The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) called on Britain’s NHS to update its policy regarding fertility service coverage, alleging ‘current policy discriminates against transgender people.’ The EHRC wrote a pre-action letter to the NHS pressuring Britain’s health care system to change ‘outdated’ fertility policies, saying that policies should cover the cost of egg-freezing procedures for transgenders because many become infertile as a result of hormone treatments. The transgender and LGBT communities applauded the EHRC objections, ‘We welcome this challenge from the EHRC,’ said Stonewall’s director of campaigns. ‘We know the government are committed to improving health and social care provision for all LGBT people, and addressing barriers to fertility support would be a positive step forward in this process.’ On August 1 Stonewall tweeted, ‘The government consultation on reforming the outdated Gender Recognition Act has launched. We want the voices of trans people and allies heard loud and clear. Find out more #ComeOutForTransEquality in the #GRA consultation

Ruth Davidson - who is the leader of the Scottish Conservatives - has been speaking out following the comments by Boris Johnson about the Burka. The Christian MSP suggested we should defend the right of Muslim women to wear the burka in the same way we defend the right of Christians to wear a cross. She was speaking after the former foreign secretary compared the burka to a letter box and women who wear it to look like bank robbers. Theresa May asked him to apologise. With no apology forthcoming, founder and president of the Conservative Muslim Forum Lord Sheikh said the party should take ‘severe action’ against Mr Johnson. On the other hand, Christian, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said there was no need for Mr Johnson to apologise and an imam who has previously criticised the burka said Mr Johnson should not ‘apologise for telling the truth’. The debate continues.

Pupils at two leading Roman Catholic schools, Ampleforth and Downside, were subjected to appalling sexual abuse over 40 years, a report says. The schools ‘prioritised monks and their own reputations over the protection of children’. Both institutions attempted to cover up the allegations but ten individuals, including monks, have been convicted or cautioned for abuse.

‘Prospects’ groups are based on two main principles. Firstly, that all people should have an opportunity to hear the Christian message including those with learning disabilities, and secondly, all people are capable of responding to the Christian message because it is a matter of belief and trust, not intellect and ability. In the UK one in fifty people have learning disabilities and Prospects seeks to befriend such people, explain the Christian message in a relevant way, and provide a sympathetic environment where people can grow in their understanding and respond to the message. Prospects meetings can be held in church halls, for meeting-centred ministry, or in the home of a helper, or a residential home for friendship-centred ministry. Helpers make home visits, take people out, provide transport and above all engage in personal discipleship in a way that people with special needs can respond to.

More than 5,000 potential modern slaves were referred for help last year but the CPS only prosecuted 239 suspects, a small fraction of potential cases flagged to authorities. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it was committed to improving its response to forced labour and sexual and criminal exploitation after MPs warned that a national strategy had ‘yet to result in coherent action’. Alison Saunders, the outgoing director of public prosecutions, said, ‘Modern slavery has a devastating, lasting impact on its victims. There is no place in our society for those who enslave others, whether for work, sexual or criminal exploitation or domestic servitude. Referrals to the CPS from police and agencies rose by a third and prosecutors said the increase was part of a ‘dedicated drive to clamp down on slavery-related crime’.

God spoke to us, used us to pray for others and healed some of us during this first week of New Wine 2018.  Ben Williamson from Christchurch Woking said, 'I prayed for someone whose hands had no movement or feeling and both were healed and restored while I prayed. It was awesome to see God's power at work so clearly in front of my own eyes.' Steve said, ‘I want to praise God and thank New Wine for providing a ‘thin place’ where I have felt the healing power of the Spirit. Six months of kidney and back pain gone completely, I feel so liberated.’ Sanna said, ‘I came here, widowed 10 months ago, broken-hearted and missing my other half and best friend. To my surprise, my venue was all about restoration. I have been so blessed and I’m so very happy that I picked up the courage to come here with my teenagers.’

In 2016 you prayed for Nurse Sarah Kuteh who was dismissed from her job after talking to patients about her Christian faith and giving a Bible to one patient. After dismissing her, Darent Valley Hospital reported Sarah to the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), questioning her 'fitness to practise'. For nearly two years the NMC has held a series of hearings to determine whether Sarah would continue to be able to practise as a nurse. Supported by the Christian Legal Centre, the NMC panel unanimously ruled that Sarah was fully 'fit to practise' and revoked all restrictions on her nursing practice.

In the midst of horrific destruction, where thousands of homes were burnt to the ground by wildfires in Reading California, 67 hospital staff still went to work. All  doctors, nurses, volunteers and office personnel made sure that patient care did not suffer. ‘Some people have slept on the floor,’ the hospital chief executive said. ‘The Reading police chief lost his home, as did two of his officers, but they still went on duty to save others at risk. It was a similar story with at least one firefighter. But it wasn't just the thousands of first responders who put their own loss and devastation to one side and stepped up to help their neighbours. Many ordinary folk took in people who had lost homes, provided food, donated supplies and offered any support that they could. Hollywood movies show society falling apart when disaster strikes, but the opposite happened; people wanted to band together and help.

6-10 November 2018

Beloved, Grace in the matchless name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST.

