chairperson of the rabbit club? Sometimes our prayer groups look the same.
 
There is lots of space in the kingdom of God and the Church is wide and bright, but if we are Catholic charismatic prayer groups your prayer group needs to have a Catholic charismatic identity.
 
Some prayer groups have lost their Catholic identity. They do a lot of Holy Spirit things but they don't teach and live anymore Catholic identity.
 
Some prayer groups have lost the charismatic identity. They are very faithful, true followers in the Church but you can't hardly see anything charismatic in their meetings anymore.
 
I encourage you to live your identity in fullness.
 
Personal relationship to the living God. You need to teach about this and you need to live it, the reality of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit. Teach and speak and share about this.
 
Receiving and using the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So often I come to prayer groups. Somebody is there who is sick and the people say, 'let's intercede and when we go home during the next week we are going to pray for you. No! Interrupt your meeting. Take this person to the front, lay hands on, and pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for healing and deliverance, and for everything else.
 
Praise and Worship. In the Church the Renewal is known as the movement that is known for praise and worship. Ten years ago I was involved in the preparations for the World Youth Day that took place in Cologne (Koln) Germany. There was a meeting of many, many people in the Church and I had to introduce myself and I said, 'I am Christof, I am from the Charismatic Renewal'. One person said, 'What's this? I have never heard about this?' Another person gave the answer. 'Oh, those are the people who are always singing when they start their programs'. It is part of our identity to praise the Lord, to have praise and worship.
 
The love for the Word of God and the Sacraments. So many people say, 'After I found a renewed relationship to the Lord I suddenly understood the bible in a personal way; the sacraments became important for me.'
 
Evangelisation and Mission. If we focus on ourselves we will forget the task we have been given by Jesus. We are called to evangelise. We are called to bring in our friends, neighbours and colleagues.
 
And also part of the Catholic charismatic identity is the heart for the whole Body of Christ.
 
Why am I saying this? I say this because I want to encourage you to live your identity in fullness. If you are a member or a leader of a Catholic charismatic prayer group, make sure your program is Catholic charismatic and is seen as Catholic charismatic. Don't only know about the charisms, use the charisms. Don't only know about the personal relationship to the Lord, live the personal relationship to the Lord.
 
Some people ask, usually in those meetings, 'give us a structure of a perfect prayer meeting'. I can't. You need to find out your perfect structure for this evening.
 
But I can give some recommendations:
 
Have some time for welcome. A prayer meeting is not just a program we are running. It is a time of relationship and community. Make sure people feel welcomed. Draw in those who are new and don't know how to behave. Explain what is going to happen.
 
Usually we start with some time of praise and worship. We focus on the Lord. We give Him our honour and our glory. This helps us because we come from our daily life to focus on the greater thing that is been given to us.
 
Usually afterwards we have some time of bible study, teaching or preaching. We want to learn from God.
 
I usually ask the people in my prayer group, 'What is the Lord saying to us today?' for our situation, in our time, for the next week?
 
You can follow by a time of sharing of your experiences. Some people will have experiences with God and can give a testimony, or you can share experiences that you have been doing long ago but can help others understand what to do and how to live. I spoke about that prayer groups is community is koinonia, it is not that the leader is standing in front telling the others what to do. 90% of the things that I have learned for my Christian life I have learned by the testimonies of friends.
 
Never finish without having a time just for the Lord. Sometimes this is related or lined to the praise and worship time. Sometimes it is linked to the preaching or to the intercession time, no matter, but don't leave without having a time asking the Lord to speak to us, speak into our situations. What shall I do now personally? What do You want to tell me?
 
I would like to speak one minute about the tasks of a leader.
 
Of course we need to prepare and moderate and lead the prayer meetings. Did you hear properly? Prepare the meetings. This is some work. It is very easy to say, 'O the Holy Spirit will do everything'. Maybe the Holy Spirit is using you as a leader to do the things. You don't need to do everything by yourself and you don't need to take the tasks that are the Holy Spirit's but you need to take your tasks, and your task is to prepare, moderate and lead the prayer meetings.
 
Be an example to the others. You are not responsible for their personal lives. You are also not their spiritual directors. You are not responsible for the decisions they are doing in their personal life, but you should be a good example as a disciple of Christ.
 
One topic we could spend a whole weekend about is establish a team that can support you, and establish a next generation of leadership. It is a bit naughty when I say a good leader makes himself not needed any more from the same day he took on leadership. Those leaders after many years don't find successors have not done their job in establishing new leaders early enough.
 
