Just got back from our prayer retreat at the Christian Renewal Centre in Rostrevor. We had such a good time.

We went down on Saturday morning and joined them for an all day prayer for Ireland event, which finished around 4pm. We then went for a walk, had dinner and spent the evening reading, praying, and just enjoying being with Jesus. Sunday was more of the same – reading, praying, talking, dreaming, eating, more praying. It was a really restful and restorative time.

We don’t feel like the orders have changed a lot since we got here a year ago. The biggest prayers we found ourselves praying were:

• We want to be radically intimate with and radically obedient to Jesus moment by moment (to do what he’s doing and say what he’s saying).
• We want to gather people around us who want to do the same.
• We want people who don’t know or even like Jesus yet to enjoy being around us, feel welcomed and blessed by us, and seek out our company. I feel like this has a lot to do with being radically generous (give me a break, I’m a pastor – I have to have three “radicals” in there).

That’s what we wanted when we came here, although I think we would have articulated it a little differently. Coming off this retreat I think we both feel like a boxer coming back from the corner for Round 2 – ready to have another go at the vision God’s given us, both sides having given and taken some good punches in the last round, ready to give them a TKO from Tokyo…

Tags: prayer, prayer retreat