Because We Got Together For Unity Prayer Day (2019)
Wonderful answers to prayer!
A little while ago, we hosted the inaugural Unity Prayer Day in Castle Hill and much has happened in a week in the Spirit realm since!
A few days after the event on the Thurs 7th of March I had the privilege of catching up with Gerry and Arana Rice, pastors of the Ali Curung (Ali -coo- rung) Church near Alice Springs, and heard the enormous answer to prayer that they received in that week because of our prayers.
Was it really that big a deal that we got together intentionally in Sydney to pray? It would appear so!
But to tell you of the full impact of God's goodness to us, I need to backtrack a little so that you can see the Heart of God woven into this “If my people” story.
If you are expecting a short description, then imagine that this will be a lengthy, boring investigative report instead and you might be pleasantly surprised LOL.
At the beginning of this journey, just after our senior pastors kindly offered for Robyn and I to hold the National Day of Prayer Gathering and also a political forum at our Dayspring premises, God began to wake me up at 6am every morning to speak to me about just what He wanted for Unity Prayer Day (UPD). In fact the final schedule for UPD was set by the Lord, right down to every 10 minute segment.
One of the clearest things I heard from the beginning was that I needed an Aboriginal pastor from our region to open the meeting with the song “The Great Southland”. My friend Bev had a contact with an Aboriginal elder from the Hills/Blacktown area, and when she contacted Pastor Peter Walker, he was so excited that something was happening in his area that he said he would try to see if he could make our event. Unbeknownst to me, he was already engaged at the National Day of Prayer and Fasting (NDOPF) national event in Canberra to be the official Aboriginal Elder representative there. No wonder he couldn't get out of it! But he did say that he would talk to the pastor that he mentors.
2 weeks go by and I didn't hear back, so I figured it wasn't to be, and I left it with the Lord. But a new-found friend, Donny McGregor from Generation Fire Ministries, through a mutual friend Andrew Scarborough (Host at NDOPF's Canberra event and leader of yourawakening.tv), led me to John Kennedy in Mt. Druitt, another Aboriginal pastor, who turned out to be the very pastor Peter Walker mentors.
Thru another mutual friend (Neil Harvey, Jesus Loves Australia) who is a member of the Kennedys' church (Yahweh Gumbuya), the connection was made and suddenly had a Aboriginal pastor and his wife, plus a worship leader/keys player a week before Unity Prayer Day.
Ps. John and Jennifer told their family in Tingha about UPD, and this is what Jennifer told me, that when they feel the Spirit is on something, they will drop everything to be there. The day before, their Tingha family drove more than 600kms down to be with us, a great sacrifice to them as their town had just suffered devastating bush fires just a few weeks ago.
They came to be with us, and they were more than a blessing - in fact it wasn't until 24 hours before that I found out that we also had another worship leader, Kelly Winning from Jubilee, and suddenly we had a problem - too many musicians and not enough instruments!
Through the day, I just felt strongly to have John pray more than I had originally asked him to, which was to pray for the Indigenous church. I asked John to also open the meeting in prayer, and then to pray for Australia. And because Dayspring's senior pastors were unable to make the meeting due to a previous engagement, I also asked John to pray for Australian Churches and all church leaders present.
Then in the afternoon, after John and Jennifer prayed for the first peoples of our Land, my beautiful prophetic-discerning friend Catherine felt that we were to submit to the Aboriginal pastors and to have them bless us. Catherine said that in the past the 'Australian church” has had the attitude that they were to bless the Aboriginal communities for them to take their place, when in reality it is us that need the first nation peoples' blessing, for our nation to go forward. “Can you please pray for us, we need your blessing” were the words.
John affirmed Catherine's request, saying that Smith Wigglesworth had prophesied that revival was going to come out from Indigenous place” BUT he also said that he believes that it is the people who are hungry who will be forerunners to see revival and the move of God break out, not just the indigenous. He said that we need to come together, and to move together, to see revival together, and from this place he prayed and blessed and also asked for his Tingha family to come and together they laid hands on everyone present and spoke oneness into us.
It was only after the meeting when I was chatting with Ps. Jennifer, that I found out that God had already set them up: in the morning when they were going to pick up Vinnie, the worship leader, they found Vinnie and his wife Jo sitting with their Bible open, and Jo saying that they had a Word from the Lord for them that morning, and that they were not to leave until they had prayed for them and imparted the Word. And here I was thinking that they were running late, but they were on God's time after all!