A last task of a prayer group leader. You are the watchman of the vision. Keep in mind the charismatic and Catholic identity and division of your group and once in a while take some time asking yourself, 'Are we still living according to our vision?' 'Are we still open for new people to come in?' 'Do we still help others to grow in discipleship?' 'Are we still living our charismatic identity?' 'And are we still living our Catholic identity?'
 
My last thought, because I think it is essential for many, many prayer groups. The use of the charisms. Know and teach and use the charisms in your prayer group. Charisms are not medals for personal holiness. They are gifts to us for the sake of building the kingdom of God. They don't fall from heaven like apples. Ask for the gifts. Use the gifts. Make space for the gifts in your programs. Once in a while go to the music ministry and talk to them, 'How can we establish charisms in praise and worship?' Try to find out what is the charisms of my people? And find possibilities where they can bring them into the group.
 
Teach and train the gifts and their use. And ask for the charisms. Pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Foster a mature use of the charisms among your people. When you are thinking about the program of the next prayer group evening keep times of silence during the evening. So often we do this and this and this, and sometimes the Lord doesn't even have the possibility to talk to us. If prophecies and words of knowledge are coming, find a way how to discern them. Is the prophecy a real prophecy? Is it for everyone or just for a few? How do we need to react to this word of God now? One practical hint, singing and praying in tongues helps to open for the other charisms. Teach and use the charisms in your prayer groups.
 
And I am very happy now that Jim is with us. He is a very experienced person and I am very keen on listening on what he is going to say about practical aspects of a prayer group.
 
Jim Murphy: Before I begin I would just like to share a personal note. I feel it is a great honour to be speaking to you today, because I really believe in the value of Catholic charismatic prayer meetings. I believe that prayer meetings are one of the foundational pieces of the Renewal and I sincerely want to thank all of you who have invested so much of your life to building up good prayer meetings. I know many of you have invested your life into this and at times it gets difficult, but what you are doing is important and it is an honour to speak to you today.
 
I'm also honoured to speak with my good colleague Deacon Christof. He's a very good teacher and he's a good friend. Our time is very short today and I wish we could talk about everything but we can only cover a few basics. But Christof has written an excellent book* and a lot of the material he has covered today is found in his book. And this will be on the table later if you want to find out how to get it. Also you can go to our ICCRS website and find out more about our various leadership training programs, which I hope could give you a lot more information. (* 'Living Charismatic Groups: A Handbook for Leadership Formation' by Christof Hemberger, 2016, New Life Publishing)
 
Deacon Christof gave us some very important foundational aspects of vision. I'm just going to focus on two points this morning. One is how to maintain dynamic praise and worship at a prayer meeting and the second aspect is how do we give a good teaching. Due to time constraints I am going to leave out most of the theory and just talk about practical points.
 
So let's first talk about dynamic praise and worship. In my estimation praise and worship is the most essential part of a prayer meeting. To me everything flows from praise and worship. And when the praise and worship is weak everything else falls down. In this conversation when I use the word worship I am not speaking of quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament but dynamic praise and worship. There is absolutely a place for quiet adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, but in this conversation we are talking more about a charismatic experience.
 
So where do we start? One thing that I believe is essential to praise and worship, we need to educate people on the biblical principles of dynamic praise and worship. We have to be fair to our brothers and sister fellow Catholics, as Catholics many of us were raised using very traditional prayers. Look the prayer style of Catholicism is usually quite rote. They are more used to a traditional style of prayer. So when people join us in these very dynamic meetings they're really not quite sure how to respond. One of the first times I went to a prayer meeting I turned to the person next to me and said, 'Is this Catholic?' And I think we have to be careful, we've become very comfortable with this, but this is a new experience for others.
 
And I believe it is essential that we teach people what is the scriptural background and even in Catholic tradition where this fits in. Wouldn't you love to go to a prayer meeting led by St Francis of Assisi? So charismatic praise and worship is very much in scripture and in tradition, but that's not known by many Catholics and even some charismatics.
 
Our time now does not allow me to exactly give this teaching, but I would urge you to study on this topic. There's a lot of good material out there. As a prayer group leader you have to help people understand why we do it this way. It is not enough to lead praise and worship, but we have to become advocates of praise and worship. We have to be able to explain it to others.
 
