The children at Upper Holloway Baptist
Church waved branches on Palm Sunday and learned what the word
"Hosanna" means. In case you were wondering...
John Piper says to the
Hebrews it used to mean, "Save, please!" But gradually it came to mean,
"Salvation! Salvation! Salvation has come!" So on that first Palm
Sunday the Jews were shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David!" meaning,
"The Son of David is our salvation! Hooray for the king! Salvation
belongs to the king!"
Holy week is also celebrated in traditional ways in the UK. Thursday we will be having an afternoon communion service at Upper Holloway and a Maundy Thursday service in the evening at Camden Road Baptist. The latter service will feature a drama by the Guild Players and an "upper room" Lord Supper.
On Good Friday we'll begin with a joint service at Upper Holloway in the morning followed by a community
walk of witness with an ecumenical outdoor community worship service around 1:00. I'll be leading the intercessory prayers.
We'll gather again Saturday night for an Easter Vigil Prayer Meeting and everything will of course climax on Easter Sunday. There will be an early service at Camden Road with breakfast and our regular 10:30 service at both churches. Sunday night will bring our churches together one more time for music and celebration.
Fortunately, the Monday after Easter is a national holiday so we can recover and relax. Our good friends Brad and Laura Montgomery will be visiting so we'll probably go to
Hampstead Heath or central London for the day.
Report on the Latest Night Out for Islington Street Pastors
FRIDAY, 20TH MARCH
It was a very interesting
night/morning to say the least. I'll just give the
highlights.
We covered a lot of territory this time and it seemed a rather
quiet night until the wee hours of the morning. Unfortunately Carol's
new scooter did not have the battery power to make it through the night
so I had to send her home on the bus about midnight. She had just
enough juice to get into her house. PRAY GOD SUPPLIES THE FUNDS FOR HER
"BIG" SCOOTER.
The
three of us remaining debriefed at McD's and
decided we needed to investigate the situation at the N1 Centre: a mild-mannered, up-market, open-air shopping mall by day that transforms into one big drunken party late on Friday and Saturday nights. [Read a sample police report from a year ago by clicking here.]
On
our way down to the N1 Centre we came across a situation where an
alcoholic I know by name from my drop-in work was being propped up by a
couple of tourists. He was highly intoxicated, as usual, and
threatening suicide. They had already dialed 999 (the equivalent of 911) before we arrived so
we waited with them until after he was loaded on the ambulance. PRAY
FOR AN ALCOHOLIC NAMED PAUL. I saw him again at last Thursday's drop-in and he was fine but still needs rehab.
Just as we were finally approaching
the N1 Centre a large West Indian Londoner asked the ever repeated
"What's a street pastor?" question with a negative tone toward
"religious" people. This launched about a 20 minute dialogue between
him and the group about faith matters. In the end we finished on a
positive note and he was supportive of what we were doing on the
streets. PRAY FOR A BIG MAN NAMED "LITTLE LENNY." I gave him a gospel tract and he said he would read it.
As forewarned by the police, the bouncers, and security
guards we spoke to, something "bad" happened at the N1 Centre between
2-3:00 AM as it does every weekend. We stayed on the fringe praying and
observing as the police broke up a fight where a young man was hit on
the head with a bottle. The N1 Centre is definitely a place where I
believe Street Pastors can make a difference but only in large numbers.
PRAY FOR STREET PASTOR TRAINEES. In addition to the five trained street pastors, I now have six in training. I also have four from the neighboring borough of Camden that will join us until they have a full team. Our next night out on "patrol" will be Friday, April 17th. Some of the new trainees will be going out for the first time. 
