A Reflection on UK Prayer and Fasting (March 2026)
by john raspin
1, 2, buckle my shoe,
3, 4, open the door,
5, 6, pick up sticks,
7, 8, lay them straight…
I (John Raspin) have had this variation of the famous nursery rhyme rattling around in my head for the past couple of months. You might think I'm silly, but this song, originally designed to help young children learn how to count, has become a surprising – definitely surprising! – prophetic refrain for me, rich with biblical resonance.
It was one of many stirring insights that I heard on the first day of Relational Mission’s bi-annual UK Prayer and Fasting gathering (17-18 March 2026), several of which I have reflected on here. I hope what follows proves to be encouraging, even faith-building, to those who weren’t able to attend.
Buckle your shoes
During the opening session, moments after Ben Lock (King’s Church, Norwich) had led us through the Townsend classic, ‘In Christ Alone,’ Jon Beardon asked us to humour him in a bit of ‘prophetic weirdness.’
Everyone was happy to oblige; a bit of weirdness, after all, is to be expected when the Spirit shows up.
“1, 2, buckle my shoe; 3, 4, open the door; 5, 6, pick up sticks; 7, 8, lay them straight…”
Yes, that is slightly strange, I thought, and I admit, it made me chuckle. Jon’s clarification, however, was far from weird - it was actually quite exciting! He described how the Bible instructs us to be a people prepared, ready to move when the Lord does, ready to receive what He has for us and to steward it well, and that was precisely what the Spirit – through the nursery rhyme – was getting at. It’s time to buckle our shoes, folks! We’re about to move.
As we continued to worship, others began to share, and a prophetic thread was established. Themes of ‘running’ and ‘kicking up dust’ captured the sense that we’re entering into a period of accelerated growth, during which our churches, ministries and giftings will all multiply quicker than we’re used to. This was wonderfully paired with an encouragement to receive comfort and supernatural resources from our Father, reminding us of that all-important truth: where He calls, He equips.
Don’t you love it when God uses something jovial, or perhaps seemingly insignificant, to help us glimpse His designs and purposes? It reminds me that He has a wonderful sense of humour, that He loves to make us smile. What a beautiful thought. Far from being a stoic wet blanket, our God loves to joke and laugh with us.
An adventure with Him will inevitably be tough, but our mission to make disciples and plant churches should never cease to be saturated with joy and laughter, experienced in the context of deepest friendship and communion with God. At least that’s the impression Jon’s nursery rhyme left on me. I think I take myself a bit too seriously sometimes, and maybe I need to have a bit more fun. Imagine if ‘fun’ (for me, that can look like dancing to noughties classics, eating good food and drinking good drink with my wife and friends, making a fool of myself in front of my children to make them laugh, etc.) is somehow key to increasing gospel fruit in my life and in the lives of those around me. Now wouldn’t that be neat.
Watch Hope Church Ipswich’s round-up reel on Facebook
Unity in diversity
Next up was Mike Betts, who spoke about God’s ‘multi-faceted wisdom’ – expressed through intercultural diversity – enriching and strengthening our ranks.
Mike, and the other apostles (Maurice Nightingale and Stef Liston), are always quick to emphasise that Relational Mission has no desire to implement a cookie cutter approach when it comes to establishing new churches or counselling existing ones; it’s true that our values and doctrinal foundations won’t change, but that doesn’t mean that we export a single model of church or have an expectation that one size fits all. We prize contextual freedom and encourage our core values to be translated and applied without compromising their essence.
What Mike shared was, unsurprisingly, very much in line with that ethos. He stressed our aspiration to be globally fruitful and set forth some of the nuances of what that can look like in our local church settings.
He spoke of a future in which our churches will be increasingly enriched by the nations, and of God using ‘unity in diversity’ to demonstrate the power of the cross in bringing about one new humanity.
‘Being in a multicultural environment makes me feel that the gospel is bigger than I can ever imagine.’ - Mike Betts
Perhaps the most prophetically pertinent aspect of Mike’s talk was when he shared what he described as God’s prerogative to ‘strengthen us before lengthening us.’ By this he meant that mission isn’t always about leaving our locales; sometimes, and especially in this next season, it will be about being on the receiving end of what and who God is sending to us. If we receive well, then we will be better prepared to go when and if the time comes.
