1993

When I was an undergraduate student in Manchester I had a conversation with the vicar of Holy Trinity, Platt, church, the Rev Tony Porter (now Bishop of Sherwood) on the subject of revivals. He had a lot of knowledge about mission in general and I was keen to learn what factors played a part in making particular revivals happen. He told me that research had been done into the background factors for revivals and it had found that in each case the factors were different. There was, however, one factor which was common to all. Before any revival took place there was always a group of people who were persistently praying for revival to come. Prayer was the key!

1995

It was whilst attending a Sunday evening service at St Nic’s church in Nottingham that my life was transformed by a personal encounter with God. The encounter with God was brief. I have learnt that when God speaks it usually is brief. Or perhaps God knows I have a terrible memory and that, in my case, a few words are better than a lot! The guest speaker was talking about evangelism and I was not feeling very positive about the subject. I remember having doubtful thoughts about my ability to win anyone for Christ when the words came into my head, “You can’t but I can!” As I went on to process these words I became ever more convinced about how vital prayer was to the building of the Kingdom of God.My prayer life has not been the same since!

2002

It was in 2002 that I first sensed God’s desire for me to design a course that would enable others to learn what He had shown me over the years about prayer. But it was two years later when studying theology at Trinity college in Toronto, Canada, that I actually began to put my thoughts onto paper. My diploma required me to choose ten courses for study, and one of the courses I chose was on prayer. It was a course led by a nun, and my final assignment was to create my own prayer course. What I came up with was Prayer Eleven.

2004

I then returned to the UK and became very busy with changing jobs and moving house to live in Leeds. Two more years passed as I trained to become a Reader in the Bradford Diocese of the Church of England. During this time I took a month off work to do the 30 day Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius at the Loyola Hall Jesuit spirituality centre outside Liverpool. When I returned home many people in my church in Pudsey were curious to hear about my experience on this retreat so I organised a Saturday morning workshop in which I talked about this and then we did some practical exercises together. This led to a group of ladies from my church asking me what they could do next to grow in their prayer lives. In our conversations I mentioned Prayer Eleven and a number of them seemed interested in doing it. One in particular regularly asked me when we would be doing the course!

2007

Another year passed. Life was busy. But then two things happened which made me decide to give the course a go. The first was that my plans for the future had dried up and the months ahead had become clear of other activities that might get in the way of doing the course. The second was that I had come to realise I would never be an expert in prayer, but that shouldn’t stop me from offering what knowledge and experience I had to others who were looking to grow as pray-ers. After receiving approval from the priest at my church, I advertised the course and twelve people signed up to do it. As each week of the course went by I sensed that God was showing me what I should teach, and to my surprise, the course seemed to be having a significant impact on the students. I then contacted a priest at another local church and offered to teach the course there. My offer was accepted and thirteen people signed up for it. Most completed the course, and again seemed to be very positively effected by it.

2008

In the autumn I taught the course again, but this time just to men. I had learnt so much from leading it, and one thing I realised is that one course does not suit all people. This is why I have divided the adult course into one for men and one for women. In the future, it is my intention to develop courses for other groups of people such as children, teenagers and adult beginners, and some day I will develop an advanced course for those who have already done the adult course and want to take things further. It is my hope and dream that prayer will become a priority and a passion for all Christians, and if Prayer Eleven can do something which helps this to happen, that would be great.

2009

On the 2nd of January I placed my first advert in the Church of England Newspaper as part of the national launch of my prayer course – Explorers in Prayer. In the Autumn edition of The Reader magazine I wrote an article on prayer which also advertised my course. At the end of 2009 I had had 1820 hits on my web site from 27 countries, though the vast majority in the UK. In the second half of 2009 I was working on a new course called Seekers Through Prayer, which is for individuals or groups of Christians to download for free and use to develop their own prayer lives. During this year I got married and moved from Leeds to Nottingham. This brought my own leading of the Explorers course to a temporary halt whilst my wife and I considered what church we should be involved with in Nottingham.

2010

The Seekers Through Prayer course has now been completed and loaded onto my web site. I have also added some more pages to the website –  Courses on Prayer,  Bible Colleges and Retreat Places. I then launched the new Seekers course through placing adverts in the Church Times, Baptist Times, Methodist Recorder and the Catholic Herald, and through sending emails to as many clergy I could find addresses for in England. I have received many positive responses from people all around the country. To develop my own knowledge on the subject, I am now studying part time for the MA in Christian Spirituality at Heythrop college in London. At the end of 2010 I have had 5819 hits on my web site from 81 countries which is three times more than last year.

 2011

Unlike the previous two years there has been no big promotion of Prayer Eleven which is reflected in the reduced number of hits to the website. However, if you exclude the large number of hits which were a direct result of the previous promotions, then the picture is still one of slow growth, particularly from around the world. So by the end of 2011 the website had 3980 hits from 89 countries. Meanwhile, much work has been done on the website with the addition of many more pictures, the expansion of the colleges and retreat centre pages, and the addition of the Quotations, Types of Prayer, and the School of Christian Prayer pages. So as 2011 comes to an end, I am in the process of preparing for the first Explorers in Prayer courses of the Nottingham School of Christian Prayer to begin in January 2012 at St John the Baptist (Anglican) church in Beeston, Nottingham.