So the first step is to be an advocate for and to teach people about praise and worship. Prepare good teachings to give your people on why we do it this way.
 
The second step is we need to get people engaged in prayer and worship. A prayer group leader is not supposed to praise and worship for the people, but the leader's job is to encourage and aid and help the people praise the Lord. A leader doesn't praise God for the people. A leader praises God with the people.
 
So how do we get people engaged? A very practical way is the physical proximity of the leader to the people. In a situation like today, because of the nature of our program, this is how things are arranged. If I was leading a prayer meeting here I'd be out there with you, and we'd all be close together. A leader helps by making eye contact with the people, by literally reaching out to the people.
 
In too many prayer groups there is a group of people leading and everybody else is just watching. We have to change that. We have to connect with the people and then encourage them and lead them. 'Come one, let's do this together'. The people are not there to watch you pray. You are there to help them pray. Don't let the group become passive spectators.
 
Now music can be a great way to help people praise God. But let me offer a caution. In some places prayer meetings have turned into concerts. The music is great, but it has almost become a performance and they're fantastic, but we all sit there and watch them do the music. It's really a nice event, but it's not praise and worship because the people are not engaged.
 
Don't just play one song after another, after another. There should be music, but then the leader should be encouraging spontaneous praise and worship. And the leader should be saying, 'Come on, come on, let’s go', encouraging people. Usually when a group of people start worshipping God we often experience praying in the Spirit, praying in tongues. Encourage people to keep going with that, because when the whole group is praying or singing in the Spirit, then they're engaged; they're invested; they're doing something. And then when that dies down we do another song and we start the process again.
 
And usually when we enter into this kind of prayer we start receiving prophetic words or scriptures, and the job of the leader is to keep all these things in balance. So when a scripture is given, maybe there is a song that is perfect as a complement to the scripture, or maybe the leader feels we should respond by standing and praising together.
 
But a prayer meeting leader has to be able to focus on many things. It's not just music. It's not scripture only. It's not a particular dynamic. All of these things are happening at once. And the leader has to be discerning this. It's a dynamic process, you can't just do it off a schedule.
 
It's also important as a worship leader to be able to summarize what the Lord is doing. Maybe there was a strong prophetic word, maybe somebody had a scripture, there is a particular song that really moved people. It is the leader's job to make all of these connections and present to the people what it seems the Lord is doing. And then encourage the group to respond.
 
There's a main principle here that we have to keep in mind. A leader of a prayer meeting has to be connected to God and connected to the people at the same time. Sometimes as a leader you just want to pray and get lost in heaven, but you are leaving the rest of us out. And some leaders are so busy keeping everybody happy they're not even paying attention to what God is doing. So you have to keep these two things in balance. What is the Lord doing or saying? But how are the people doing? And to keep these two in balance is important.
 
So let me summarize this section:
1. We must be advocates of praise and worship. We want to teach people the principles but also the methods.
2. We must engage the people. We stay close to them. We stay connected to them. We work with music and encouraging the people.
3. A worship leader must be able to manage many things at the same time.
4. A worship leader must be attentive to God but also attentive to the people.
 
Let's take a few minutes now to talk about giving a teaching. There's three things necessary to give a good teaching: Proper discernment of what teaching to give; Preparation of your material; Proper delivery of the teaching. These three elements are essential.
 
If you look at our friends with their cameras, the cameras are sitting on tripods. One of the jobs the cameraman has is to ensure all three legs are extended. If all three legs are not correct, the thing tilts over. It's the same with a good teaching. You need these three elements to make the thing stand right. We'll quickly go through these three elements.
 
The first one is proper discernment of what to teach. Why do we give teachings? Are we just trying to fill in the time? Hopefully not. We're giving teachings because we are trying to impart the word of God. We're trying to share a word with our brothers and sisters. So it is very important that we know what it is God wants us to say.
 
So how do we know what God wants us to talk about? I think there's three normal ways that we understand what to teach on. Sometimes people in authority give us the assignment. And if you are part of a group and the pastoral leadership says, 'Would you give us a teaching about this?', well then, do it. Sometimes we just get – we sense what the people need. They might need some encouragement in an area, or perhaps they need some correction. So sometimes a theme is not given to us by divine revelation but our pastoral instincts show us what the people need at this time. And sometimes, the third way, God puts in our heart what we need to teach about. An idea starts forming in your mind, and then you go to Mass on Sunday and the scripture speaks to that, and then you hear a song on the radio that fits with that very thought. God's probably trying to tell you something.
 