Mike finished with a simple but exquisite prayer: ‘Lord, fill our ranks with your multi-coloured wisdom. Help us to resist the monochrome.’
A walled garden
Having had our spirits enlivened with thoughts of Christ’s beautifully diverse church, Tom Shaw (King’s Church, Norwich) switched gear and led us in an intimate session of self-reflection and introspection, bordering on spiritual therapy. I don’t at all intend that to come across negatively; I for one think that times like this, both personally and corporately, are vital to the health of one’s heart. Yes, it can feel a bit uncomfortable, but how can anyone say that experiencing afresh the Father's gentleness and encouraging fellow saints to care for one another is anything but a good thing?
And that’s exactly what we did. In an attempt to slow the pace of things right down, Tom had us breathing in and out like a pair of giant lungs. Once we were sufficiently grounded in the moment, he asked us to turn to one another and say: ‘Well done, brother/sister for getting here.’ It was a simple but powerful practice. I was reminded that cultivating a culture of encouragement, even in small ways like acknowledging the effort it might have taken someone to just show up, is sometimes overlooked and that can sometimes be detrimental to our unity.
The remainder of Tom’s session focused on leading us into the courts of the King, to be still before Jesus and, quite simply, to decompress.
‘We must be a people who live in the grace of the gospel.’ - Tom Shaw
Tom read Psalm 3 and then sent us off to have some alone time in what he called our ‘personal walled garden.’ While here, we meditated on Psalm 3 and drew close to the presence of our loving Abba Father. At one point, having honed in on verse 3: ‘...you, O Lord, are a shield about me,’ I felt so relaxed, safe and cheered by the Spirit’s presence that I came close to nodding off!
The whole thing was a tender way for us to tend to the deepest needs of our souls. At an event like Prayer and Fasting, corporate prayer often takes centre stage (no bad thing), but personal prayer is equally important, and I appreciated Tom making space for it.
Holding fast to what God has said
After lunch, we were treated to a session on prophecy, led by Adrian Horner and Mike Bollinger. Adrian turned our attention to 1 Timothy 1:18: ‘This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,’ and drew out the point that recalling prophetic words is vital if we are to avoid drifting into spiritual shipwreck.
Prophecy, Adrian stressed, is key to following the way of love – it ignites and sustains us. When the road gets rough, it is so often prophetic promises that stop us from snapping our ankles. I feel relatively certain that those reading this will have at some point prayed something along the lines of: ‘I’m going to trust in what You have said, Lord, rather than the circumstances I am currently facing.’ I mean, what else can we do? God is the sovereign One, not us.
Adrian exhorted us to believe that if God has spoken, then it will come to pass, and that delay does not mean God has given up. It’s actually in those moments of pressure that we need to return to prophetic promises all the more ardently, treating them as though they are as necessary as oxygen.
When the noise of adversity becomes too much, then we must endeavour to return to the quiet place, the secret place, God’s place bedecked with His unfailing promises. His voice, so often subtle like a whisper, fills this place and is supremely capable of quashing the enemy’s lies and delivering peace unto our souls.
We then moved into a time of practice. Splitting off into groups of four or five, we proceeded to prophesy over one another. If I’m honest, this kind of thing never fails to make me feel slightly uneasy. I do, however, wonder how long that will remain my initial response, given how often I feel encouraged after coming out the other end of such exercises. I was affirmed, and I think I played my part in helping others in my group feel the same.
Praise the Lord for prophetic friends!
Final words
By now we were fast approaching 4pm, and I had to shoot off to catch a train home, so I can’t speak into the remaining events of the first day, but they were surely excellent!
I’m aware that, in a report on Prayer and Fasting, I haven’t said all that much about prayer. Corporate and intercessory prayer still formed part of each session, but this time the emphasis felt more pastoral and personal, with the expected prophetic elements woven throughout. I loved it!
It’s times like Prayer and Fasting when I feel truly blessed and excited to be part of the Relational Mission family. I therefore want to sign off with an invitation to save the date for the autumn gathering, which will be happening on Tuesday 6 – Wednesday 7 October 2026.
Come and pray, abstain from food and see what God will do!
I look forward to seeing you there.