Proximity Church is a one-year experiment that has continued since 2007. In the beginning, we simply met – just a few families – to eat and pray.
Learning as we went along, a house set aside for community quickly became buzzing with life – prayer and parties.
Sally Harman describes it like this:
“We thought. ‘I think this is it, I think this is the Kingdom!’ and it was really exciting. We’d been in church forever, but there was this sense of God opening new doors for us and fanning into flame. Individuals came and prayed, and we wanted to pray corporately as well; so we started to build in rhythms of prayer in creative and regular ways.”
We still feel like we are marking out new territory.
Our calendar is marked with regular prayer rhythms over the year – to centre our personal and corporate lives in prayer.
Our family church gatherings are based around food and relationship - weekly House Churches across our town are full of life, with a focus on encounter.
We are a sent people have a reach across our community: a pioneering chaplaincy in local schools and Performing Arts college, meeting in local restaurants, and many small businesses and projects.
24-7 Prayer
Proximity Church is part of the global network of 24-7 Prayer Communities and Houses of Prayer.
We ascribe to their values:
We pursue the presence of Jesus through prayer,
seeking to encounter Christ’s power and transformation for ourselves and others.
We are Spirit-led,
obeying the disruptive guidance of the Holy Spirit and trusting in God’s provision.
We are creative and innovative,
responsive to the world around us and the Spirit in us.
We are missional,
‘breathing in’ Christ as we pray, and ‘breathing out’ Christ as we engage with the world around us.
We are relational,
growing and sustaining the movement through the building of authentic, loving relationships.
We empower one another
by making space for honest conversations and paying attention to different views, voices and perspectives.
We are passionate about fighting injustice,
taking action to bring transformation and reconciliation to our hurting and broken world.
We celebrate diversity
whilst committing to equality and prioritising unity across the cultures we serve.
We are generous,
giving our time and resources freely.
For more information visit: www.24-7prayer.com