So whether somebody is telling us what teaching to give, or our pastoral instincts give us some direction, or we just get a sense in our heart – these are three common ways we know what to teach.
 
Now the best way to prepare your material is what I do is I keep small pieces of paper with me – an index card – and I always carry these cards with me. And I find a scripture that speaks about that teaching, I write it down on a card. I'm having a conversation with a friend and they say something that fits in with that teaching, I write it down on that card.
 
So I am constantly looking for how the Lord might be speaking to me. And I keep collecting these cards with these ideas. Then I sit down at home. I take all my cards and I put them on the table. Lord, what are You saying with all this? In my cards I have many different scriptures. I might have a particular story. And I just pray with this material. And then I start organizing the ideas.
 
One of the problems most of us have; we try to put too much material in. You can't use everything. But all these things help us to prepare our material. And then I take a blank piece of paper and just put down my key points. So when I give the talk I'm not reading all these cards, but they just help me remember what order to go in.
 
And then finally when we actually give the talk, be sure people can hear you. Be sure people understand what you are saying. Be sure to stay connected to the people. Be sincere. Be focused on Christ and then when you are done, sit down. I'll sit down.
 
(A third person then gave a rough summary of both talks, thanked both men, and invited them to give a final prayer before a final song.)
 
Christof: Thank You Lord, thank You Lord for this morning. Thank You for everyone who came. Thank You for everything we have been learning this morning. And Holy Spirit I ask You to come and to fill everyone who is here. Help us to become leaders and members of the prayer groups that You have intended us to be. Help us to be watchmen of the vision. Teach us and worship us according to Your Heart. Holy Spirit we can learn a lot of things but most important is to receive everything from You. And so we ask You Holy Spirit, Come. Come and fill this place with Your glory. Come and fill our hearts with Your presence and grant us everything You want to give to us.
This workshop took place in a church, and as always in a church we will get the final blessing and the final song.

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Below is a printer-friendly edited transcript, 6 x A4 pages 

Please print it out and share this document, because it would be very hard to find a prayer group that couldn't benefit from reading it.

This is a transcription of the workshop held in Rome on 1 June 2017 with this topic as part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
The speakers were Cyril John and Denise Bergeron, with translations in English and French.
 
Cyril John lives in Delhi, India and is vice-president of the ICCRS Council. In 2012 he published a book called, 'Pray Lifting up Holy Hands: The Prayer of Intercession'.
 
Denise Bergeron lives in Canada and is part of the Centre De Prière L'Alliance which runs Intercession Training Courses.

This is the link for the video recording: https://youtu.be/ZK4134aUKCE
It is not a full recording; there are two gaps where content is missing.

(At the end of this blog-post is a 2 page PDF summary of this workshop, to enable it to be easily shared at prayer meetings.)
 
Cyril: This morning we are going to deal with a very exciting topic, that is Prophetic Intercession. This a prophetic sign of the times. Great things that the Lord is going to do in our midst. Great things that the Lord is going to do through the Jubilee Year. How many of you have heard about Prophetic Intercession before? Yes, some of you have heard about Prophetic Intercession, and some of you are going to hear for the very first time.
 
We have a very short time, but we will try to present this topic in a nutshell. And those of you who want to read more about this, you have a book on intercession that is in French as well as English.
 
So St Paul speaks about Intercession in a very powerful way, that is in 1 Tim 2:1-2. St Paul says, 'First of all, I ask that supplications, praise, petitions and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, and especially kings and those in authority'. St Paul says that it is the first and primary responsibility of every believer. Normally people think that intercession is meant for a very few people. Intercession is the responsibility of every baptised person. That is why St Paul says that it is the first priority in the life of a believer and St Paul says, 'intercede, pray for everyone' and pray especially for those in authority: those in authority in the Church, those in authority in our countries and those in authority in the renewal.
 
So, we are all called to be intercessors, and then the question is 'How do we intercede?' Some of us have been interceding for 20 years, 10 years. How do I intercede? Most of us, you know, have a notebook we write down the intentions that people tell us. We carry the notebook to our intercessory meeting and we lift up these intentions, and we have been doing this for the past many years. What I am trying to tell you today is just like we go to school in the nursery class, then Class 1 and Class 2, so we need to grow, we need to grow in our ministry of intercession. So it is good that we begin writing down in the notebook presenting it to the Lord – but it is also important that we grow in our ministry and in prophetic intercession we try to rely on the Lord.
 
