Reading Christian Network

My part in this story began 12 years ago when I was invited to meet with a number of other church leaders from Reading in a hotel on the river side. I met there, a group of, Christian leaders who were committed to the spiritual well being of Reading as a whole rather than their own narrow denominational boundaries. There was, in my own mind, a growing awareness that we could never impact a town for God while the different groups of Christians were at loggerheads with one another, refused to recognise each other and were not obeying Christ’s command to his disciples, ‘to love one another’. At the time, Churches Together in Reading suffered from a lack of leadership and was not supported by Church Leaders.

Greyfriars used to host a Bible Week event each June and I felt it right to offer that event as a springboard for an activity that we could present together. An international speaker was invited and the venue was moved to a sports complex in Earley to cope with the numbers we were now expecting. Clergy and pastors from every denomination were invited to attend a daytime conference addressed by the speaker on how to make a difference in our community. Evening sessions were open to the whole church and 1500 – 2000 people attended. At the end of the four day conference the speaker challenged the lay people there to form prayer clusters in every street to pray for their neighbours and to be a blessing to them. As Pastors and church leaders a number of us felt that we should lead by example and so invited all those in Christian leadership who wished to attend, to join us for prayer each Wednesday at 8:00am in Greyfriars Church to pray for an hour for God to intervene in the affairs of Reading. From time to time we would invite the Mayor, MP, Chief Executive of the Borough Council, Police Chief, Councillors and others to come for the last twenty minutes and to share their hopes for Reading, after which we offered to pray for them. From meeting to pray together on such a regular basis sprung deep friendships and trust across the denominational divides. It has resulted in raising funds for a number of different social issues in the town and it is my conviction that the success of  the Regenerate program across the churches in Reading was because there has been ten years of weekly prayer offered up by those in some form of Christian leadership or other and that unity has born fruit.

The Vision of Reading Christian Network is to see the communities of Reading transformed by the life, love and power of Jesus Christ

Jonathan Wilmot