We are now eight days before we set out on our trans-Atlantic trip and yesterday we had the privilege of being prayed for by our Lisburn church family as we begin this new season in our lives and launch Declare International. It was a precious time of worship, and then afterwards, over coffee in the company of friends, as we mutually caught up on news together.

What blessed us all the more was a lunchtime appointment with some long-term friends and prayer supporters, who had come home to prepare us lunch after an unexpected experience at church that morning.

The church is a traditional rural church near Belfast in Northern Ireland and has a membership of 250 families, and about 200 or so people were present at the morning service yesterday. The church is currently without a pastor and they are seeking God for the man He has for them. So, as has been the norm for recent months, they had a visiting speaker of the same denomination.

Our hostess, a friend of mine since the mid-80s when I was co-leading a large youth fellowship she attended, spoke with amazement about how the Holy Spirit came upon the congregation in the morning service. The speaker had talked deeply about the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, and being careful in this time without a pastor and in their choice of the minister. The man then offered at the end of his sermon to pray over anyone who wanted prayer.

Our friend said she expected maybe two or three people at the most to come forward for prayer and, as the pianist, she chose a piece of music to play while the prayer went on. At the close of the first song she noticed the prayer was continuing and so she played more music and proceeded to play song after song, as, at one stage looking behind her at the prayer line, she saw that the whole church had come forward to receive prayer.

Not only that, but speaking to us at lunch with feeling and with tears in her eyes, bringing into her story and the room vestiges of the experience that were still vivid in her mind, she said the church came forward as whole families together, and everyone received prayer for the most part of an hour after the normally very traditional church morning service would have concluded. She was stunned by what was happening, something completely out of the ordinary for her church and denomination, and she was deeply touched by the wonderful sight.

As she testified to the moving experience of the tender presence of God in the church, and spoke of how ‘this never happens in our denomination’ (or words to that effect), I was left with a deep feeling of awe at the mercy, kindness and love of the Father who feels for His people and visits them tenderly in their hour of need.

How precious is our Loving Father!