A prophetic intercessor is one who opens his ears, who opens his eyes to hear what the Lord is speaking. Consider that our interpreter is Jesus and that I am an intercessor. As an intercessor I place my ears close to the heart of Jesus (visual demonstration). What am I trying to hear? The heart-beat of Jesus. What I am trying to tell you is that every moment Jesus has a burden to share with us. As intercessors we should train our ears, we should train our eyes to hear what Jesus wants to tell us and to see what Jesus wants to show us, because Jesus is The Intercessor and Jesus carries a lot of burden for the world and the church.
 
Now, Ezekiel 22:30, it says, 'Thus I have searched among them for someone who could build a wall or stand in the breach before Me to keep Me from destroying the land, and I found no one.' Ezekiel 22 speaks about the sins of Jerusalem. The Lord was going to destroy Jerusalem. And the Lord is saying, 'I have searched for someone who would build a wall or who could stand in the breach'. What is the wall? The wall is built to protect. So the Lord is looking for one person, to stand in the breach. Standing in the breach is where there is a strain or break in the relationship. The Lord is looking for someone to stand in the breach and intercede between the people and God. So every time there is a situation, the Lord is looking for intercessors.
 
You and I will be able to hear this call from the Lord and see this call with our eyes, if we become prophetic intercessors; intercessors who are willing to keep our ear and eye to the Lord. Now the Lord says, 'I have searched for someone', one person and one person can save the whole of Jerusalem.
 
Now in the first book of the bible, in Genesis, father Abraham has a prophetic role that way in chapter 18 which says, 'The Lord says to Himself (Gen 18:17) shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?' The Lord was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord is thinking to Himself, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah?' And the Lord speaks to Abraham, and Abraham intercedes. Alleluia. That is prophetic intercession. That is prophetic intercession.
 
So whenever something is going to happen, the Lord searches for people in our midst who are willing to build a wall or to stand in the breach. Amen. Shall we say Amen? Amen!
 
Do you recite the Divine Mercy chaplet? Yes or No? Yes. Sr Faustina started this. But what is important is the circumstances, the situation when this was started. Sr Faustina was praying in her cell, then she had a vision. The vision was an angel of destruction going to destroy a particular nation. Sr Faustina started praying, and nothing was happening. And Sr started praying more and says she was lifted up to heaven and she was standing before the Trinity and she was inspired and given a new prayer. She started praying and she says the angel of destruction started withdrawing from the process of destruction and the nation was saved. This is prophetic intercession.
 
So from time to time the Lord is searching for people, the Lord is looking for intercessory groups. And I remember once in Delhi the city that I live, we were praying in a group and the Lord showed us a cyclone and we started praying for the cyclone. Again next week, again the Lord showed us the cyclone coming towards coastal India. After 8 days it was announced in the news that there is going to be a powerful cyclone. So the Lord revealed to us 8 days before about the cyclone, so we all prayed and the cyclone was coming at a speed of 125 km/hr. So the speed of the cyclone was reduced to 80 km/hr and then reduced to 8 km/hr and finally the report said the cyclone went back to the sea and the commentator said it is stationed there. The commentator said, 'this is a unique phenomenon'. Amen.
 
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He asked the woman, 'Did you ever think of committing suicide?' She said, 'Yes, 16 years ago I attempted suicide'. So the Lord is looking for prophetic intercessors.
 
What is needed from our side? That we need to be listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. We need to keep our eyes open. We need to keep our ears open. Romans 8:26-27 It says 'in the same way the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought'. So in prophetic intercession we rely on the Holy Spirit, for we do not know how to pray. There are many things not known to us when we pray for a situation. So when we rely on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit reveals many hidden things and we are able to intercede powerfully and we are able to intercede strategically – with a strategy.
 
Few minutes. Stand up. We are going to have a very short workshop. Turn to your companion, 2 people each, two by two. Turn to each other. We are going to pray. Now listen. You are going to pray for a companion. You are going to ask the Lord, 'Lord make this brother or sister a prophetic intercessor, a prophetic intercessor'. And after you pray over, you are going to bless both the eyes with the Sign of the Cross and bless both the ears with the Sign of the Cross. Because you are going to ask the Lord to open the eyes to see what He wants us to see, open the ears to hear what the Lord wants us to hear. Because only when we have the eyes and the ears open to the Lord we can be prophetic intercessors. So just lay your hands and pray, and both of you at the same time and bless the eyes and the ears. So we begin.
 
