Thank you for joining us today on a daily Christian prayer podcast with myself, Reverend Ben Cooper. I just want to say thank you so much. You know, as we gather for prayer, wherever you are across this world, may the glory, may the power, may the love of God be over your life. I just really need to say
thank you. We're going to go to Psalm 100, and this is a prayer of thanksgiving for your life and uh blessings to the listeners worldwide at this moment in time. I just want to quickly let you know that this is not really our normal prayer stuff that we're doing at the moment, but I just want to pray over you just to say thank you
so much. You know, we're gonna come out of Psalm 100 uh in verse 4 in just a few moments, but I just want to let you know that we started this right down at the very beginning of lockdown when we know everything hit the world, and this is when we started live streaming. We are just a tiny well, we were just a tiny church on the outskirts of London, uh, but now we are a global church, and it's amazing what God can do. But God dropped a vision and a dream in my heart many, many, many years ago about radio and about recording and about podcasting. And this was I I would say around about 13 years ago, it was absolutely impossible, nothing lined up, it was absolutely no way, Jose, it was
gonna happen. But I just want to let you know right now, you know, it makes me want to cry, you know, when I look at what God has done through the power of technology, and for you, brothers and sisters, wherever you are, and I just want to encourage you in your dream. I want to encourage you wherever you are, never to give up because God is with you. When He drops a dream and a vision in your heart, it will be at the most hardest and the most impossible time of your life. But I want to pray over you right now that your dreams and your visions will continue to flow. Sometimes the dreams and the visions that they never leave us. I must make that really clear. They never leave us. They just sit on this backburner, this backburner of is it really gonna happen? And I want to let you know it will happen. Honestly, if you knew our journey, if you knew the story of how we got here, you know, it is it is beyond human understanding, you know, it is just beyond the human mind, beyond the testue of life. And I just want to give thanks to God for every listener, for everyone from the very beginning, our very first podcast. Now, we I think we have around about nearly 2,000 podcasts that are out across the airways. We was a tiny, tiny little church just on the outskirts of London. We are, I am an Ealin Pentecostal uh reverend ordained minister. I've been that like for many, many, many, many, many moons now, you know. And uh I've been in this church and we're just a small little tiny church just on the outskirts, you know. But I want to tell you, I want to tell you what God has done, what he has done. It's just unbelievable.
And I want to let you know, like when we walked through the valley of the shadow of death in in uh lockdown, you know, I laid in the church foyer and I I cried because I couldn't believe I actually thought that this was the end. I could not believe that the churches and everything was in lockdown. It really hit me really, really hard, and we didn't know and I didn't know what to do. And we literally pulled uh my phone out of my pocket and we just started to record myself and one of the the sound people that was in the church at that particular point, and and we just literally just live streamed this message. It was so ropey, it was so bad, it was absolutely terrible, you know. But that was the start of the journey. When we were in complete lockdown,
God birthed something so powerful, and I want to tell you, you might be in lockdown right now, everything might be locked down, you might be laying on the floor crying and doing what I'd done at the beginning of lockdown. We think it is the end, but it's the beginning of what God is about to do. God has to lock things down and bring us to a place where it's never gonna happen, and then all of a sudden, somewhere out of nowhere, the puzzle starts to form. The jigsaw puzzle starts to do itself. What I want to tell you to do now is to be faithful, and I'm gonna pray over your life, I'm gonna pray over your visions and your dreams, and I just want to say thank you to every one of you. If you see where we are situated, see where we are, you know, we're on the scout outskirts, sorry, of of London, England, and uh there is no uh showmanship around here. This is literally raw life. We are at the right end, the raw end of life where we are situated. This is a frontline missional church. You know, we got so many things going on, we've got everything breaking out around us, we've got just you the hardest things of life are right on the doorstep of this church, but it's real life, it's real, you know. We are not in a fancy studio with all the bells and the whistles. If it we we have got a lovely, I've got to be honest with you, we have got a lovely room that is about six metres by four metres
wide, and it's on the end of the church that we've converted into a really, really lovely sound studio because this is where we found our feet, you know, through podcasting, through online services and everything that goes along with that right now. And I I'm absolutely amazed at the tens and tens of thousands of downloads we're getting around the world, and especially now we're pushing the
