Spiritual Reflections
It’s good to pray together, share together, encourage one another and learn together.
The YBA produces resources and reflections to encourage churches to think about Lent, Advent and other key times in our Christian calendar.
We have been blessed to hear your stories which have resulted from these shared studies.
Please feel free to adapt/update and use any of these resources.
YBA Prayer Diary 2025
Prayers for w/c 13th April 2025
Dronfield Baptist Church, South Yorkshire
Needs
1.At the moment one of our members of staff has been on sick leave since the beginning of February. She is now improving and is expecting to return to work at the start of May. Please pray for her ongoing healing as well as a wise phased return to work. We miss her deeply and we look forward to her sharing in our life again.
2. The Church had a stand on a community hub day which, at the time of writing, is on 10th April. Please pray for all of the conversations we had then to bear lots of fruit.
3. Please pray for the leadership team as we continue to work hard at improving our governance of the church particularly in areas of Human Resources. We have been blessed by the help of other local Baptist Churches and someone in the church has stepped forward to help us too which is very encouraging.
4. Please pray for the Spirit to continue to be at work among us. We have a real sense that we are coming into a season of real blessing and may we see this continue to flourish. As we know alongside times of blessings there are always times of challenge and may we know the protection of Jesus at this time.
Thanksgivings
1.Over the last two weeks of term our minister, Andy, was able to visit the three schools with which he has built a strong relationship to share with all of the children the story of Easter from Reception to Year 6. He always has a good reception and the children eagerly look forward to him being in their classroom.
2. We have had a steady stream of visitors to our Sunday worship ever since Christmas and many of them have begun to settle down into the life of the church.
3. We have a good reputation in the town as a church who is not only busy, but who also do a lot of good within the life of the town too.
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Scarborough
There is a growing sense in the area of God being up to something. Significant people have moved in, prophecies given, and we want to do everything we can to be part of what God wants to do. We are encouraging the church to be open to God doing a new thing (Isaiah 43:19) and want to be discerning of the times and season we are in.
Needs
1.More of God – his presence and his power!
2.People are coming to Christ and being added to the church on a regular basis.
3.A couple of people passionately committed to the children and youth work.
Thanksgivings
1.A church and congregation that loves God and wants to make him known.
2. God has added a number of wonderful people to our congregation, and we are excited by what he wants to do as a result.
3. There is an increasing sense of God’s presence as we worship, and we want that to grow.
4. We are increasingly looking outwards and asking how we can be used by God in His witness in Scarborough and the surrounding area.
The changes we have made - And why we have made them
Prayer undergirds the work of the YBA. Prayer demonstrates our utter reliance on God and our care for one another. One of the ways we do this as a staff team and wider Baptist family, is by regularly praying for all our churches through the year using the YBA prayer diary. Thank you to all who have been doing this faithfully or maybe even sporadically. For those who may not know, each week, a couple of our churches are featured in the prayer diary and become the focus of prayers from other churches and people across our Association. We may not know the specific needs of these churches, but we hold them in our hearts in prayer before the Lord seeking His blessing over them and their ministry.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were to additionally be able to pray for the specific, expressed needs of our featured churches each week? That is exactly what we want to do this year – to raise up the specific needs of our churches before God’s throne of grace in obedience to His word: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Phil 4.6).
Ahead of their scheduled week, we are inviting our featured churches to send in a short paragraph about their contexts and/or congregation alongside a few bullet points – three or four – of specific things our YBA family could be giving thanks for or praying for them that week and possibly beyond. This is being uploaded to the Prayer & Spiritual Reflection section of the YBA website. If they want to include some photos that is great. (Please remember to ensure that you have appropriate permissions from the individuals in the photos for them to be used in this way.) Any church who, for any reason, is unable to send in their praise report and prayer requests, will still get prayed for.
So be on the lookout for your church’s invitation to send in your prayer points and also do check out this area of the ‘Prayer & Spiritual Reflection’ section of the website, each week, so you can pray with knowledge and specificity for the needs of our churches across Yorkshire. We look forward to celebrating specific answered prayers as we join together in praying for our churches.
If you have any questions about the administration of the prayer diary, please click here to contact Iris Cheung.
Nike Adebajo
YBA Regional Minister