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Denise: Lord we thank You because You speak powerfully to us today. Some brothers and sisters among us feel maybe like they are choking and aren't able to let this fire rise up through their hearts. I invite you to abandon yourselves into God's hands. I invite you to place your faith in Him who is the source of life, and if your heart is choking up raise your hands to God, raise your arms to God and wait, wait in faith, don't hold back on what is holding you a prisoner but raise your hands to the Lord. He wants to free you today. Don't stay in darkness, but come to the light. Thank You, Lord Jesus, thank You. And I invite you now to bless the Lord and to thank Him. And I invite you now to a time of silence to receive God's word that I am now going to give you, which we can receive. God's word which is given to us today.

Matthew 10:1 and onwards. 'Having called His 12 disciples to Him, Jesus gave them authority over unclean spirits in order to be able to chase them away and to heal, to be able to heal all illness'.

That is God's calling to us today, because He always answers our prayer and that accomplishes and completes in a good way what we are doing. When the Lord is calling you He always gives you His Holy Spirit. May this word heard today come and act powerfully in our hearts so that more and more intercessors can agree to pray for their brothers and sisters.

And now Lord we want to thank You for all that You are going to do. We have offered You our lives, we have prayed for this fire to spread throughout the whole of the earth and now we want to thank You for the way in which You are going to do that and I want to end our prayer by entrusting all these intentions to the Virgin Mary. Mary intercedes for us powerfully because she is in deep communion with her Son.

Hail Mary…
Glory Be…
Alleluia.
 
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This talk takes on a whole new dimension of importance after hearing the prophetic word of Patti Mansfield towards the close of the Pentecost Vigil at the Circus Maximus in Rome 3 June 2017:
 
'Lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest and if you would obey Me and if you would obey the prompting of My Spirit you will yet see infinitely more than you can ask or imagine you will yet see power of my Spirit descend upon the human race. I tell you the fields are white for harvest but I need your obedience, I need your docility and I need your faith and you will yet see marvels that will astound you infinitely more than you can ask or imagine for the glory of My name.'
 
We cannot obey, unless we can see and hear what God is calling us to do.
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Below is the promised 2 x A4 page PDF edited summary of this talk:

Share it in your prayer groups, and pray for each other in the way that Cyril John invites.

Homily by Archbishop Christopher Prowse at Our Lady of Lourdes, Seven Hills, Sunday 19 February 2017.
This Mass was the final event of a weekend-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal #ccrgoldenjubilee2017
 
(As usual, this is only the gist of the Archbishop's homily.
The content of this homily he expressly asked to be distributed far and wide.)
 
The readings for this Mass were from the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
Leviticus 19: Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. You must not bear hatred for your brother in your heart. You must love your neighbour as yourself.
Psalm102(103): Who heals every one of your ills: with the Response: The Lord is kind and merciful.
1 Corinthians 3: You are God's temple The Spirit of God is living among you. You must learn to be  a fool before you can be truly wise.
Matthew 5: Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you: You must be perfect just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It has been lovely to have been with you over these days.
God is not interested in our acts but in our deeds. Let us not muck around with God. Be serious with Him. Be hot or be cold, don't be lukewarm, because as you know the lukewarm get spat out.

I want to talk to you about how to have healthy prayer groups and communities.
 
Be holy
In 1965 Vatican II ended and in 1967 the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) began. The CCR prayer groups are at the heart of the Church. Pope Francis says that the apostolate of the prayer groups is to bring the Baptism of the Holy Spirit to every Catholic and beyond. To live out the vocation of the laity you need to start with the sacrament of Baptism. Let us take seriously the sacrament of Baptism. If we get that right everything else falls into place. The reason the modern controversies about the priesthood get it so wrong is that they start thinking from the sacrament of Holy Orders, when they should start their thinking from Baptism. 'God has no grandchildren. He only has children' David du Plessis used to say.

The waters of Baptism have brought us into the very heart of God. It does not need to be earned. We do not have to prove to God that we are worthy to be loved by Him. He doesn't love me for what I have done. The Father loves me because when He sees me He sees His Son. We are to draw people to Jesus by attraction, by talking to others about what Jesus means to me personally. We are the sacrament of Jesus. We are Christ in the world. Baptism is what animates us. Through Baptism into Jesus I am loved as first born in God, and inheritor of all His gifts.

