24-40 Prayer now in Clandeboye Deanery
The 24-40 Prayer initiative arrived in Clandeboye Area Deanery on the 18th October as St Gall's Church celebrated it's Patronal Festival.
Rev Michael Parker, rector of St Gall's, Carnalea, writes:
"The preaching that day had been about Gall the monk from Bangor Abbey who had carried the Gospel into Europe as far as Switzerland. It was appropriate then that it was on this day that we would commit ourselves to praying through the night and the day - just as the monks of Bangor had done back in the seventh century.
The thought behind the Prayer Initiative in Bangor is to reflect the historic link with our prayerful past. We decided that we would take the venues for prayer around the churches in Bangor associated with the monks of old. Consequently we first will pray in St Gall's and then in St Columbanus's at Ballyholme. From there we will go to St Comgall's before our final day of prayer at Bangor Abbey - the place from were these holy men began their epic evangelistic journeys.
On the first evening a service of Holy Communion brought the different congregations together to welcome the Initiative and begin the chain of prayer across Bangor. Each parish came with a symbol of their church and these were placed upon the altar along with the prayer diaries that had come to us from St Patricks Ballymacarett. Over the next few days these symbols will go from church to church representing the different congregations involved."
L-R Rev Simon Doogan, Rev Timothy Kinahan, Rev Michael Parker, Rev Paul Hewitt, Rev Duncan Pollock
