Team prayer talk

I love teams. I love working with teams. Today was so much more enjoyable because of teamwork. This morning my L19 Who Let The Dads Out? team welcomed the dads and young children back to St Mary’s Grassendale after a short break, due to church hall roof repairs, and cooked bacon baps and offered delicious sponsored coffee. Not only did the dads come back but we welcomed three new babies for the first time too.
This afternoon the Liverpool South Scout District Beaver leaders brought 200 of us to Woolton Picture House, after Tracey, a Beaver leader, had negotiated a great deal for all children and adults. Eleven Beaver Scout colonies (and leadership teams) made this happen! We had fun and food and, we hope, leaders had a chill! Well, we are celebrating being 30 years in the Scout movement! They deserve it as they give so much free time in their busy lives to Merseyside Scouts, a growing movement with exciting challenges.
I missed a Messy Church BRF team day, down south, because of these commitments. But the team carried on (Lucy Moore, Martyn Payne, James Pegg) and delivered a great Messy Church Away Day full of Messy activities and explorations to inspire more teams to develop and enjoy the fruits of working with others. Volunteering is fun and rewarding. You make lots of friends. I thank God for each and every one.
So who pastors these teams? Who cares for them and loves them? How can we show them how much they mean to us and God in their voluntary work? At L19 Messy Church we are starting a prayer pattern to ask God to help us with our pastoral needs. Each Tuesday at 7.30 pm we will pray, no matter where we are, for guidance in our pastoral care of the L19 Messy Church team and congregation. We would love to have a Messy Chaplain, but is this what God wants? We know about ill health in our team, broken relationships, difficulties at work and more besides. We give ‘time out’ to team members who are at breaking point in their Messy lives. They always come back. What needs do our Messy friends have? Is anyone asking?
Praying as teams, in this way, creates a sense of belonging. We are distanced yet together and with a clear aim to talk to God about something important to us. The prayer time will be in our diaries, in our emails, in our tweets and on Facebook. It is a great way to create prayerful communities. ‘Be devoted to each other in brotherly love. Honour one another above yourselves’ Romans 12:10 (NIV).