After several successful years of running a Street Pastors Network National Prayer Week, this year the Street Pastors’ national prayer coordinator has named October a 24/7 National Prayer Month. The prayer theme is ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. In line with this theme, people are asked to pray blessings over our nation and anything else they feel led to by God. All Street Pastors, prayer groups, volunteers and church groups who want to support local Street Pastors are asked to take a period of one hour or more in October to pray, and to contact http://www.streetpastors.org/ to let them know the time that will be happening. People can also adopt a street in their town and pray blessings daily over everyone who lives in or uses the street during this month.

The House of Commons held a three-hour emergency debate on Tuesday on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo and Syria. An emergency debate is usually called at short notice about an urgent internal matter, so it is unusual to have an emergency debate on international affairs. Politicians at home and abroad have called for a no-fly zone over Syria and the provision of safe havens for fleeing refugees. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told MPs that Russia's actions in Syria amount to 'war crimes’. Reportedly, sixteen people were killed by heavy bombing which targeted besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods, The former deputy supreme Allied commander of Nato said that the British should ‘absolutely’ be training other armed forces in the war-torn country and should occupy the skies to enforce a no-fly zone. See article 7 in the World section.

Freemason William Wilson was buried in a churchyard in Cumbria in 2012. His niece asked the Church of England for permission to have the freemasons’ square and compass emblem put on her uncle's stone. The church had no objections, but Geoffrey Tattersall QC, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Carlisle, in his capacity as a consistory court judge, said it would be inappropriate to allow it. He quoted a report on compatibility of freemasonry and Christianity, debated by the General Synod in 1987: ‘Christians have found Masonic rituals disturbing and a few perceive them as positively evil. Some believe Masonic rituals are blasphemous because God's name must not be taken in vain, or be replaced by an amalgam of the names of pagan deities.’ He added that the Synod's primary theological objections centred on freemasonry’s use of the word 'Jahbulon' - the name used for the Supreme Being in Masonic rituals - which is an amalgamation of Semitic, Hebrew and Egyptian titles for God.

Pray for tolerance and integrity to be exercised by leaders during this time of heightened Brexit tension. Five current Scottish issues are: - 1. The number of homeless has been unchanged for 20 years. Pray for a new strategy to tackle this problem. 2. Nicola Sturgeon has told the SNP that she intends to call for a second referendum on Scottish independence if the Brexit negotiations are not in the country’s best interests. 3. Holyrood ministers were warned that centralising power in Edinburgh will only lead to growing inequality. Pray for the God of the nations to direct Scotland’s MPs in their decision-making. 4. Secondary teachers are to take industrial action over their ‘excessive workload’. Nine out of ten union members back the move. 5. Young people are highlighted in the justice system, as judges and sheriffs are given new guidelines in an attempt to ensure consistency in the sentences they pass. Pray for the Scottish youth of today.