Our first Gathering...

“I’m so pleased I came” …

“Everyone seemed to want this to work”

“There was a real buzz about the place!” …

“People seemed to be really up for meeting together as one church in Croydon”

These were just some of the encouraging comments received after the first ‘In Croydon There Is A Church’ (ICTIAC) prayer meeting held at New Life Christian Centre on June 27^th.

 

Paul Barratt, Pastor of Croydon Jubilee Church, who headed up the planning group said that the evening had been beyond their wildest dream:

 

“Around 450 people turned up to pray. We have had feed back from most denominations - high church, low church and hardly church back grounds plus a spectrum of theological stances.

 

The overall reaction could be summed up as ‘excited’. Everyone enjoyed the buzz in the room and there was a feeling of being in the right place with God as we came together to pray in unity. The respect and the grace expressed towards one another were tangible.”

 

The theme for the night was Unity. Along with a time to say sorry to God for the church in Croydon not always being as united as it should have been, new church-wide initiatives such as Street Pastors and Love Croydon (the mission for 2008) were introduced and prayed for. A variety of intercessional styles of prayer, interviews, multimedia clips and worship were woven in to the course of the evening, which concluded at 9.30 with an invitation to people to stick their name badges on to a map of Croydon to symbolise commitment to praying for the borough.

 

The next ICTIAC meeting will be on October 24^th 2007 at the New Life Christian Centre, Croydon when the church will be praying for a Safer Croydon and looking at the issues surrounding Law & Order.