“Praying for the Spirit of Elijah” was the theme of a recent prayer conference held at Stuarts Point, NSW.
More than 150 people attended the event run by the North NSW (NNSW) Conference.
“This is the third year that we’ve run this prayer weekend,” said NNSW Conference prayer coordinator Colin Hone.
“And this year, the focus is on reconciliation—about praying for people who have left the faith. Every church member knows at least one person who has left the Church and whom they want to see reconnected to God.”
As the name implies, the attendees spent much of their time during the event in prayer. Each individual wrote down the names of 10 friends or family members they knew who had left the Church and put those names into a “prayer bag”. Groups then spent time praying for “divine appointments” with the people they’d named and opportunities to bring them back to church. [pullquote]
Pastors William Moala and Rome Ulia testified to the power of intercessory prayer, sharing how they had been involved in gangs but had returned to God because of their mothers’ prayers.
Other guest speakers at the conference included Pastor Kepsie Elodo, president of the Papua New Guinea Union Mission (PNGUM), and Charissa Fong from the Discovery Centre at Adventist Media (NSW).
Pastor Elodo discussed the reconciliation work taking place in Papua New Guinea and Miss Fong spoke about the relevance of the Elijah message for God’s church.
“It was a wonderful weekend filled with powerful messages and inspirational group prayers,” said Miss Fong. “We prayed that the Holy Spirit would empower our ministry in the same way that He empowered Elijah’s.”
At one point during the event, the attendees were asked to divide into groups according to the decade they were born (the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, etc). The biggest group by far were those born in the ’90s.
“God has put it in my heart that we need to reconcile the lost sheep of Israel with Him and that we need to reconcile among ourselves as well,” Pastor Hone said.
“Local churches in our Conference have now adopted prayer bags and South Australia is starting to do this too. I’d love to see prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and for reconciliation taking place in every church in the South Pacific Division.”
