National Day of Prayer

I'd be interested in your thoughts here Elaine.

Initially, I was planning on going...until I saw the advertising where it mentioned about confirmed artists. I couldn't decide whether it was a National Day of Prayer, a National Day of Prayer & Worship or a concert in which prayer was taking place. I decided to give it a miss.

Despite asking several times on Facebook for feedback, there wasn't a single response...and I know friends of mine went. Meanwhile on the NDoP Facebook page, all I could read was about people being blessed. I put up a request for someone to share what prayer points were used during the day, but didn't see a response before unliking the page.

Have a look for yourself...
[Only admins are allowed to see this link]

There seems to be a block on links for me

We watched some of the worship, but I didn't like the singing & praying in tongues as I believe that in a public arena this should only be done by 1 or 2 at a time, and with an interpreter.

Then some news of upcoming events was shared. I can't remember the names of the events now, but the first was London based, and is to be an evangelism outreach in 2013
The 2nd was more UK-wide, to take place in 2014, and to reach even tiny villages.

Then a preacher came on and one of the first things he said was that he *felt* that people in the arena were to give £1000, whether this be individuals or on behalf of their fellowships. He laboured this for quite some time, then buckets (must have been hundreds of them) were passed around by stewards while the worship team played again.

At this point we switched off very disappointed that something which could have been so special & worthwhile was reduced to such levels.

In my mind & heart, I knew this was wrong. How can a leader just give from a congregation in such a way? Surely it can't be right.
People were even encouraged to give by whatever means they had too, whether it was cash, credit cards, even by text.

The text one was really sneaky. People were asked (in general) if they had a phone, and if so, could they get it out & wave it.
Then they were asked to text an *offering* with amounts suggested.

I was also disappointed by the people I saw involved, though Stephen Gaulkroger (Gorkroger?) looked a little embarassed by it all.

Thanks for this Elaine.

I have to be honest: Mainstream Christianity is going in a direction that I just cannot follow any more.

I do agree. The money request was just not on.

i never saw it, I don't watch much telly these days only the news, so i never saw it but agree there is nothing good about mainstream Christianity.

Tbh, although there were mainstream names there (worship leaders etc) I wouldn't have called it a mainstream event.
Hardly anyone from our church even heard of it (National Day of Prayer yes, but not the Wembley event)

We are having a Stewardship weekend next week, and the sermons through the autumn have been leading up to this. And it's been nothing like that event, and no one would ever dream of suggesting a general call for £XXXX from people, it just wouldn't happen (not very Anglican at all LOL)

Another thing I remember is that there was no mention of what the money would be used for.

The money was used to cover the expenses Elaine!

Personally, I find their approach deceitful. I was following their Facebook page for a while. Initially, there was a request for voluntary contributions of £1000 to help with the expenses. Seems as if they didn't get the amount they needed!

It won't surprise me if they are considerably in debt from the event.

I understand completely about covering costs, but it should have been made clear, then, perhaps, more would have been willing.
Also, asking for so much and using God as a leverage cannot be right.