Kristina Cooper shares how Barbara Mason's online teachings can help us understand that God has given us all charisms to help build His kingdom.
In 2023 the Southwark Charismatic diocesan service of communion was asked by the newly appointed dean of St George’s cathedral in Southwark to run the Life in the Spirit seminars for his cathedral parish. They were a great success and last autumn he asked if any of the team might feel called to start a prayer group and monthly healing Mass at the cathedral.
Rev. Javier Elderfield, a deacon from the cathedral and the new administrator, is the main leader of the group and I assist him. We both felt that as well as prayer we wanted to help people grow in discipleship.
Lectio Divina
We started last autumn and have between 25 -40 people coming each week. This begins with 30 minutes of praise and worship. Javier is a wonderfully anointed worship leader, so we are very blessed in this aspect. Then we have Lectio Divina and put a scripture passage related to the evening’s theme up on a screen. We ask people to share a word or phrase that might touch them without any other comments.
As we have people coming in off the street, and some have mental health issues, it is not suitable for us to have an open mike. But having lectio this way means that lots of people can contribute, even if they don’t have a Bible. It also means we don’t have to shut some one down because they are going on too long or going off track.
After the lectio we listen to a teaching, usually online, and then go into small groups. Here we discuss the teaching or people share how their week has been and what they might be struggling with. Sometimes this will lead to prayer. Most of my small group weren’t used to praying for each other, in this way, so it has been wonderful over the last six months to see them getting more confident in doing this. And because it is a small group it is an ideal way to practice.
Charisms and Witnessing
Although most of our teaching is online (10-15 mins) we do occasionally have a speaker. Usually this is someone from the group. This is so we can give new people an opportunity to see if they have a teaching charism or not. As it is a weekly group, even if someone messes up, it doesn’t matter because everyone knows them and appreciates their effort.
We have found some good material online but it can be difficult to get exactly what we want. Thus I approached Barbara Mason, a friend of mine who has a great gift of teaching. Our aim is to get the group members to realise that God had given all of them charisms to serve in the kingdom. Thus I asked Barbara to make some short filmed teachings on some of the charisms.
The brief was to include some scriptural and church teaching but also illustrate it by a personal witness of the charism being put into practice. Tibi Thomas and his wife, who are keen evangelists and live in the north of England, filmed the 4 talks for us and put them up on YouTube for us. The talks went down so well that we felt it would be shame not to make them more widely available, which Barbara Mason was happy for us to do. The four topics covered are Tongues, Healing, Giving and Teaching.
To listen to Barbara's teachings, go to our website's Gallery page: www.charisuk.com/charis-gallery
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