Bring that Good News experientially into people's lives. We are an encounter religion. We say that we can encounter God like Thomas and Mary Magdalene. What about you? Jesus asks these questions of each of us. Who do you say I am in the depth of your being? When we experience Him, and encounter Him, our response is surrender, 'I surrender myself to you'. Mary the mother of Jesus, is The woman of Pentecost, the Yes woman, the first charismatic. Every parish should have at least one of these groups: Life in the Spirit Seminar; 4 Step Retreats run by The Community of the Risen Lord: Alpha: RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults). Say Yes if you are invited to become involved in them. It doesn't matter which one, they are all ways of sharing Jesus with others.
 
Just as Priscilla and Aquila, lay people, saw the potential in Apollos and assisted him to come into full relationship with the Holy Spirit, that is your task too. There are lots of ways of doing this. It is always good for us to pray for our bishops, but we don't have to go to the following lengths: There was a diocese in another country which had lots of prayer groups, but a very resistant bishop. In his curial office he had a bronze bust of himself on display. One of the prayer group leaders was a cleaner, and it was his regular task to clean the bishop's office. On one occasion when the premises were thought to be empty, he smuggled in members of his prayer group. In the bishop's office they prayed for their bishop. They prayed over the chair he usually sat in, asking God to guide his decisions. They prayed over the desk asking God to bless the deliberations that took place there, and knowing their slim chances of ever praying over the bishop directly they placed hands on that bronze bust of his and prayed for him personally. The Vicar General of the diocese came by and asked what on earth was going on. In some fear and trembling the prayer group said they were praying for the bishop. He let them off by saying, 'It is good to know that there has been some prayer in that office, but you had better be off and I don’t recommend you trying this again'.
 
Servant Leadership
You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. Our starting place is with our wounds and our vulnerabilities. It isn't easy to do because no one wants to talk about weakness, failure and losing. Everyone is in haste to succeed. Someone asked an 80 year old nun, 'When did you decide to become a nun?' and she gave a very wise answer, 'This morning'. Activate your baptism every day, today. Christianity is a today religion. We leave the past to God's mercy, and we leave the future to God's providence, and we trust God today. In this moment you can act in God. Say Yes to God in the present moment, now. If you have messed up – go to confession, do penance and get on with it. Have faith in Him. If you have been to see the tomb of St Mary McKillop you know that on it is written, 'Trust in God'.
 
You need to be a prayer group. Don't be a 'lonely hearts' group or a 'remember when' group. Don't be a gossip group. If there is something causing division among you, deal with it. Change your leaders every so often. Having the same leader for 20 years is not a good thing. Your prayer group will die out if you don't keep yourselves young. Prayer keeps you young. Seven days without prayer makes a person weak. Getting new younger members keeps you young, too. When we share our vulnerabilities we build trust. Regularly taking part in opportunities for leadership formation keeps you young. Having an apostolate for the poor keeps you young.
 
Love
Only love matters. Offer no resistance to the Holy Spirit by getting rid of all competition and jealousy. Fr Raniero Cantalemessa, the preacher to the Pope, reminds us that if all the bibles in the world vanished except one, and that one was burnt except for a barely legible page, and a single readable line, 'God is love', then the entire message of the Gospel would have been preserved. I invite you to think about all those who have been love to us in prayer groups. Be inspired by them and imitate them. How can we activate the laity? How can we grow in servant leadership? Only if we are animated solely by God, Who is love. Lay people of the Church, Awake! Revive!

In the book of Genesis we read how God breathed (ruah) into the nostrils of Adam, and he became a living being. To feel a gentle breeze or to hear a whisper we need to be still and to listen carefully. In John's Gospel we read that when the Risen Lord appeared to his apostles, He breathed on them. Our mission to be salt and light to the world began at Pentecost – the beginning of God's new creation. Without the Holy Spirit we become robotic and greedy. We need the Holy Spirit to breathe on us afresh. Take time regularly to be still and to know that God is here with you.

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At the end of that Mass, the prophetic word that emerged throughout the weekend was shared in summary form:
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•A call for unity among us as children of God. This is the third year in a row for this message: Do not ignore it!
•God is unity and love – there should be no more divisions among you.
•Be united in the one Spirit.
•The Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart were embracing us all.
•You have been given wings to fly, that the Church may be awakened and become vibrant once again.
•The future is not only in adults but in the children.
•The call to holiness is for all of us.