After last month’s experimental worship watch in Annalong we’ve decided that it’s time to get more organised and do this regularly again. This time we are planning to do 2 Watches each month – on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of each month. But we are looking to move it around to a few different venues so keep checking in here for details.

We see this is a time to engage with God in worship and focus on him. There is no preaching, teaching or otherwise, but merely creation of a space for God to come among us as we draw close to him. There are no set prayers or prayer agendas, though spontaneous prayer may happen.

We are going to be running an evening of praise and worship. We have done these in various places in the past and we are looking to develop something on a more regular basis in the Mourne area.

If you are not familiar with the idea I shall explain a little further. We see this is a time to engage with God in worship and focus on him. There is no preaching, teaching or otherwise, but merely creation of a space for God to come among us as we draw close to him. There are no set prayers or prayer agendas, though spontaneous prayer may happen.

We have been given the use of the building at Annalong Christian Fellowship, though this is not exclusively an ACF event and as such we are not running this under the name of ACF. We intend to advertise this wider and hope that it will become a truly cross denominational thing. We hope in time to expand this further to include worship leaders from other churches and denominations. But for now we are starting small and it will be a bit experimental as we seek to grow. It will probably just be me leading worship for an hour or so and maybe some CDs.

Feel free to stay for as long or short as you like. There’s no obligation to stay the whole evening. We’d just be happy to have you come and worship with us.

Please use the Contact Form on this site if you would like directions to the building.

I am really keen to serve the Body of Christ by making myself available to lead worship at meetings and events.

I have been leading worship for about 22 years and am experienced in small groups, large teams and on my own with a single guitar.

If you’d like me to get involved in what you are doing please use the contact page on this site or phone me on 07851 848054

Pass through the Gates!  All Nations Convocation Jerusalem and Watchmen’s Tour of Israel

Sept. 18 – Oct. 2, 2009
Join us from your City to celebrate the King in His City, Jerusalem!

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I was recently asked by the Jerusalem House of Prayer for All Nations (JHOPFAN) to attend this year’s Convocation in Jerusalem to represent Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, I am unable to attend due to work commitments. If anyone from Northern Ireland is reading this and would like to go and represent us in prayer please get in touch with the JHOPFAN through their web site.

If you have never been before it is a 2 week gathering for prayer and worship for Israel and the nations, including a prayer tour of different locations in Israel.

You can download Registration Forms in many different languages from their web site.

I’m really chuffed to have been asked to be part of the Psalm Drummers team that’s participating in this year’s Global Day of Prayer in London. If you’re around it’s on May 11th at Millwall Football Stadium. Doors open and worship: 2.00pm, Main programme: 3.00-5.30pm. See the GDOP London web site for more details.

We were excited by the way that God blessed this time of 72 hours of worship. Before this the longest that we had run a worship gathering was 24 hours. Yet when we had been planning this many months ago we prayed and asked God what he wanted us to do. The clear answer was “3 days”

It started at 8pm on Friday night and finished at 8pm on the Monday night. The worship started with an hour of very anointed, intimate devotional worship led by Diane Hill from Athlone. Diane has organised Prayer Watch Ireland – a period of 40 days of night and day prayer – over the last few years. The worship ended on the Monday night in a similar vein with very prophetic, yet devotional worship from Joy Ryan.

A time of extremely anointed breakthrough high praises came on the Sunday evening (after 50 hours of worship). This was led by Shelton Brown, who is from Alabama, USA, yet has been living in the Christian Renewal Centre with his wife, Samantha, and their 3 children for the past 9 months. He was accompanied by Samantha and 2 friends from Colorado, Nori and Barbie Kelly, who had flown over specifically to be here for the worship weekend. There was a very deep level of intercession that came forth during this time, to the point where Shelton’s 2 hour session lasted 3 and a half hours!!! The presence of the Holy Spirit was very tangibly there.

There was an ebb and flow during the worship throughout the whole 72 hours, ranging from intimate, devotional worship to dancing, exaltation and intense warfare. There were also times of weeping and deep intercession, which seemed to take us by surprise and led us to intercede for Ireland. There was prophetic worship and new songs released. We had planned to do some structured times of intercession but this didn’t happen as there was such an anointing for intercession throughout the worship that structured prayer wasn’t necessary. Prayer flowed from themes that emerged during worship, often just from a line in a song.

Worship was led in either 1 or 2 hour sessions. There was a wide variety and range of styles, from single acoustic guitar or keyboards to full bands with drums, bass, electric guitars and trumpets. There was a good mix of young and older worship leaders involved. It was also a time of stretching for many. Some worship leaders commented afterwards that they had enjoyed the opportunity to lead worship for extended periods. Leading worship for 2 hours was a new experience for some.

There was never masses of people there at any one time but those who did come were struck by the presence of God. Some said that the weekend was a life changing experience. People came from many parts of Ireland, both North and South, from Waterford, Athlone, Omagh, Dublin, Dungannon, Belfast, Bangor, Portadown, Limavady to name but a few.

We need to say a very big ˜Thank You” to all at the Christian Renewal Centre as we couldn’t have done this without them. Also, a very special thank you to all the worship leaders who took part, to everyone who came to worship and all who have supported us in prayer. We are currently seeking God for direction for the way forward. We don’t believe God intends this to be a one-off event!

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On Sunday 4th June 2006 the 2nd Global Day of Prayer in Belfast took place. I don’t intend to describe the full day’’s event, but seek to tell you about it from my perspective. I took part with the local Psalm Drummers group as we played the piece called ”Reconcile”.

The piece starts with a battle between a Lambeg drum and a Bodhran. For those of you who don’t understand the significance of this I shall briefly explain here – the Lambeg drum has come to be identified with the struggles of the Loyalist tradition in Northern Ireland, whilst the Bodhran has become identified with the Republican / Nationalist tradition. (That’s an over-simplification but there really isn’t time to expand it here). Each drum played a short rhythm and images associated with the tradition associated with it were displayed on screen. This took the form of a duel – who could be the loudest and proudest? Then for a few seconds the 2 drums played in unison, giving a glimmer of hope that played together they are stronger.

A poem was read out, after which I blew the Shofar, signifying a calling on God to come and bring about reconciliation in our land and as a breakthrough cry. The drums picked up a steady pulse, resounding a simple ”dum-dum” heartbeat in unison, signifying God’’s heartbeat for Ireland. This built up with a couple of other drummers sounding out a prayer “Our Father, who is in heaven. Hallowed be Your Name”. Then the Lambeg and Bodhran and all the drums played together in unity.

There was a real sense of breakthrough as we played. 2 drums that have been in many ways symbolic of sectarian division now stood together with a different heartbeat as a prophetic statement that God is able to do all things in bringing together that which in the natural seems impossible to reconcile.