So I guess there were about 3000 of us in the Cathedral last night for The Kingdom Come Beacon Event.  The Itchen Valley were represented by Oliver and Amanda, Alex and Lucy, James Grieg, Gerry Stacey and Mike and Kelly Gibson and Helen Wayne, Sarah Shirley, and Frits and Sara Janssen (perhaps others please let me know if you were able to be there).  There was some amazing worship music (including Matt Redmond) and the Archbishop of Canterbury preached – I will provide a link to his talk when he publishes it on line.  It was really excellent.

Then there was stage in the service when the church leaders involved in the Who Cares programme were asked to come up to the front on the stage (in front of the lights and cameras) to be prayed for by the congregation – to be commissioned to do this project.

So this commissioning was in three parts – we (Amanda and I and the other leaders) were to be prayed for, then we were to pray for the congregation and then we were to turn to whoever was next to us and pray for them…. So I turned to pray for the person on my right and left and discovered that they had turned in the opposite direction.  So I thought I would put my hand up to pray for someone unspecific ‘over there’ – trying to look as if I knew what I was doing (remember this is all on the stage in front of the television cameras being broadcast to the whole cathedral and outside) feeling a bit of a wally to be honest.  I opened my eyes and Archbishop Justin is standing in front of me…’name?’ he said…’Alex’…then he prayed the commissioning prayer over me by name and I did the same for him…..a great moment…

Alex