“God, we want to see you turn up in power in Guildford, writes Dave Slinn. “Nestling in the Surrey Hills, Guildford has many rich roots including holiday home to the King, a rich market town, low crime, a fantastic high street, and a very well regarded University.  On the face of it, not the place of the poor and broken…

Scratch below the surface though, and you can see that this community needs God like a duck needs water.  Right now the pond is drying up for over 95% of the community.  I’ve been asking God for Guildford, along with others, for some time.  But dreams can die without direction. I remember a visit from Adam Cox from the Kansas City Boiler Room. He shared with us from the parable of the sower, one thing was clear, ‘things grow in good soil!’.  For us the question was blindingly simple .  ‘God, where is the good soil in Guildford’.  3 years on, with our hands dirty, we see God’s blessing on what the Guildford Boiler Room is putting it’s hands to.

This summer was fantastic, building on the back of lots of hard work, tears, frustration, and sadness  – we baptised one of our students who had become a Christian through our second ALPHA course.  This was, and still is, the tip of the iceberg. We then filled a Landrover with 8 guys from the Boiler Room and headed off to Macedonia on a prayer road trip, ending with a visit with Phil and Anna Evans, and the Glasnost guys.  For some, this was their first trip overseas, others were profoundly affected by what God did to their hearts,  while for others, it built on their dreams.  This was all marinaded in prayer, as a group started to meet regularly to pray.

We headed back into September with the excitement of baptising 3 new believers, plus a couple of guys that had felt now was the time, we were seeing people healed, marriages renewed, families discovering Jesus together leading to simple excitement.  Others could see that God was on the move – the real excitement. There is still more to come…

Two years ago, frustrated, and having to hold on to the dreams that God has given me.  I was simply praying with a friend, ‘God, can we have some more lads in the student collective’?  The prayer was rubbish and no more detailed than that, but God heard our heart – sending us not only lads (to the excitement of the females), but a fantastic bunch.  If I’m honest, I still want more, not for me, not even for Guildford Boiler Room, but for the kingdom.  I do want Guildford Boiler Room to be heaving, but because God turned up.”

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