Another Trumpet Call in two weeks
18 Jun 2015
At the first Trumpet Call in October 2004, the team at the World Prayer Centre had no idea how many times God wanted us to blow the trumpet in the heart of the nation. After each Trumpet Call, their offices received amazing, inspirational testimonies of the experience of being with thousands of Christians praying together for their nation. People were healed, and had their faith restored again to go on believing God for impossible situations. On 4 July there will be another Trumpet Call in Birmingham, where God’s people have the opportunity to stand together at the INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE to SEEK THE FACE OF GOD that He would, in response to our repentance and prayers of faith, hear our cry, have mercy and pour out His Spirit on our land. Readers of Prayer Alert are invited to come, if they are able, and pray. There’s nothing more powerful than when saints pray and seek God’s kingdom, standing in the gap for the lost.
Head teacher sets ‘digital detox’ challenge
11 Jun 2015
Smartphones and tablets are everywhere these days, including schools. In fact, one in three children between the ages of five and fifteen has their own tablet. One primary school head teacher has got so fed up with children being glued to their electronic devices that he has called for his pupils and their families to go on a ‘digital detox’. To view the two-minute BBC video of this article go to:
UK could host US nuclear missiles
11 Jun 2015
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Philip Hammond said the government would tentatively consider hosting US nuclear missiles on UK land for the first time since the height of the Cold War in light of recent developments in Russia and Eastern Europe. ‘We've got to send a clear signal to Russia that we will not allow them to transgress our red lines," he said. ‘At the same time, we have to recognise that the Russians do have a sense of being surrounded and under attack, and we don't want to make unnecessary provocations either.’ The foreign secretary's remarks were yet another sign of the declining relations between the West and Russia, now at their lowest ebb since the end of the Cold War.
A businessman who was paralysed by an accident when he was a teenager has said legalising assisted suicide would be ‘very detrimental’ to disabled people. Adam Thomas now designs kitchens specifically for disabled people, but says that when he was younger he would have thought such a life to be impossible. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live, Thomas explained that introducing assisted suicide as an option would ‘change the way we look at disability’. His comments come as Lord Falconer again attempts to introduce assisted suicide - although his bill is unlikely to be passed into law.
Crime figures compiled by police are ‘dead in the water’, said the Commissioner of City of London police Adrian Leppard. ‘Police figures provided only a small prism of the harm to communities’. Victim-based surveys offer more insight into offending levels. Statisticians ‘capped’ the number of ‘repeat’ offences at five per victim; however violence against women and domestic violence is happening repeatedly, much more than five instances per person. 45% of violent crimes are against women. Banks and businesses often failed to report fraud to police. Victim-based surveys need to be extended, with a move to include fraud and cybercrime. This would add three million offences to the figures. Lisa Harker, from the NSPCC, said the organisation had to send Freedom of Information Act requests to police forces in order to obtain data on child sex offences.
There was a time when Christians felt self-confident enough to thank God in a public restaurant for the food, for the people who prepared it and for the establishment in which they were consuming it. We didn't care. Today, as we attend the same restaurant, the food is brought out, around the table we fidget with forks, someone adjusts their chips and adds sauce. But no-one makes a move; everyone instinctively knows that this might be the point where someone decides they should make a show of themselves. Then, to audible sighs of relief all round, someone says grace. The awkward half-grace. ‘Well,’ someone says, with forced confidence. ‘Thank you Lord!" The deed is done. Has the awkward half-grace emerged because we don't want to look different to the culture we live in and draw attention to ourselves? See THE MILL GATHERING at
Amnesty International has said the Prime Minister David Cameron was ‘completely wrong' to say at Prime Minister’s Questions that ‘the vast majority of Mediterranean migrants are not asylum-seekers’, in answer to a question about the UK’s refusal to take part in an EU refugee quota system on the issue. Amnesty’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director Steve Symonds said, ‘At least half of those risking their lives in the Mediterranean are fleeing persecution in places like Syria, Eritrea and Somalia’. Amnesty and other monitoring groups have said that the single largest group by nationality attempting the Mediterranean crossing in recent months have been people from war-torn Syria, nearly all of whom will be internationally-recognised refugees. The next single largest group comprises Eritreans - with the great majority of these also very likely to be refugees (see also article 7 in Prayer Alert World Section).
Trumpet Call on 4 July
11 Jun 2015
Numbers 10:9 says, ‘When you go into battle in your own land against an enemy that is oppressing you, sound a blast on the trumpets. Then you will be remembered by the Lord your God and rescued from your enemies.’ From that and other scriptures we see that the sounding of trumpets were for gathering the people, moving the people, calling the people to war and celebrating all that God had done. We, God’s Church, are ambassadors of Christ and on Saturday 4July we will stand together at the INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE in Birmingham in unity and SEEK THE FACE OF GOD that He would, in response to our repentance and prayers of faith, hear our cry, have mercy and pour out His Spirit on our land. Readers of Prayer Alert are invited to come, if they are able, and pray. There’s nothing more powerful than when saints pray and seek God’s Kingdom, standing in the gap for the lost. (2 Chronicles 7:14) Please join us for a historic gathering of believers from across the UK crying out for a transformative move of God.