Revival Run: Prayer stakes making an impactTheresa Stone - 15 Aug 2012

Sarah Miller from ‘Holy Trinity Brompton (London, UK)’ is part of a group of young people that decided to ‘Be the Adventure,’ and go on a prayer staking trip with Revival Run prayer sticks to a Church in Mablethorpe (UK) in 2011, the team went back there in July to see what God has been up to…

“Every July, a group of students from Holy Trinity Brompton, along with the rest of the church, trek up to Mablethorpe for our annual church holiday, Focus. It is always a great opportunity to seek God with the rest of the church, hear some amazing teaching and get involved in some good old-fashioned camping!  In 2011, we decided that we would love to bless the area whilst we were there and so decided to do a Revival Run.

What is a Revival Run? The vision is to go to another town, city or country with a prayer stake, plant it in the ground and pray your biggest, boldest and best prayers over the area, crying for a move of God to break out in that place.

So last year, as a group of students we decided to link up with one of the local churches in Mablethorpe in order to pray for the area and pray for them as a church. After googling churches in Mablethorpe, we came across a local church called Mablethorpe Christian Fellowship, who kindly (and bravely!) agreed for us to invade their church and pray with and for them. About 10 of us visited this church, expecting one or two leaders to be there and to our amazement found a room of 20 of the leaders and congregation members there ready to welcome us and pray with us. We had a powerful time planting prayer stakes around the church and in the area, praying for the town of Mablethorpe together and praying over the church. They told us of how they were struggling to get children, young people and families into the church and how they hadn’t seen anyone become a Christian that year. They said as a church they struggled to find ways to be an outward looking church and how they were desperate for God to use them to impact the local community so we spent some time praying into those specific areas. The presence of God was so heavy that day and we all came away excited and encouraged about what God was doing. It was such a privilege to stand alongside another church and with one heart pray together, in unity.

This year we went back to the same church to see what had happened in the past year…what we heard blew our minds and our expectations of what God can do!! With amazement, we heard that in the past year they had seen 13 people become Christians, quite a number of people baptised, families coming along to the church, staying and getting plugged into the life of the church and they’ve seen more children and young people join the church than before. In the last year, their children’s work has expanded and they are now using a building next door that we just so happened to plant a prayer stake in last year. A woman was miraculously healed of Crohn’s disease, they’ve changed their service to become more outward looking in a cafe style and are seeing lots of new people come along (resulting in their building getting too small!) and so they have to add another service They have a heart for tackling unemployment in the area and have been approached by a large charity who want to partner in them in that area. They are a church of about 70 people and growing, who are faithfully loving and serving Jesus and we were so excited to see how God has been pouring out his blessing on them in the past year and starting to turn their dreams into reality.

Also, last year we gave them two prayer stakes to go on and do a couple of revival runs themselves. The first stake they planted in a building in Skegness that one of the local churches there was thinking about buying. In the last year, that church has not only managed to acquire that building but is in the process of renovating it to seat 1,000 people making it one of the largest churches in the county. The second stake that they planted was planted in a building that another church wanted to get. The church had bought the house next door in faith and without the money had been praying to get the building they wanted. The trustees had been very strict on demanding they pay full price for the building and were not allowing anything less. After planting the prayer stake, the trustees of the building met and decided to offer the building at a lower price for the church and have also offered them a substantial grant towards buying it!

We were so encouraged that God had been moving so powerfully this past year and answering the specific prayers that we had prayed and gone beyond our expectations for them, and furthermore, that they then went on and planted stakes that led to even more of an outpouring of Gods favour and provision! So we spent some time praying and worshipping together, thanking God for this past year and dreaming bigger with them in faith for this year. We are so expectant for God to do more than we could ask or imagine this year and are looking forward to hearing the exciting stories next year!”

If you would like to know more about Revival Run, or pray your best prayer for another town or city and plant some prayer stakes yourself, visit the Revival Run website.