They read from Joshua 1:1-3, after Vinnie asked them to go outside, take their shoes off and dig their feet into the soil.
“ After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.”
Jennifer told me that Vinnie and Jo prayed along the lines of God giving them the land, wherever they placed their feet, and it was from this place of alignment and blessing from the Land that they prayed for us on the day. It was an incredible time, Holy Spirit broke out, there was shaking and tears everywhere and God's presence was so tangible, and it felt like we came into a new season of understanding about God's purposes for Australia, because "the people of the feet" of Good news came into alignment and blessed us into our destiny.
After this, Deirdre (Healing Centre, Dayspring) shared of a time when God spoke to her 10 years ago on Sydney Harbour Bridge, where she saw two buildings, one with an Australian flag, and one with an Aboriginal flag, equal size and equal height, side by side. She felt Father say that when His first nation, the indigenous people, and the new inhabitants come together in unity, revival will fall in this Nation. Deirdre went on to say “I declare and proclaim this in Jesus' Name the time is arising, it's coming, and that it's now come.”
Donny spoke into two becoming one, the first nations and the new inhabitants, becoming one, like 2 sticks bearing 2 fires, but now coming together to burn together, putting aside all our differences and recognising that we have the same blood, and that with this fire God will melt the stony heart of Australia.
We then went on to pray about the 2 Indigenous crosses, the Alicurung Cross (https://www.facebook.com/alicurungcross) and the Haasts Bluff Cross (https://walkawhile.org.au), both near the heart of Australia.
The background story about praying for the 2 crosses is that I became facebook friends with Bunumbirr Marika, the Aboriginal Elder who was present at Awakening Melbourne last year, and he had just posted about a photo of a giant cross on facebook. Though I know the leaders of both Alice Springs Cross communities personally, I hadn't heard from them for a while and I thought that one of the crosses had gone up without me knowing! So I asked Bunumbirr about it (it was a photo of a cross in Texas), and then we began to chat about both Oz crosses, and as it turns out Bunumbirr is great friends with Paul and Rachel McLaughlin, who are brother and sister-in-law to my brother James (cue “it's a small world after all”). That's the beauty of how God works - if Bunumbirr hadn't posted that photo, the Oz crosses would have been far from my mind.
In the few days leading up to Unity Prayer Day, I suddenly had an urge to make sure that both Crosses were prayed for during out meeting. I felt God prompt me that if we would pray, that the Crosses would go up even as early as this year. And so I contacted Pam Duncan (who was my mentor many years ago), and Paul and Rachel, and asked them for specific prayer points.
Paul wrote back straight away and asked us to pray for the following that were hurdles to their Cross going up:
Pray for unity in the community of Ali Curung. (Been fighting for 2 years)
Also pray for Lands Council permission to put the cross up.
They also asked for prayer for their Christian leaders to stay strong as they have had personal set backs recently.
And so we prayed last Saturday. Just prior to praying, during the time John was going around praying blessing for everyone present, I had been hit by the Holy Spirit with a huge need to get on the floor and just weep tears and cry out to Him. Can I just testify right now of the power of “Sowing in tears and reaping in Joy”, there's so much untapped power to this prophetic act and I have learned that it is an absolute SHORTCUT in the Spirit Realm, having experienced some very fast and impossible answers to prayer nothing short of God's sovereign hand taking over. The words God kept having me say over and over while I was weeping was “Unity”, and I was praying Unity all over the place.
I cannot say that the dramatic answer to prayer has anything to do with the tears, or to us at Unity Prayer Day stepping out in faith for I know that there have been many others praying for many years and shedding many tears, but I do believe that because so many of us INTENTIONALLY sacrificed up to 6 hours of our day just to pray, and because we humbled ourselves towards each other and prayed in Unity, God chose to act sovereignly on our behalf. Because He wanted to prove Himself true to his Word “If my people...”.
That very Saturday night, and I know this because Paul Facebook messaged me on Sunday morn, and I also spoke on the phone to Gerry and Arana Rice, pastors of the Ali Curung church on Thursday 7/3 and interviewed them, one of the main leaders of the “East side Mob” suddenly felt convicted to go to the leaders of the “West side Mob” to make amends and ask for prayer. In Paul's words: “She was feeling unwell and God sent her to the west side to apologise and ask them to pray for her!”
