The bloodshed and chaos of the Middle East is so indescribably disturbing, where Muslim extremists are driving out hundreds of thousands of Christians from their homes in Iraq and Syria. Under the threat of mass beheadings, they are being driven out from their homes, and then robbed of all their money, jewelry and any other valuables as they leave with little more than the clothes on their backs.

And yet, God is there… A worker from the region reports: “Last week I visited two groups of seekers and new believers who meet together to study scriptures. Everyone shared one thing they were thankful for that week. Each and every person in these groups told of God healing the sick, doing miracles and answering prayers supernaturally. I was amazed. In all my years on the field I have never heard of such a thing, and now we hear weekly of different groups seeing and experiencing God moving miraculously! God is doing wonderful things.”’

In the midst of the savagery, God is manifesting His glory, showing that He is ultimately in control, and that He can bring revival into the most desperate of situations.

Source: CryOut Prayer Update; Prayer Alert

Bible Study: 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

PRAISE God that He is the author of revival and is not dependant on human circumstances. Pray for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Iraq and Syria.

1 Corinthians 1:18
Please PRAY for Glen as he addresses this Eastbourne meeting about the wisdom and power of the cross.

Isaiah 9:1-7
Christmas campaigns have been a yearly feature of our outreach. Perhaps you remember our Handel’s Messiah campaign – aimed particularly at the Jewish community. Or there was our More Than Dreams DVD outreach to Muslims. For the last 3 years we have focused on online campaigns. Our evangelistic Christmas videos have reached over 100 000 views, being shared widely across social media. This Christmas we are innovating again with a multi-platform campaign to reach hundreds of thousands of non-Christians. Four Kinds of Christmas exists as a book, a website, a shareable
online quiz and a suite of videos.

PRAY that through this outreach hundreds of thousands will be impacted by the gospel.

1 Peter 5:5-7
It’s such a common theme in the Bible: “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” (Proverbs 3:34). Think of Jesus – so lowly and meek (Matthew 11:28-30) and through His self-humbling on the cross He is raised up to resurrection favour. If that is His path, then it must be ours too – through humility to God’s blessing. When Peter reminds us of this truth, he connects it to anxiety. Having told us to “humble ourselves” he then says “ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” The way we “humble ourselves” is by stopping worrying
and starting praying. This is because anxiety is very often a form of pride. It’s about taking our lives and our futures into our own hands and fretting about it as if it were in our control.
Peter tells us our lives are not in our hands so let’s humble ourselves by handing over our worries to our caring Father. Let’s PRAY our anxieties to our faithful God. He will show us favour.

Going to church can help tackle depression more than charity work, sport or education, a new study has found. Researchers found joining a religious organisation was the best way of combating
the condition. The study did not find any short-term benefits from sports and participation in other social activities.

Experts at the London School of Economics (LSE) could not say whether it was having a faith that caused the beneficial effect, or if it was simply because it gave people a sense of belonging. Their analysis of 9,000 Europeans aged 50-plus involved looking at different levels of social activity and how they influenced people’s moods. LSE epidemiologist Dr Mauricio Avendano said, “The church appears to play a very important social role in keeping depression at bay and also as a coping mechanism during periods of illness in later life,” he said.

The study, carried out in collaboration with Erasmus University Medical Centre (Erasmus MC) in Rotterdam, Netherlands, is published in the American Journal of Epidemiolog.

Source: Premier News

Bible Study: Psalm 133:1-3

PRAISE God that this study shows the truth of His Word: that there is real blessing when His people live together in harmony.

A homeless Peruvian tramp has been given an astonishing makeover by his local community. Don Luciano Chuman, known as Ferreñafe’s “crazy man,” hadn’t washed or changed his clothes in years. The 83-year-old’s filthy long hair was seriously matted, and he walked along the streets with a crippling stoop.

It’s not clear exactly why the Peregrin Evangelical Church decided to step in, seeing as he’s been without an abode for some time. But members of the Church took him in, exchanged his filthy
garments for fresh ones and scrubbed him up with a shave and a neat new haircut. Peruvian Social services have also now agreed to provide him with food on a regular basis, treating him in
hospital for various medical conditions and giving him an ID card.

The story was originally posted, on September 22, by the governmental body of the Peruvian Provincial Municipality of Ferreñafe. “It’s an act of humanity that sets an example to us all,” the
city’s mayor Jacinto Muro Tavara has been quoted as saying. “Many others aside from Don Chuman need our help, though unfortunately we are often quite indifferent to them,” he said. “I applaud the local community’s initiative in carrying out this act of solidarity,” he added.

Source: Yahoo.com; The Huffington Post

Bible Study:Revelation 21:1-4

PRAISE God that an impoverished local church took the initiative to reach out to Don Luciano. Pray that, as a result, he will reach out to Christ and be transformed on the inside as well as on the outside.

Psalm 47
Please pray for Glen as he preaches at New Hope Baptist in the morning and then at All Souls, Eastbourne in the evening.

Isaiah 35:3-4
It seems to be an undeniable trend: if you win the man of the household to Christ, much more often than not, the rest of the family follows. Yet it can be difficult to reach men. Saturday breakfasts are great opportunities to preach to men and see them brought into church fellowship. Please pray as Glen speaks to the men’s group at All Saints, Eastbourne. Pray that many unbelievers would be there and that God would speak to all.

Genesis 1:26-28
So often life can feel like “spinning plates.” We can think of our various responsibilities as disconnected duties that we need to run between – trying to keep them all going. It can be
exhausting. From the beginning though God has had other ideas for us. Humanity was created in God’s image – created to be fruitful. We are not likened to builders who need to lay bricks, still less like “plate spinners” who need to keep busy – we are trees who are made to produce fruit. How do we do that? Jesus told us: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) We are not called to busyness but fruitfulness – fruitfulness in connection with Jesus. Our need is not to “keep the plates spinning”, our need is Jesus Himself. Out of our communion with Him, the fruitfulness grows.

PRAY for a repentance of plate-spinning and a return to abiding in Jesus.