Every year in the week coming up to St. Patrick’s day the four Chaplaincies at Queen’s (Presbyterian, Catholic, Church of Ireland and Methodist) join together to create a prayer space open to the public.

This year St. Patrick’s day fell on the Thursday and so the prayer room was open on the Monday to Wednesday from 8am until midnight and on the Thursday from 8am until 5pm. The prayer room was located above the Presbyterian Chaplaincy’s cafe ‘Rumours’. The theme we all decided on for the prayer room this year was that of the Trinity. The Presbyterian Chaplaincy focused on the character of God, the Catholic Chaplaincy on the character of the Son and the Church of Ireland and Methodist Chaplaincies focused on the character of the Holy Spirit. People could sign into the prayer room for an hour online or simply call in at any point during the week. On the Wednesday night we also had an inter-Chaplaincy event called ‘A different kind of spirit’. It was an evening of Irish music, a Ceili and Domino’s pizza! Most of all it was a chance to come together to worship, chat and have fun.

This was my first experience of the inter-chaplaincy prayer room and I think it stands as an incredible witness to those walking by.

Often what we see of the church is division and so there’s something refreshing about seeing four churches join together united in prayer.

I can’t tell you all the stories of how people were impacted from the prayer room. Only God knows that. Yet, at one of the stations there was a mirror where people signed their name recognising themselves as part of the body of Christ and on the mirror there was a whole host of names written. These are people from a variety of backgrounds who may differ on some religious issues, and yet they all recognise themselves as part of one body…Christ’s. There is incredible hope in that as students join together to glorify God on their campus.

As we take a focus on Belfast for the month of April , Laura Brown zooms in on West Belfast telling us her story and how to pray for the area …

Last night I was out for dinner with friends and invited them back to my flat afterwards. The reply from one guy was, ‘I don’t do West Belfast, I like my car’. He meant no harm by it, but usually when I tell people I live here by choice they either think I’m crazy or else that I can’t afford to leave. Because naturally, everyone would leave if they could, right?

Well I am here by choice. I was born and raised in a small Protestant enclave surrounded by Greater (Nationalist) West Belfast. How to summarise years of political turmoil? During the ‘Troubles’, war broke out in West Belfast and thousands of people were displaced, creating two separate communities with a road going down the middle – this is the Stewartstown Road, that my little flat sits on. Three years ago God gave me a vision of a prayer-full, outwardly focussed community of believers here, I wrote it down and prayed and waited for them to come. And come they have! Last October a friend, Michelle came to me and shared her similar heart for the area, so together we started praying and waiting. Through a series of ‘God-incidences’ we now have between 5-12 people meeting in my flat every Sunday afternoon to cry out for West Belfast. We love this area, and believe that God is going to move here, that he will rebuild these broken streets and broken lives. We believe (hope?) he will use us to build his Kingdom here.

If you’re the praying kind, we love it if you could pray for us. We pray that God will unite the different churches and groups of believers here. We pray that justice would come to those who live in poverty, mental illness and oppression. We pray God would break the hold that suicide has over the area. And as a group, we’re praying that he would guide us our steps, as we continue to meet to pray every week and more people start to join us, praying that we would be bolder and obedient.

We know this isn’t going to be easy. People here are so hardened to Christianity following years of false messages and well, mostly general apathy from the church towards their problems. But the last time we met God told us that all we need is faith, and He will handle the rest. We believe He will ‘return for the sake of your servants, the tribes who are your inheritance’. Do it Father. What if ?

Laura Brown