Prayer Canopy

Winter 2010/11                                                Edition 96

I live in a strange part of the world - the island of Jersey, part of Great Britain but not part of the United Kingdom. Jersey is only 45 square miles in area and it is divided into twelve parishes. Each parish contains one of the Ancient Churches and in each Parish, the church boundary and the civil boundary match exactly. Each Parish is run by an elected Connetable, (this word means “Constable” and each Connetable has his own private, unpaid, police force) and by the Anglican Rector of the Ancient Parish Church. There are other ministers in the island, of course, Methodists, Roman Catholics, Baptist, a number of non-denominational ministers and some other Church of England ministers, in charge of smalleer “District” churches. This tiny island actually has over fifty churches.

The first five years of the new millennium was not a good time. Three marriages of Rectors broke down, as did some of Methodist Ministers and some of other Anglicans. Two Methodist ministers died suddenly and unexpectedly. The Christian church in Jersey was shocked and felt itself at war, spiritually.

Jersey has a Prayer Canopy, as do many other places in Great Britain. This is a system whereby Christians promise to pray at a certain hour every week. The aim is to persuade 168 Christians to join each prayer canopy, so that there is a Christian praying every hour of every week. We are a long way away from that goal but we do cover 71 hours. I joined the Jersey Prayer Canopy shortly after my marriage broke down, when I was asked to help with the administration and, a few months later, I attended the AGM of the group. I suggested that, as part of their prayer, they should also pray for local ministers and their families. I expected that they all prayed for their own ministers anyway, but I hoped that they would agree to pray for at least one other minister each month. They agreed and this is what we now do.

Each month, I receive the draft newsletter by e-mail.I mail-merge a greeting at the top, with the recipient’s name. I remind them of the day and time that they have promised to pray.Then I ask them to pray for a specific minister, and his wife if appropriate. We pray particularly that God would strengthen their marriage, if the minister is married, and we pray for their health. The list has grown. We try to pray for all Christian leaders in our island. So we now pray for Anglican Lay-Readers and Methodist Local Preachers as well as for all the ministers. In total, we try to pray for eighty eight church leaders each week, so some of our prayers are asked to pray for two Church Leaders, others pray for just one. I change the name of the minister that our prayers are asked to pray for each month. These letters are then distributed by post or by e-mail.

It may be that other canopies do something similar. Please could you enquire in your area? Try to find out if there is a Prayer Canopy near you. If there is, please could you ask them if they pray for their local ministers, particularly for their marriages and for their health. If they do not, perhaps you could suggest to them that it is something that they might consider.

Thank you for reading this. Please pray about it if you can. Anything that we can do to help other couples from avoiding the trap that we fell into must be good.

God is good.

Gill