Feedback: Around 180 people gathered in the centre of Bangor at Trinity for the Global Day of Prayer. The afternoon started with a time of Praise and Worship. There was a good sense of freedom in the worship and throughout the service; God's presence was very real.
Ricky welcomed everyone to the venue explaining the purpose of the gathering. This was followed by a wonderful dance by the young girls belonging to 'Deep'. The music for the dance was by Robin Mark's song 'Kings and Nations all shall come, come and bow before His Throne’. The10 girls aged between 8-14yrs used different flags representing 10 of the top 20 Nations who are suffering the most severe persecution for their faith. The dance was sensitively and beautifully performed and focused attention on the nations of the world. The girls had each been given information about the country whose flag they would be carrying and they had been praying for the previous month for that nation. The flags were left visible throughout the rest of the service after the dance.
We were delighted that Tom Ross was able to join with us to welcome the Lord's presence through the sounding of the Shophar.
Each prayer section was led by various Ministers/Pastors from some of the Bangor Central churches. The sections included adoration with responsive readings from the Psalms, prayers of repentance followed by a time of silent prayer, and prayer for the nations. There was a specific time of prayer for local needs. Each of the five prayers during this time was led by members/leader of various churches in centre Bangor. During this time we prayed for our local community, business community, leaders and those in authority, police and other emergency services, the local churches and our young people. We were delighted to have various people taking part and especially a young person who herself knows well the trials and tough times faced by the young people of Bangor.
We were also led in a time of prayer for revival and asking God for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
As in all venues in Bangor we were inspired and challenged through the PowerPoint presentation setting out the needs of our brothers and sisters experiencing persecution. This was very moving and was followed by a time of prayer for the Persecuted church.
Each time of prayer was interspersed by worship which was so sensitively led by the worship group from Trinity. This kept our eyes focused on Jesus and we enjoyed the loveliness of His presence.
We are grateful to all who so willingly gave of their time and talents. Many helped to create an opportunity to join with many nations of the world to pray.
Challenges? The goal of moving to three venues was to encourage folk to participate and be a part of the vision of Global Day of Prayer. It seemed as though there were a number of churches with no representation and this is a challenge for the incoming year to share the vision and find a person in each church who will 'champion' the needs of the Global Day of Prayer within Bangor and encourage support. Nonetheless He is greater and we continue to battle for our town and churches that we may know increasingly the reality of His presence and see His Spirit poured out in our town in revival.
Feedback report by Heather, Trinity Bangor.
