Sorry to say it ...but

Haven't been keeping this up to date.
For more information (up to date) on things 24/7ish click here. Its a link to the 24/7prayer Ireland website.
See ya

Father of Modern Missions

“See what the Moravians have done! Can we not follow their example,
and in obedience to our heavenly Master go out into the world and
preach the Gospel to the heathen?”

With these words, thirty-year-old William Carey threw down copies of
a magazine onto the table in front of his fellow Baptist ministers.
It was England’s first missionary magazine, reporting on Moravian
missions around the world: Periodical Accounts Relating to the
Missions of the Church of the United Brethren.
Baptists however looked on such efforts as human attempts to
interfere with God’s sovereignty, a ‘profane outstretching of the
hand to help the ark of God’. Objections were many. The time was
not ripe. The means were not available. Distances were too far. The
dangers were too great. The Great Commission was only for the first
apostles. Missions should start at home.
So when Carey proposed that at a future meeting of Baptists pastors
they should consider taking concrete steps to reach out to the
world’s unreached, a senior pastor curtly told him: “Sit down,
young man!” And added: "If God wants to save the heathen, he will do
it without your help or mine!"
Carey did sit down–and started to write. What he penned became a
sort of 'Magna Carta of Modern Missions', called An Enquiry into the
Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the
Heathen. In it’s five sections, Carey countered all the usual
arguments against missions, showing that the Great Commission was not
only for the original disciples, but for every generation.
To those who argued that ‘we ought not to force our way, but to wait
for the openings, and leadings of Providence’ or that too many
natural obstacles blocked the way, he wrote: ‘Have not the
missionaries of the Unitas Fratrum, or Moravian Brethren, encountered
the scorching heat of Abyssinia, and the frozen climes of Greenland,
and Labrador, their difficult languages, and savage manners?’
To others who stressed the dangers to life and limb from any contact
with ‘savages’, Carey suggested that most reported barbarities had
been provoked by offensive behaviour. He noted that ‘the Moravian
missionaries have been very seldom molested. Nay, in general the
heathen have shewed a willingness to hear the word; and have
principally expressed their hatred of Christianity on account of the
vices of nominal Christians.’
Shoemaker
William Carey was born in 1761, nearly three decades after the first
missionaries had set out from Herrnhut, and seven years before
Captain Cook sailed off on his first voyage to the Pacific.
Despite his humble beginnings in the village of Hackleton near
Northampton as an apprentice shoemaker, Carey set about to educate
himself while working on his shoes. When about eighteen, he became a
keen believer, leaving his nominal participation in the Anglican
Church to become a Baptist. He taught himself Latin, Greek and
Hebrew, as well as several modern languages.
Maps fascinated young Carey. He made himself a leather globe which he
later used when teaching geography in Moulton on Northampton’s
outskirts, where he also pastored a small Baptist fellowship. As he
traced Cook’s voyages on this globe, his awareness of the world
outside the knowledge of the gospel grew into a compelling obsession.
On the wall of his workshop he created a huge world map, pasting
sheets of paper together to represent every country of the known
world. Handwritten notes on the map recorded the populations of the
various continents. Of the 730 million inhabitants of the world,
Carey noted, more than 400 million were pagans, and 130 million
Mahommedans (Muslims).
Every effort however to convince his peers of ‘the church’s duty
to attempt the spread of the Gospel among heathen nations’ met with
scepticism and outright opposition. In 1789, he moved 30 miles
northwards to pastor in Leicester. The same year, the first edition
of Periodical Accounts of Moravian missionaries appeared, greatly
encouraging Carey in his obsession.
But three more years would pass before Carey had opportunity to
address the whole Baptist Association, meeting in Nottingham. His
sermon, based on Isaiah 54:2,3, argued that God’s sovereignty did
not negate man’s responsibility. ‘Expect great things from God!’
he preached, adding, ‘Attempt great things for God.’
Five months later, in October 1792, Carey and friends set up the
Baptist Missionary Society. Eager to practice what he preached, Carey
volunteered to be the first missionary. The following year, he
embarked with his family on the arduous five-month voyage to India,
never to return to England.
Community
Others came to join him: John Fountain in 1796, William Ward and
Joshua Marshman in 1799. Once more Carey looked to the Moravians for
inspiration. He planned to set up a settlement in the Danish colony
of Serampore, near Calcutta. Thirty years earlier, a Moravian
community had been attempted there at the request of the Danish
authorities, but without success. This did not discourage Carey,
however, from modelling his own mission community directly on
Herrnhut’s principles: common possessions, shared purse, equality
of station for missionary and convert alike, bound by a brotherly
agreement. Following the Moravian pattern, Serampore would be a
community of Christians living by their own industry, demonstrating
the love of Christ to the pagan neighbours.
So began one of the most remarkable mission careers in history,
inspiring the start of many new mission societies, and thousands from
Europe and America to follow over the next decades.
Carey–the visionary father of modern missions–had a vision that
extended far beyond evangelism and church planting. It embraced the
transformation of a whole nation. Not only would Carey become the
founder of the Indian protestant church. Some say he became the
central character in the story of the modernization of India–a story
rooted in a little town in Saxony.

Jeff Fountain has lived in Heerde, The Netherlands, since 1975. After completing history at Auckland University, New Zealand, he worked as a journalist, and later as travelling secretary for IFES in his homeland. Jeff and his wife Romjke were leaders of the Heidebeek training centre and community of Youth with a Mission from 1980 to 1993. In 1990, Jeff became the regional director of YWAM Europe. You can learn more from Jeff by buying his book "Living as People of Hope".

“Old marching orders are good marching orders.”

Just when you thought it was safe to visit the blog!
We have been rather quiet on the Wee Prayer Room Thing and its alter ego Beautiful Feet over the last wee while and from a personal level it could be quite disheartening to turn up week on week not knowing who if anyone is going to be there.
So lets get back to what we believed we heard God say...and as a wise old church leader once said “Old marching orders are good marching orders.”
As far as I know the plan hasn't changed. When we meet nearly two years ago! wow! is it that long? We believed that God was asking us to prepare the ground for a 24/7prayer boiler room type thing. We had believed that God was wanting to put together a community of people who were passionate about praying for Belfast, that reaches out with the Gospel, serves the poor, who express the creativity that God gives us and who are hospitable and want to be discipled.
We have been on a pilgrimage together, we have had amazing times in prayer experiencing the glory of God, the weight of His presence, times of creativity, of great feasts together, a rhythm of prayer was established first in May St and then in Calvary Christian Centre and we have begun sharing soup and rolls with some people who do not have homes.
So why am I sharing all this?
Was the vision we had back in 2005 a good marching order?
Sometimes when we do not hear God speak on a subject for a while we decide to move on, drop the ball and forget it. But if God spoke then and it was a good order then it has not changed, our God has not changed, it is us who have changed.
This year is significant, this time is significant for the Kingdom, let us count the cost and let us not grow weary in doing good.

Phil3:13...Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

The Really Big Soup Pot Thing

A couple of Tuesday nights ago the WPRT had a chat with God and we believe that we need to be doing more than just praying, more than just singing, we have to go and with BEAUTIFUL FEET serve the poor...

We sensed that we need to meet for a meal at 6pm having come prepared with food for ourselves and enough for at least two others. Initially, we will take out soup in flasks (bring your own) and walk through Belfast to find homeless, hungry, cold people to share it with. We will have polystyrene cups with lids to serve the soup in. Would you also bring some bread rolls with you to serve with the soup, plain or filled.

Come and join us

New Venue

Hi

The WPRT has now moved to Calvary Christian Centre 4 Curtis St Belfast.

We will continue to meet at 7:30pm Tuesdays.

Follow the red dots if you are coming from the City hall, the black ones if you are coming off the M3.

The door may be locked ring the door bell.

: Multimap original of this:
www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lat=54.604&lon=-5.9282&scale=5000&icon=x

House bundle

This is a house bundle...the refugees of conflicts in Europe were seen to carry their possessions in tightly wrapped bundles.

The WPRT is about to move to new accommodation...watch this spot.

The Continental Market at the Belfast City Hall
We have embarked on another wee prayer room thing mad adventure, how does a wee prayer shack sound? Set in the grounds of the City Hall amongst the market stalls from across Europe. For this wee adventure we have joined forces with Eclipse and with Worship Ireland...to pray, worship and not just tell people the Good News of Christmas but be there to pray for them and give out a few CD's and sweets in the process.
The shed is facing the Merry Monk beer tent and a big fudge stall. Come down and join us.