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OneChurch Basingstoke Gathers for Prayer

25 March 2019 By davidacgrant

OneChurch Basingstoke brought Basingstoke Christians together for prayer over our town and the Christian ministries that take place in it.

A Prayer to Open Our Hearts

OneChurch Basingstoke met in prayer on Sunday 24 March at Hope Community Church, led by Pete Hay. They began the evening by singing Paul Baloche’s song, Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, focusing on the holiness of God and our desire to see the Lord high and lifted up in our town, shining in the light of his glory.

Prayers for Our Town

During the evening, around forty Christians prayed for our town, including its families, schools, businesses and local government, along with some of the Christian ministries that take place each week. We specifically prayed for Basingstoke Foodbank, Healing on the Streets, Basingstoke Street Pastors and Basingstoke Town Chaplaincy. Fervent prayer could be heard throughout the evening as people gathered in small groups to pray for specific needs the ministries had highlighted.

The trypraying Initiative

Pastor Will Ross (Buckskin Evangelical Church), Chair of OneChurch Basingstoke gave an inspiring presentation on the Basingstoke trypraying initiative which will be running in the town in June 2019. The congregation prayed that churches in the town would sign up for the initiative, that God would help us to cover the costs of it, and that people would come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as a result.

Lord, let your glory come in Basingstoke

At the end of the evening, as the congregation sang Matt Redman’s song, Lord, let your glory fall, they prayed that God would let his glory come in Basingstoke, and united together as they shared in communion.

Photo by Sarah Noltner on Unsplash

News from Community Cafe Basingstoke

20 March 2019 By davidacgrant

Here is the latest news from the Community Cafe Basingstoke.

Oasis Cafe Basingstoke

Despite reduced footfall at the top of town, the Oasis Cafe Basingstoke continues to maintain reasonable levels of trade, largely due to continuing growth in the number of group bookings. However, you are probably aware that the Post Office has decided to close its top of town premises and transfer its business to W H Smiths in The Malls. We can’t be sure what further impact this will have on cafe business, but there is concern that many of our customers will no longer have an incentive to come up to this part of town. We ask you to give thanks for God’s provision to date and to pray for God’s guidance in responding to these changing circumstances.

Please pray this month for our wonderful Oasis Cafe Basingstoke volunteer teams and employed cooks, in particular following a recent re-structuring of the teams and rotas. One ministry of the cafe is to provide volunteer opportunities and support for those who may not be able to otherwise work or who have special needs. To some being on team gives them stability, a safe place, and they may struggle with change. Pray particularly for those who find change difficult that they will quickly settle into the new structure and feel cared for.

Following failure at the beginning of the school year to secure places on a part time catering course for two of our cooks (BCOT cancelled the course due to lack of take up and there was no other appropriate provider), we are planning a fresh approach to BCOT for the school year starting this coming September. This training is important to progress the individuals’ development and fulfilment, and is also important to future development of cafe provision. Please pray that God will open doors for provision of this training.

Delivery of free food, collected from various supermarkets, has now increased to providing twelve needy families/individuals each week. M&S have stopped trying to reduce price their near ‘sell buy date’ items before giving them to us, which means we get more and with longer time to ‘use by’ dates. There is now a small team in place to collect from the supermarkets and deliver to the various households but this needs to grow. Give thanks for the provision from the supermarkets and please pray for additional helpers to deliver the food boxes; if you know of anyone who you think might be willing to give an hour or two a week please e-mail Penny Dilleyaturc.communitycafe@gmail.com

Youth Cafe

The cafe continues to be used by on average 20 – 30 young people each day, mostly 11 – 13 year olds at present. Continue to pray for energy and motivation of the volunteer team, and for one or two additional volunteers.

The proposed mentoring scheme has moved more slowly than we had hoped as we are still looking to finish recruiting mentors. Our prayer is for the establishment of a team of five mentors by the end of the current school term.

Youth Cafe Plus (YC+)

YC+ was opened so that the large numbers of young people expressing an interest in Christianity to the Healing on the Streets (HOTS) outreach team had somewhere to go to follow up the information and prayer that they had been given on the street. To date the few young people that have come to YC+ have not had contact with the HOTS and are not necessarily interested in faith issues, and those that HOTS have interacted with have not come to YC+. Last week we were discussing whether we needed to review the YC+ and whether we were doing the right thing. And then, this week five young people have followed up their interaction with HOTS by coming along to the youth cafe to enquire about YC+. Is God trying to tell us something?! We know that once these young people make any kind of commitment or receive prayer on the street that there is an enemy who will try to discourage them from following that up. So please pray for all the young people who are each month expressing commitment or interest through the HOTS team, that they will follow this up in some way, and pray for the YC+ team that we will be sensitive to where God is leading us.

John Eves
Chairman Community Cafe Management Committee

Coming Events

Basingstoke Christians Commit to Unity in Mission

2 February 2019 By davidacgrant

Basingstoke Christians committed themselves to unity in mission at the 2019 Unity Service held at The Salvation Army in Wessex Close.

A Capacity Congregation

Over 180 people joined together to worship God and to commit to unity amongst Basingstoke Christians. Encouraged to relax by meeting leader, Lieutenant Rob Westwood-Payne of The Salvation Army, it was immediately clear the congregation were united in spirit as, accompanied by The Salvation Army band, they sang William Booth’s words:

O God of burning, cleansing flame, Send the Fire!

Unity was Front and Centre

The theme of unity continued as Fan the Flame worship group (The Salvation Army) led the congregation in For I’m Building a People of Power and O Church arise, and put your armour on. The singing really was awe-inspiring!

Jesus’ Prayer for Unity

Pastor Will Ross, Chair of OneChurch Basingstoke and pastor of Buckskin Evangelical Church preached on the theme, That They May Be One, based on John 17:20-26.

He encouraged us to be in Christ. To be in love with Jesus. He challenged us to ensure we are working to tear down the walls between Christians in the town. Jesus prayed we would be one. He pointed out Jesus prayed for our unity so we could be stronger together in mission.

He challenged us by saying we have the Good News for the people of Basingstoke and for the whole world. Our unity advertises how beautiful it is to be a follower of Jesus. Will we answer Jesus’ prayer and be one?

You can listen to Will’s sermon below:

Following that challenge, Reverend Dave Bishop of Basingstoke Baptist Church led the congregation through a Commitment to Unity, cemented by the congregation as they sang, Lord of the Church, we pray for our renewing.

Music and Prayer

Music was provided by The Salvation Army Band, who played the hymn tune arrangement, Penlan (“In heavenly love abiding) and The Salvation Army Songsters, who sang a beautiful arrangement of Then Sings My Soul.

Prayers of Repentance were offered by Reverend Jonathan Clark (Christ Church, Chineham); Prayers of Intercession by Reverend Kay Blackwell (United Reformed Church) and Prayers for our New Leaders by Reverend Trevor Woodget (on behalf of the OneChurch Basingstoke Leadership Team).

Basingstoke Christians: Stronger Together

As the congregation prepared to go back out into the mission field of Basingstoke and beyond, they went singing, “I’ll go in the strength of the Lord”. And they went, more determined than ever that Basingstoke Christians would be stronger together.