Thursday 2 December 2010

december prayer update

Another month! Life's absolutely flying by these days, as you may have gathered from the smaller number of blog posts. This is mainly due to things becoming much busier of late. In the midst of all the busyness, there's lots that you can be praying about for me, if you'd be so kind!

Firstly, thank you all for your prayers for one-to-ones: things have really progressed on that front. I'm now meeting up with two people from church separately - Nathan, who is in the youth group that I help to lead and is 18, and Andy is a first year from Oxford Brookes uni. Both are a huge encouragement to me. They're at very different stages in their Christian life so please pray that this time would be useful to us all - for me in helping me to get better at doing this sort of ministry, for them that they'd be encouraged and that as a result would love Jesus more and want to live for him.

Secondly, thank God for my housemates! They discovered this blog for the first time yesterday and we're put out at the lack of mention of them. So, just to appease them I thought I'd mention them now. The end.

Not really. I am actually really blessed to be living where I am. One of the concerns I had before moving to Oxford was that I'd get lonely (all say awwwww) and not get to know anyone. God's really answered prayers for that with my housemates. They're a really nice (and surprisingly clean and tidy - something I didn't think possible given the track record of previous housemates!) bunch, and I enjoy coming home and spending time with them. Always a bonus, and a good gift from a gracious God!

Now, briefly, a few things you can specifically be praying for:

  • Pray for 'Can we do without God', which draws to a close in a couple of weeks. Please pray that I would know what, if anything, to do next.
  • I've got two weeks off over Christmas. I'm going to be up in Hartlepool for a few days, then I'm heading to Dubai for a week over Christmas and new year. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone - please pray that I'd relax well, that I'd be refreshed, and that I would get to see everyone that I'd like to!
  • On Sunday 12th I'm preaching my second sermon at the evening service at Woody Road. I've not managed to get any prep done for that yet really, and in trying to find time to do it stress seems like a possibility! It's going to be on Luke 1:26-38. Please pray that I'd prepare well, that it would exalt Jesus and that people would know him better and thus love him more as a result.
  • The youth group is made up mainly of people in Sixth Form, many of whom are fairly mature in their faith. Because of this, we're trying to give those that are interested a chance to lead some of the Bible studies for the youth group, and every couple of weeks I'm meeting up with a couple of them to try to help them plan the Bible studies. I've got very little experience of doing Bible studies myself and so don't really know what I'm doing here, ha, so God's help is needed!

No comments: