2017 Kingdom Impact Report25th May – 4th June 2017

IntroductionIn 2016 the Archbishops of Canterbury and York presented the Church – and not just the Church of England, but Christians everywhere – with an invitation that was to prove more fruitful than they could have dreamed.

It was simply to pray, between Ascension and Pentecost – 10 days – for more people to come to know Jesus Christ. Some prayer resources were produced to help Christians pray at home or in church, and dioceses were encouraged to put on larger ‘beacon’ events that would act as a focus for the initiative.

It was clear from the response that something special was happening.

In 2016 an estimated 100,000 people took part. Key to this was the ‘Pledge to Pray’, which saw tens of thousands signing up online to pray as individuals, with their families or with their churches; an interactive global map showed where the pledges had come from, with markers appearing all over the world.

Christians from every denomination and tradition joined in the initiative, from Pentecostal to Roman Catholic: as the Archbishop of Canterbury said, ‘It’s not a Church of England thing, it’s not an Anglican thing, it’s a Christian thing.’

By 2017, every diocese in the Church of England was included and 85 per cent of cathedrals took part, many hosting the beacon events. Because of the difficulty counting those taking part overseas, we know through various level of engagement that

hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of people were involved last year

And the growth has been exponential: three-quarters of those who took part in 2017 had not done so in 2016 and of those who took part this year, 98 per cent plan to take part in 2018.

Furthermore, prayer for conversions has become an engine for evangelism as churches are turning prayers into action – reaching people of all ages. Among other projects:

• Every clergy person in the Church of England received a booklet outlining how they might put together a strategy for evangelism in their local setting.

• Older people have been drawn into a ‘Vintage Adventure’ group. People who might not have been used to church gather to explore a spiritual theme and visit different prayer stations to think creatively about what they’ve discovered.

• In one parish, students in school Christian Unions were encouraged to pray Thy Kingdom Come, with young people encouraged to focus on the people in their lives and deepen their relationships with them

In God’s time and by his grace, a simple call to pray ‘Thy Kingdom Come’ has lit a flame in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of his people

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What happened?Thy Kingdom Come took place:

• In homes: Participants pledged to pray for five people and used prayer journals to focus their prayers through the 10-day period. They set up family prayer stations with interactive and creative ways to pray. They used daily pocket prayers, or committed themselves to praying at particular times during the day. They prayed using social media.

• In churches: People took part in prayer walks, leaving the building and hitting the streets. They set up prayer stations in church, or ran 24-7 prayer teams. They tried praying in Messy Church and in ordinary church prayer meetings.

• At Beacon events: Large-scale events attracted thousands of people to cathedrals featuring worship bands, exciting speakers, testimonies – and above all, prayer.

• Internationally: All over the world individuals and churches caught the vision for prayer.

• Ecumenically: Prayer wasn’t limited to churches. Parachurch organisations and festivals also took part in Thy Kingdom Come.

Thy Kingdom Come around the worldThese are just a few examples of how churches across the world supported TKC:

• In Portugal the Lusitanian Church, part of the Anglican Communion, translated prayers for each day of the Novena into Portuguese and put them on its website. On 3rd June it had an evangelism event at the cathedral in Lisbon with the theme, ‘Who is He?’ The aim was to present Jesus to those who came.

• In Mauritius the Anglican diocese developed a programme called ‘Together on the Road to Emmaus’, aimed at helping the Church be more welcoming. It organised prayer vigils at parish level and the whole

diocese gathered for a celebration on Pentecost Sunday.

• In Malaysia the church promoted cell groups, regional and diocesan gatherings for Thy Kingdom Come in five languages – English, Chinese, Tamil, Iban and Bahasa Malaysia. It produced prayer booklets, banners and posters and mobilised tens of thousands of Christians to pray. Leaders of churches – including the Roman Catholic Church – set aside three of the 10 days to pray specifically for the nation.

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Thy Kingdom Come around the UK These are just a few of the examples of the activities that happened across the UK:

• Messy Church featured Thy Kingdom Come as part of the work they do.

• CMS themed its bi-monthly prayer publication Prayerlines with the TKC logo, created prayers accordingly and featured an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

• Mothers’ Union encouraged its worldwide family to join in and support Thy Kingdom Come. A Global Moment event was live streamed from Hull and was watched in the West Indies, South Korea, Australia and the Isle of Man, among other places.

• Christian festivals featured Thy Kingdom Come. Mothers’ Union’s Mary Sumner House ran soft play at the Big Church Day Out and used TKC materials. Archbishop Justin spoke at Spring Harvest, where thousands of leather wristbands were given away, and a TKC video of him was played at the final celebration of each week. The video was also played at all New Wine’s regional leaders meetings.

Measuring engagement This is what we know happened in 2017, based on actual data and the responses to a post-event survey.

• More than 500,000 resources were delivered. Many more resources were downloaded from the website.

• Up to and including Pentecost Sunday, there were more than 2 million views of the videos we created.

• There were more than 1.65 million website page views.

• Thousands of events were recorded on the Thy Kingdom Come website. However, we know events were significantly under-reported: while 34 per cent of those who responded to our survey said they had added an event to the website, 38 per cent said they had not. The true figure is likely to be much higher.

• Christians in more than 85 countries including, Ghana, Netherlands, Malaysia, Cuba, South Africa, Australia, Korea, Japan and the Philippines. The material was translated into different languages, including Japanese, Welsh, Portuguese, Swahili and Spanish.

• On Pentecost Sunday, 17th June, the BBC broadcast a live service from Folkestone featuring the Archbishop of Canterbury – 700,000 viewers.

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What difference did it make?There’s a sense in which to ask how productive a prayer initiative was is to ask the wrong question. Prayer is not like other activities and is, therefore, not subject to the same measurement. We fulfil our responsibility when we pray and we can have no measure of the impact of our prayers. But there have been many moving testimonies (see opposite) of people whose lives have been changed through prayers that have been powerfully answered – like the couple whose son came home after 22 years, following their group praying for him.

We asked in our survey what difference Thy Kingdom Come had made to people and the results showed how powerful its influence had been.

Asked about its effect on churches, 25 per cent said it had made their church feel closer to God as a group. More than half said more people had joined in prayer – so it wasn’t just the people who usually attended prayer meetings who took part, it had actually increased the number of people in the church who prayed.

As individuals, more than 60 per cent said they were motivated to pray more than they’d previously done, while 35 per cent said they were more confident in prayer.

And as a very practical bonus, 40 per cent said they felt more motivated to talk about Jesus.

Testimonies

“Thy Kingdom Come had a huge impact on me personally. It made me focus on my daily prayers

so much more and made me so much more confident in talking to others about Jesus. I now

lead evening prayers at my church regularly.”

“It was so encouraging to see our church come together and pray together.”

“We have villagers who are not church goers asking us how to pray.”

“I introduced my 11-year-old son to prayer walking, it was a very special day.”

“We have a son we had not seen for 22 years. We pray for him every day obviously but during

Thy Kingdom Come he was one of the people we prayed for as a group. We put his name on the

altar before God and yesterday he came home.”

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How did we do this?In order to understand what encouraged people to take part, we asked participants how they heard about Thy Kingdom Come and what resources or communications they found useful.

• More than a quarter (26 per cent) heard through a national church network (like a diocese) and 22 per cent through their local church networks. Another quarter said email was important.

• More significant were social media and the website, with 34 per cent and 40 per cent of people identifying this as a point of contact. There were 2.35 million Twitter impressions (tweets generating interaction or replies) and 3.7 million Facebook impressions.

• More than half – 53 per cent – said they valued the free resources available on the website, while 55 per cent said they valued the emails aimed at helping them plan and prepare. Forty-two per cent said the same about social media updates.

However, by far the largest response was to the use of film. The creation of short films directly involving the Archbishop of Canterbury was a significant element in inspiring people to take part. The total number of film views was more than 2 million.

We also created short, social media friendly prayer prompts aimed at younger people which attracted more than 300,000 views.

All of this is evidence of the effectiveness of the digital communication strategy. We intend to build on this for 2018.

WINCHESTER CATHEDRALCase studies

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Last year’s Thy Kingdom Come in the Diocese of Winchester had four different strands.

There was a Novena of Prayer between Ascension and Pentecost, with all types of prayer events happening across the region; A ‘Tents on the Green’ event over the Pentecost weekend which drew churches from all denominations, across the city, together; A beacon event in the Cathedral attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury and – integral to Winchester’s Thy Kingdom Come – Christians were commissioned for Mission Action, to practically share the love of Christ in their communities.

‘Tents on the Green’ was a ‘providential’ collaboration between the diocese, Cathedral and Christians in Winchester. The Burn 24/7 prayer ministry wanted to have a 48-hour non-stop worship presence in the cathedral grounds over the Pentecost weekend, and the diocese wanted to provide a context where curates and other clergy and laity could have a hot-house experience of developing their evangelism gifts and putting witness to Christ into action.

There was a festival atmosphere and all-night worship in the cathedral, throughout the whole weekend, combining worship with opportunities for people to share the gospel.

Through Churches Together in Winchester, each church hosted a tent, where they offered refreshments or activities, including prayer and prophetic listening. The Bishop and Dean preached a gospel message in the open air, where people from the city could simply sit and watch – soaking in the worshipful atmosphere. There were many gospel conversations and stories of people for whom the weekend was a time when God spoke to them.

According to Rev Canon Mark Collinson, responsible for Winchester’s discipleship and mission training, ‘Tents on the Green’ was an opportunity not just to pray about being effective witnesses to Christ, but to practise being effective witnesses to Christ, which is at the heart of the prayer of Thy Kingdom Come.’

This practice turned out to be highly effective. Six curates created short films of the Mission Action projects they initiated as a result of Thy Kingdom Come at the Cathedral. These included Plough Sunday (farmers bringing their tractors to church), sports initiatives, pop-up cafes and kitchen choirs. The videos are being used to encourage parishes to do their own ‘Tent on Green’ events and to consider introducing more prophetic and creative ways of doing evangelism among people who would not otherwise have any contact with church.

At the same time, back at the Cathedral, Close Pastors has been developing into a group that seeks to be out on the cathedral green, at least weekly, connecting with people who gather there –offering an invitation to connect and prayer.

According to Rt Rev David Williams, Bishop of Basingstoke, the Cathedral event, like the previous year’s, owed its success to the preceding 10 days of prayer. In 2016 every church from the Pentecostals to the Roman Catholics took part in a prayer initiative driven by the enthusiastic curates who’d been charged with making it happen.

‘The big difference in 2017 was that we tried to link what was happening in prayer with what we expected to happen post-Pentecost – again through the curates,’ he says.

And once more, the ecumenical force of Thy Kingdom Come was notable.

‘My own view is that Roman Catholics, Pentecostals and Free Churches all found that simple phrase “Thy Kingdom Come” has the power to unite churches when other ecumenical initiatives don’t. Ask them to pray the Lord’s Prayer and it’s surprising how many will join in.

‘The idea was that this is a Christian thing, not a CofE thing. People warmed to it.’

Bishop David has served in the area for the last 16 years and has seen several co-operative missions in different towns. But, he says: ‘I’ve never seen a whole region work so enthusiastically together. It was a really inclusive call. A lot of mission requires a doctrinal buy-in. This was just, “Are you willing to pray, Thy Kingdom Come?”’

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And the breadth of church tradition represented set Christians free to innovate.

‘I was amazed at the range of creativity,’ says Bishop David. In Romsey, for instance, a ‘Say One For Me’ initiative saw prayers collected and dedicated teams pray through the lists at the Abbey. In Basingstoke prayer rooms were created, many by young people, featuring artwork, music and prayer walls: ‘We were simply providing a framework, and there was a huge opportunity to interpret it locally.’

And reflecting on the Cathedral’s beacon event, he says of the diversity of the participants: ‘They might not have collaborated in a joint venture in any other context. There was a Roman Catholic nun on the Catholic stall, with a quite contemplative feel to it – alongside another from a different tradition that was ‘– vibrant and lively. There were lots of activities for kids, you could see lots of conversations small groups.’

In the centre of the Cathedral green was, fittingly, a beacon, kept burning for the whole weekend. Bishop David says: ‘A lot of church activity has a duty element to it. This was life-giving – it was energising, rather than draining.’

24-7 PRAYER IRELANDCase studies

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The beacon event in Belfast took place at St Anne’s Cathedral on Saturday 3rd June (there was a similar event in Dublin at St Catherine’s Church the following day). BETH TAYS was part of the 24-7 Prayer Ireland team that took the lead in organising it.

“St Anne’s were brilliant in partnering with us and making the cathedral available for the gathering. And many churches from across the city and denominations joined in enthusiastically to promote and attend the event.

“There were several different churches contributing. Dave Dickinson and his team from Carnmoney Presbyterian church led us in sung worship throughout the evening. We had various topics for prayer allocated to different segments of the evening led by contributors from different local churches, denominations and organisations.

“Attending the event were more than 750 people from Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Roman Catholic, non-denominational, Vineyard, independent churches, house churches and more!

“We were so delighted by the turnout on the night. People came from all over the city and all over he region. It wasn’t just the number of people who turned up, but

who they were and the level of enthusiasm they brought. Everyone was there because they wanted to gather in a spirit of unity with

the whole church. They love this land, and they’re desperate to see God’s kingdom come in this time and place.

“At its basic and best, it was simply one big beautiful corporate prayer gathering. The seats quickly filled and soon the standing-room-only in the spaces at the flanks and back of the room were also full. There was an expectancy in the room as we gathered with friend and stranger, waiting to see how this eve of Pentecost would take shape. The place was pregnant with anticipation; you could sense hearts bursting with prayers longing to be prayed.

“We welcomed people in and set the scene of the flow of the night. We shared stories of what the Lord is doing in the land, what we are grateful for, what we are longing for, what we sense the Lord is saying. We interceded. We were led in prayer by different church leaders – prayers of repentance, prayers for different folds of the fabric of society, culture, politics, education. We prayed for the church, that we would dwell in unity. We prayed for the transformation of a nation and wrote our best prayers down on the giant maps of Ireland around the room. We blessed each other and worshipped together. We officially ended with a worship song and prayer of blessing.

“A key point for us is the renewed sense that people are hungry to gather in a spirit of unity to pray and worship together, to call on the Lord, centre our lives around his

presence, intercede on behalf of a land, and to see hearts, lives and a nation transformed by the love and grace of Jesus.

“It’s probably safe to say that any time we gather intentionally in a spirit of unity from across denominational divides anywhere in Belfast, or Northern Ireland for that matter, it carries an inherent and poignant significance. In a place where division is engrained in the fabric of hearts and history, and unity is classically so heartbreakingly misunderstood and opposed, the very act of resolutely coming together with common purpose amidst the diversity to stand in unity stands in bright contrast. It resists the flow of what perhaps people for decades presumed to be the doom of this city or this land, and instead begins to turn the tide to speak hope, healing, restoration, life, blessing into this place.

“It’s maybe easy to read too much into it. But where, for so long, unresolved hurt turned into unchecked hate and created a culture characterised by things like sectarianism, for the church to rally together as the diverse body of Christ to stand in the gap on behalf of a nation and cry out for healing and mercy and revival, centring ourselves again around the very presence of the Lord, carries a potent significance in creating a new culture.

“We are so excited to host another beacon event this Pentecost. We’re pulling plans together for it now and working to get promo out.

“We learned, or maybe were reminded, that there’s a fresh hunger for this. And we want to keep whetting that appetite.”

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Why has Thy Kingdom Come taken off?

God. “I cannot remember in my life anything that I’ve been involved in where

I sensed so clearly the work of the Spirit.” Archbishop Justin Welby

It bring Christians together. Across countries, across the denominations, across church traditions,

across many of our inherited boundaries, Christians can unite in praying ‘Thy Kingdom Come’.

It’s simple. It doesn’t need a lot of explaining – we might not always feel we’re

very good at it, but prayer is what Christians do.

It’s portable.Christians pray, in services, in house groups and Bible studies. It

doesn’t need a new infrastructure to make it happen.

It’s time-limited. We might be uneasy about committing to something open-ended,

because we don’t know if we can commit to it. This feels doable.

It’s necessary.Even if we’re in growing and thriving churches, we’re aware of large areas in the country where there’s decline. Praying for conversions

feels urgent.

It’s growing.This has become a movement people want to be part of because

they can see the difference it’s making.

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thykingdomcome.global

“I cannot remember in my life anything that I’ve been involved in where I sensed so clearly

the work of the Spirit.”

Archbishop Justin Welby