Spiritual Reflections
It’s good to pray together, share together, encourage one another and learn together.
The YBA produces resources and reflections to encourage churches to think about Lent, Advent and other key times in our Christian calendar.
We have been blessed to hear your stories which have resulted from these shared studies.
Please feel free to adapt/update and use any of these resources.
The New Prayer Diary 2024
Prayers for w.c. May 5th 2024
Gildersome Baptist Church, Leeds gbchurch.co.uk
The church is located in the commuter village of Gildersome close to junction 27 of the M62 motorway. Gildersome is one of the few villages in the area to have a Village Green. It is not only a picturesque feature of the village, it also provides a focal point for village occasions, such as Remembrance Sunday and the annual Scarecrow Festival.
Our listed grade 2 building was sympathetically modernised at the start of the 21st century and provides a worship area that doubles as a space for local groups to hire during the week.
We have an elderly membership of fifteen and a congregation of around twenty.
The church leadership team are currently reviewing and planning our outreach strategy. The church community are currently being encouraged to pray about this aspect of our journey at 7:00 p.m. each day.
We would appreciate the prayers of the wider YBA family that our upcoming outreach will be fruitful.
We are thankful for the various local groups such as the Beavers, Children’s Dance Group, and the walking group that make use of our facilities.
Peter Oldfield
Grace Gospel Church Home - Grace Gospel Reformation Church (gracegospelchurch.co.uk)
Grace Gospel Church is based in Leeds and ministering to the Ethiopian and Eritrean community. We are small church with membership of 60-70 people, but God is increasing us each day. We preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and witness that God has given the forgiveness of sin to those who believe in his Son.
As a church we are currently on 40 days of prayer and fasting. Pray for us that the hand of God would move in our mist and touch and heal anyone who is heartbroken and down.
Pray for direction for us as a church. Pray for God to lead us regarding what we should do in our next phase of ministry.
We baptised 7 young boys and girls last month. We are grateful that God did this. We are glad these young ones decided to follow Jesus. We are grateful for the increase and growth God is giving us. Please thank God for this.
So many people in our church are giving testimony about how God is answering their prayers. It is really encouraging to see people testify and see God respond to our prayers. We are grateful for that!
Ashenafi Mekuria
The changes we have made - And why we have made them
Prayer undergirds the work of the YBA. Prayer demonstrates our utter reliance on God and our care for one another. One of the ways we do this as a staff team and wider Baptist family, is by regularly praying for all our churches through the year using the YBA prayer diary. Thank you to all who have been doing this faithfully or maybe even sporadically. For those who may not know, each week, a couple of our churches are featured in the prayer diary and become the focus of prayers from other churches and people across our Association. We may not know the specific needs of these churches, but we hold them in our hearts in prayer before the Lord seeking His blessing over them and their ministry.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were to additionally be able to pray for the specific, expressed needs of our featured churches each week? That is exactly what we want to do this year – to raise up the specific needs of our churches before God’s throne of grace in obedience to His word: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Phil 4.6).
Ahead of their scheduled week, we will be inviting our featured churches to send in a short paragraph about their contexts and/or congregation alongside a few bullet points – three or four – of specific things our YBA family could be giving thanks for or praying for them that week and possibly beyond. This will be uploaded on to the Prayer & Spiritual Reflection section of the YBA website. If they want to include some photos (cleared of course for safeguarding) that would be great. Any church who, for any reason, was unable to send in their praise report and prayer requests, will still get prayed for in a general way.
So be on the lookout for your church’s invitation to send in your prayer points and also do check out this area of the ‘Prayer & Spiritual Reflection’ section of the website, each week, so you can pray with knowledge and specificity for the needs of our churches across Yorkshire. We look forward to celebrating specific answered prayers as we join together in praying for our churches.
If you have any questions about the administration of the prayer diary, please contact Hilary via hilary.dockerill@yba.org.uk
Nike Adebajo
YBA Regional Minister