This same lady then arrived at church the next morning with her mother and in Paul's words, “they both gave their hearts to the Lord. You can feel a peace in the community again. Even the dogs are calm! Thank you very much. We really appreciate your love for us and the community here.”
When I talked to Gerry and Arana, they told me of all the bad things that have been happening, fights and youth getting into trouble all the time (think alcohol), and that since then there has been peace this week, the fighting has stopped and there's now talk again of the Alicurung Cross going up. Since Saturday the whole community is asking again about the Cross, and there's now no longer internal opposition to it. In fact they are talking about going to the Lands Council to present their case together – East side and West side – as early as next month! The cross had been ready to go for years, and this was the last hurdle, for the traditional land owners to be in unity.
There's been transformation in the Rice family also, the Elder of the land (in his 80's) whose property the Cross is going up on, he had been sick for a long time and was basically sent home to die, but began regaining strength 2 weeks ago and is now back on his feet, speaking and walking. Gerry and Arana's daughter -in-law also came to the Lord this past weekend after many years of prayer for her, and was baptised. Can you imagine their joy?!
On top of that, they told me that the Sing-a-long in their community has started up again – Paul told me that in the past that's when things start really changing, such as when revivals come, is when they have Sing-a-longs. It used to be that whenever Sing-a-longs were held, they would not have any fighting that night, and that the last East side and West side singalong was 2 years ago. The Sing-a-long's bring oneness to the community and helps them keep it!
So I asked them for more prayer points, and I know you would join me in prayer for these:
For continued unity – in the past each time they have gone to talk to the Lands Council something breaks out and they are disunified again, so please pray against the enemy's schemes.
For ALL the Aboriginal Leaders in the community to come to the Lord.
For the Sing-a-longs to be more powerful and consistent than ever before
For Alicurung to come Alive again – three quarters of the community (mainly families) have left the town because of the 'bad stuff'.
That the Land Council will find no further issues for putting the cross up, not even because of the bush tucker around.
For their July 5th gathering - a weekend of celebration followed by a week of missions around Alice Springs, then another weekend of celebration - https://www.facebook.com/events/1581658028617745/.
The Kennedy family and church also report a revival in their church - God coming in power and touching them personally, and even the kids in church are rising up in their congregation to minister to others. They have realised that they are not just prophetic people, they are indeed a prophetic church. Jennifer also tells me that in the 3 days following UPD at the time we spoke, that there have been "all these inquiries out of nowhere of people wanting to find out about our church and who are wanting to come". I know that Father will bless our Tingha Aboriginal family greatly also, as they have sowed in sacrifice into us in Sydney.
Where there is Unity, God commands a blessing. I cannot believe it that when I felt the urge just to call something together to get as many representatives from as many churches and regions as possible, that we would get so many beautiful passionate men and women, mums and dads in the faith who would come and join me at the Call to Prayer.
I have not even begun to talk about the incredible Christian leaders that came and prayed with us, and how much we learned, or of the relationships that were built, or of the revelations that were given throughout the day. I cannot say enough thank yous to all who participated, led prayers, helped with logistics, sacrificed of themselves (especially Colin plus a few other very dear friends - you know who you are), and also our Church pastors, Kristen and Aaron, and members who gave of resources and time to make Unity Prayer Day happen.
And I haven't even begun to talk about the amazing things that happened at the Political Forum yet! But if you would like to catch up on part of the day, you can see recordings here: https://davepellowe.com/should-the-church-be-apolitical.
But for me, at the end of the day, I felt a new contentment in my heart, something I had never felt before, in any time of my life in or out of church. I felt a new deep sense of family, a sense of unity, that we were all after the same thing – THY KINGDOM COME – and that we would PRAY to see God come, because all great moves of God has always been birthed out of prayer.
More on other things later :). Keep listening out, for Father woke me on Sunday morn (yep so like Him, not even giving me 24 hours rest before He gives me the next thing coz He knows I'll fight it all the way like I did the last one - I could have 8 weeks to organise UPD but instead I had five ;) ) with the urge to call an Election Prayer meetup, and then perhaps to turn UPD into a UPN, once a month on a weeknight, where combined churches and anyone can come to pray together.
Bless you, thank you for being part of this journey with me :).
x Ros