The City Centre

“Should I not have concern for this great city”  Jonah 4:11

@citycentremcr is praying for the people and places in the centre.  It’s a great adventure that we invite you to join us in.  We’re excited by new prayer networks across our city that are praying into the different worlds we work and live in.

Do you know how much God loves Manchester? 

God loves cities and God loves Manchester. God delights in Manchester but he asks us, as he also asked Jonah, to let our hearts be broken for the things that break his heart.  He asks…are you available?

Why is the city important to God?  As Jonah discovered, God loves people more than plants!...and cities are full of people. But churches are not moving to the city centre as fast as people are moving there and God is concerned. 

Why pray for our city?  In an unprecedented case, Abraham prays, with great personal cost,  for Sodom and Gomorrah (cities not even connected to his people) that the few (righteous people) might spare the many (unrighteous) and God agrees.  Jesus would fulfil the reality of what Abraham foreshadowed in this story.  Abraham prayed for people who might of killed him, Jesus prayed for people who did kill him.   And the righteousness of Christ, given to Christians through the cross, enables us to intercede for our city with the authority and power of God.  Quite something!

Two years ago, a group of Christian men and women from across our city joined together to pray for our city, believing that the hinge of history is the bended knee.  None of us were experts at prayer.  In fact we had more in common with the 16th century nun Teresa of Avila who confessed she found prayer so hard she shook the hour glass to make the time go quicker.  Thankfully, Jesus teaches us in the bible how to pray so we can become better at hearing Gods voice, experience more of his presence, process disappointments and see more miracles. 

We’ve been praying for the different spheres of city centre life:

The arts – that art might have a purpose, rather being ‘just for arts sake’, to shape social, cultural and spiritual transformation.

The media – the broadcast word is a spiritual thing. 

Education -growing leaders of all ages changes nations.

Business –the risk of self owned business and the use of power by big business.

Sport - has the power to change the world, the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand.

Entertainment and the night-time economy – the opportunity of ‘third space’ and the perils of escapism.

Civic and political life – affects the common good.

City centre churches –through relationship churches might know the strength of the ‘right hand’ of others and witness to a belief that the bended knee is the hinge of history.

Be encouraged ;-)

Firstly, people are praying for you.  That God will bless you, inspire you, grow you and help you flourish.  

Secondly, we want to support and encourage you in your world of work in prayer, to discover more of his life and the spiritual, cultural and social transformation this brings.  

Thirdly, if you’d like to meet us then

Join an @citycentremcr prayer event where we’re asking Jesus to teach us how to pray for our city centre and it’s different spheres (like the arts, business and so on..)

See our calendar for how to join us.  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @citycentremcr or email us on citycentremanchester@gmail.com

Finally, if you'd like to get our updates then just email us.

In addition to relationships with prayer networks across our city, we are grateful for support and insights from the following;

http://movementday.uk/

Tim Keller's short videos on vision in the city centre 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8DOGy0vCewQ

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZfHx2NiV50

Pete Greig's Prayer Course and book Dirty Glory

Thy Kingdom Come

Organising team for @citycentremcr: Roger Sutton, Dave King, Pete Horlock, Canon David Holgate, Peter Matthews, Mark Cowling, Karen Lund, Ian Rutherford

Further reflections on prayer:

Prayer changes reality

In the 19th century, James Matheson would pray at home in Scotland for his friends from the 93rd Highlanders, fighting in the Crimean war.  Matheson would pray every night and sometimes all night as the soldiers fought for their lives.  Occasionally there were reports from the trenches of a ghostly figure moving about amongst them somehow bringing a comfort and sense of peace.  At the end of the war, the soldiers of the 93rd Highlanders returned home and attended a special communion service in the village of Creich.  When James Matheson entered church, those war-torn soldiers turned and gasped.  Here before them was the man they had seen in those distant trenches, night after night. 

It’s a mysterious tale, but not an unfamiliar one.  All through the Bible and church history we have experiences of people who have learned how to pray with a perseverance and passion that changes material reality. 

Four steps into prayer

In 1989, the day after the Berlin Wall fell in Germany, a Communist official said that they had prepared for everything to protect the Berlin Wall but not for prayer and not for candles.  The Leipzig prayer movement had steadily grown over four years with 300,000 people praying for an end to Communism.  They had discovered four steps into prayer.

Get informed: As we’ve prayer walked the streets and gathered in places to pray, God has shown us the city that he loves.  The people and the worlds they live in like the arts, education, business, sport, entertainment and civic and political life.  Get inspired: The Bible is full of promises from God, about how he wants to partner with us to co-create life in our city.  Get indignant:  God wants us to be passionate and not apathetic about the unfairness in our world.   Get together:  Experience tells us and the bible backs it up that it’s powerful to pray alone but it’s even more powerful to pray with others.

The privilege of intercession

It’s absolutely heart breaking when a family breaks up.  A little boy we know pleaded with his Dad to repent of his unfaithfulness with another woman and then begged his Mum to relent of her decision to throw him out of the family house.  Intervening between two parties as the equal friend of both, as this child did, is a picture of a type of prayer called intercession, where God says “if we pray to him, he will heal our land.” 

As a Christian, I still find it incredible that the God who made the universe, actually says our choices make a difference.  The philosopher Pascal put it this way “God has instituted prayer to bestow upon his creatures the dignity of causality”  Our will can release or  restrict the very will of God.  .  If I pray I can influence the future.  Jesus teaches us to persevere, stacking up our prayers, one after the other, like a chain of dominoes, until the day we see a breakthrough, when we see transformation, the ripple effect of God answering all those prayers.  

The heart of prayer

The 19th century missionary to China Hudson Taylor said “we must learn to move man through God by prayer alone”. 

In 1947, a young minister called Bob Pierce, visiting China met a missionary who presented him with an abandoned child and asked what are you going to do about her?  Pierce gave her his last $5 and agreed to send the same each month to help the woman care for the child.  It was the poverty of children that led him to pray “God, Let my heart be broken for the things that break your heart”.  It was said of Pierce that he prayed more earnestly than anyone else ever known. It was as though prayer burned within him.

This life of prayer outworked itself in his founding of a charity called World Vision just three years later.  Today World Vision operates in over 100 countries, caring for the poorest and most destitute.

Jesus teaches us in the bible how to pray so that we can, like Pierce, develop a softer heart and more open ears as we pray “God, let my heart be broken for the things that break your heart.”