The requests therefore fall into 3 categories. Firstly, there are the needs of the quad members themselves and their personal ‘everyday’ concerns, which are addressed without any need to refer to the wider prayer groups. In addition, from time to time, an individual within the congregation may fall seriously ill, meet with an accident, go into hospital or undergo a very traumatic trial in life. In this case, the minister will call for prayer and the request be passed down through the contact persons. Thirdly, the bringing of churches into a local partnership will still raise new problems that the minister may be able to outline to the congregation.
Where prayer support is sought, the prayer quads can include this in their private devotions, according to what is said to them by the minister, or explained in the churches magazine(s) where this is more appropriate. The groups are seen as clusters of people with a fairly similar perspective on the churches aims. They are therefore invited to meet together at intervals of their own choice and perhaps to widen out their mission within the churches outreach. Being people with similar shared objectives, it will be possible (in some instances) to work together and pursue new initiatives that their collective gifts open up to them. In this, the collective discernment within each quad will determine how the groups functions. Certainly the initial enthusiasm within St Michael’s has been high, and it has been suggested that all the quads meet annually, both as a social occasion and to answer members’ questions on prayer. The latter will address a need originally felt in the earlier years when the practical response was to pass on the teaching given by the ‘masters of prayer’. This was done at the time of regrouping the quads when it was often possible to report back from the annual diocesan healing conference.
Article contributed by Frank Smith LLM St Michael’s