The attached flier serves to remind us of the above consultation coming up in November 2018 at Nairobi, Kenya. We appeal and request for the following actions from YOU ALL.

1. Those Who have not registered should do so.
2. Spread the information about the Consultation to other Intercessors, mission workers and organizations, missionaries and Church pastors.
3. Undergird this consultation in your daily prayer. Pray for safe travel for those who would be coming. Pray for provision for those who want to come. Pray for the atmosphere of prayer during the Consultation.
4. Pray about the focus of the Consultation, which is: the Unreached People Groups, The BIBLELESS peoples of Africa, The Persecuted Church, Revival of the Church, the 24:14 Inherit the Nation, GO 2020 and other global prayer initiatives.
5. Stay in touch and join in the monthly prayer conference call for the UPGS, the Bibleless Peoples and the Persecuted Church, etc.

For more registration info, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.

IN HIS KINGDOM SERVICE,

AUSTEN C. UKACHI

In John 17, in which Jesus prayed for the last timewith His disciples before the crucifixion, He had every right to focus on his impending suffering which would be terrible beyond belief. However, true to His nature, He rose above his own human fears to think about the welfare of his disciples and his followers offuture generations. What was it He prayed for? Unity- that we might be one as He and the Father are one. Wow!

Of course, such unity is a supernatural thing, only possible by the presence and enabling of the Holy Spirit. We humans tend to divide at the drop of a hat,dwelling on what our differences are. We compare ourselves and can split off from one another because of pride and feelings of superiority, thinking our doctrinal adherence or ministry practice surpasses that of other organizations and churches. Personality splits also exacerbate this phenomenon of division that has resulted in tens of thousands of separate denominations around the world.

I was recently blessed by Gaylord Enns’ book, Love Revolution, that he gave the participants at the Transform USA Prayer Summit. Enns maintains that Jesus’ primary command gets lost in oureffort to have the right beliefs about Him. That command is, “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) That kind of love enables us to have real unity. Also, humility, realizing our many flaws and that we need each other, also enables such unity.

We, as the Apostle Paul so brilliantly teaches, are part of the organism called the Body of Christ, and each of us has particular gifts that are meant to benefit one another. Unless we exercise those gifts with the love and humility that comes out of the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, we are all impoverished, incomplete, and lacking. Only in that way of loving service to one another can we become One Body rather than remaining a deformed or handicapped body.

Such loving unity is fostered through prayer together. The early church quickly developed a culture of prayer at the command of Jesus that they should wait in Jerusalem. Acts 1:14 describes how they “all joined constantly together in prayer”. Great breakthroughs came out of this culture of prayer as can be clearly traced throughout the book of Acts. The history of revivals and mission advances bear similar witness to the power of united prayer. Too often, we succumb to the mistaken idea that our activism is what will transform the world. Mission is a supernatural thing. It requires God’s mighty moving to change hearts and societies that in the grip of the prince of this world through enslaving spiritual forces of darkness and deceptive ideologies that bind and hinder humankind.

Over the last couple of decades, colleagues and I have found ourselves facilitating special prayer initiatives in the midst of awful, hopeless conflicts, especially in Africa of which there were 19 such conflicts raging in the mid-1990s and early years of this century. Over and over again, we witnessed the Lord graciously bring about peace breakthroughs and the ending of these wars as His people confessed corporate sin, got reconciled with one another, and then prayed unitedly. Remarkably, it was often the next day or in a few days that we felt the atmosphere shift and a peace process was begun by the politicians and diplomats. In addition, spiritual revival or advances for the Gospel often also attended such amazing changes.

The re-establishment or beginning of new unity among His people was invariably the crucial thing that the Spirit of the Lord was seeking to bring about. After repentance for corporate sins and splits between church leaders were confessed with reconciliation and unity being reestablished, the participants could ask virtually anything and the Lord would grant it, even impossible things humanly like the ending of these hopeless ethnic conflicts that had gone on for many years, in some cases decades.

During a national prayer initiative for Germany and Berlin in 1997, significant division among leading pastors arose even though many were rejoicing that about 500 intercessors from 78 cities had come together, a real triumph for His church in the nation. I was wondering what to do and finally while on stage asked the participants to say this simple sentence to each other which exemplifies the Spirit of Christ:“I want you to succeed more than myself.”This helped among other things to defuse the divisive, competitive atmosphere. Humility and love that is more concerned for the success of others comes out of the realization that the most important thing isnot our individual accomplishments but rather ourunited functioning as members of His Body. It is that unity in prayer and the loving service that flows out of such praying that will bring His transformation to our world.

Let’s therefore pray accordingly for ourselves and for the international prayer movement:

1. That we and other ministry leaders will maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and that Satan, the diabolos or one who divides, would be bound.
2. That we and others in Christ’s Church will love one another as He has loved us. May we all experience a baptism or rebaptism of love in the Body of Christ.
3. That increasingly pastors and other ministry leaders will pray together across denominational boundaries for their cities and communities in every nation.
4. That this unity of the Spirit in prayer will result in the greatest and most pervasive global spiritual revival ever along with the fulfillment of the Great Commission-- to reach the remaining 5500 unreached people groups still without movements to Christ and very little access to the Gospel.

John Robb, IPC Chairman