There are many opportunities for the congregation to pray together. Prior to the pandemic, a regular monthly Sunday evening prayer gathering was held. During the pandemic this moved to a weekly Zoom prayer meeting. In addition, many folk use our very active ‘Steeple Support’ WhatsApp Group to share and respond to both prayer needs and practical requests for help. Over lockdown we also published, on our private ‘Steeple Family’ Facebook Group, a regularly updated church family coronavirus prayer update. Much prayer also happens within our midweek Home Groups.
In recent years we have held ad hoc prayer vigils focusing on specific issues, for example the experience of refugees, and days of prayer where folk have been encouraged to spend some time in the church praying for the congregation’s various areas of ministry.
During the pandemic lockdown in 2020, we committed over the course of a month (‘Listening to God in June’) to pray specifically about the future – using this enforced time of ‘apartness’ to ‘come together’ in this way. We sought to listen for God’s guidance as to how He wants us, as a congregation, to love and serve each other and the community around us. This exercise proved invaluable in helping us refresh our congregational Vision.
