Continuing to Contend For a Spiritual Awakening

We believe God has put a mandate on this church to contend for a Spiritual Awakening in Croydon and beyond. This Awakening will see hearts coming alive, lives being transformed and many creative and dynamic futures being opened up. Previous awakenings in the UK have brought about significant social change (such as the end of slavery) the launching of dynamic new ways of doing business (like Rowntrees or Cadburys), have released immense goodness across the world (such as the sending out of missionaries to Africa) and even prevented revolutions taking place (a number of historians believe the Awakening under Wesley prevented Britain following France into a bloody civil uprising). We do not by any means believe we will be the only church used by God to see a new Awakening in our land, but we do believe we are being asked to play our part in Contending for it.

The engine for an Awakening to occur will be individual people having paradigm shifts about who Jesus is and what he wants to do through them. It will be something done by God, in God and for the glory of God. The Awakening we are seeking cannot be manufactured or planned; it must only be a sovereign move of God. But this doesn’t mean we should sit back and just “let God be God”. Jesus told us that when we contend in prayer then things are shifted and -  in a mysterious way - God does what he already was wanting to do. We therefore want to take very seriously the agency that we have been given by God to Contend for Awakening, and see it come to pass.In view of all of this we want to encourage you to "go again" in a period of prayer and fasting for Awakening.

From Friday 1 to Sunday 10 Sept we will be inviting everyone in the church to join us as we pray and fast for a move of God. This time around we will be asking people to consider doing one of 3 things:

1) fast from some form of food or activity for the duration of 1-10 Sept
2) fast from food from dawn to dusk for between 1-10 of the days
3) join the 7 additional prayer gatherings:
Fri 1st 7am-8am at the Harvest Centre and on zoom
Sun 3rd 9am-10am at Harris
Mon 4th 7am-8am at the Harvest Centre and on zoom
Weds 6th 7am-8am at the Harvest Centre and on zoom
Weds 6th 7:30pm-9:30pm at the Harvest Centre
Fri 8th 7am-8am at the Harvest Centre and on zoom
Sun 10th 9am-10am at Harris

We do not want this to feel like pressure on you to meet our expectations. If this call does not stir you or if the dates just aren’t good for you then we want you to feel utterly loved and accepted by us. We live in a kingdom of grace. At the same time, if you do hear in this an invitation from Jesus to join us in this endeavour then we want to give you a high five and say “let’s do this thing together”; let’s press forward in faith to grasp hold of every single thing that Jesus is making available to us in this season.