prayer. And this is where I feel for myself, I've come full circle, I've come completely right away round back to prayer because it started in prayer. I'm not saying that I moved away from prayer because I didn't move away from prayer, I stayed in prayer, but you know what it's like in the mechanism of life, the mechanism ministry and church, you know, didn't take me away from prayer, but it was it was pushed to the left, to the right, and it was more preaching and teaching and all that sort of stuff, caretaking, you know what I mean by that, looking after,
you know. But the last probably 18 months, a year or something, a bit more than that, I've had an interesting journey. My life has been very, uh, very unusual, uh, quite painful in many, many areas, quite stretching in many, many areas. But I want to let you know, don't you give up in your vision and your dream. You know, even if you feel like lockdown is gonna just turn it all over, and and and the key was turned and it was impossible. Let me tell you this sometimes the key has to turn for us to come to a place of cons complete surrender. So I'm gonna pray for you right now. You can see this studio online,
you can see our studio online. Uh, it's in many areas. You've only got to go on dailyprayer.uk, you've only got to go on Pastor Ben, find Pastor Ben, you know. There's there's a couple of sites out there we got running, you know, in different areas. You can see the studio, you can watch us live as well on a Monday evening. We live stream on social media. We live stream on social media, and that is on the church account, Elim Church Swanley, E-L-I-M Church Swanley. You can find us on the social networks. We stream to Twitter that was Twitter to X and all that, you know, social media. But also, we just want to let you know, I'm gonna pray. I know I've spoken now for six minutes 35 seconds, but this is just a bit different to normal. So I understand if you might not listen to it completely, but I just want to pray for you right now.
Father, I want to thank you for the listeners, and Lord, we will enter your gates with thanksgiving in our courts with praise. Lord, we give you thanks, Lord, to the listeners across the world today. And Lord, I pray, Lord, for their vision and their dream, that they will never give up, Lord, in their vision and their dream, and their hope, Lord, will be in the Lord. And I pray that Psalm 100, verse 4 is over their lives, that they will enter your gates with thanksgiving in their courts and they will go in praise and they will go in worship. So, Father, I ask you that those dreams and visions, Lord, will come alive now. I pray, Father, that as we give thanks for the supporters and the listeners across the world, Father, thank you for their sharing, their giving, their time, Lord. I thank you that they they take time out, God, to download and to listen to my voice. And Lord, I want to thank you for everyone that downloads just one to whatever they are listening to at this moment in time. Father, I thank you for the back library that we have. You know, thank you that the listeners are downloading all these almost 2,000 podcasts that we got out there. Father, thank you for the global church that we belong to. Lord, I thank you that I belong to them and they belong to me. And you know what I mean, sister and brother. We are partnering together, we're walking together, and I pray that God will continue to just bring that vision and that dream and that gift out of you. And Lord, let your glory just rest on the listeners tonight, Lord, wherever they are across the world. Thank you, Father, for their support. Thank you, Lord, for their loyalty to you. Thank you, Jesus, that you saved them, that they are washed in the blood of Jesus and bless them, bless their families, their work. Lord, whatever their life looks like, I pray, Lord, that their hearts will smile. They will hear the rhythm of heaven and the beat or the beat of the word of God. Sisters and brothers, I just want to say one more time before I duck out of this, thank you from the very bottom of my heart as I sit here in this studio, and uh I thank God, you know, that God is working in your life, and and I want to encourage you never give up in your dream or your vision.
Promise me, promise me, don't give up. It doesn't matter how bleak it looks, you don't need the money because we've done all this without any money. We you know, I know we asked for three pounds, you know, but it's minimum, minimal that actually comes through the door, to be perfectly honest with you. So that we thank you for those that do so into this ministry. You know, we live on the on a strew shoestring, I should say. Sometimes, I'm gonna be honest with you. Do you know what? Sometimes we got we got a food bank here and uh food distribution through the ministry, and sometimes I eat from that. You know, we are not we are not living like these pastors and these leaders that you see, these multimillionaires across the world. We're not like that at all. We're we're at the right end, the right at the raw end of life, you know. Sister and brother, don't be afraid to go to food bank because I do. We've got it here in the church, and I eat from it, I drink from it. And if I didn't have that, I don't know where I would be. So I'm not ashamed to tell you that I do that, you know, and and we do that, you know. And uh I just want to say thank you to everybody for your prayers, you know. And uh, if you see where we are situated, this is not about showmanship, this is not about pushing the smoke and the mirrors out. We are not all that uh that glitz and glamour. We're just we're just men and women that believe in Jesus Christ. That we're born-again spirit-filled believers. And I want to say thank you again to every one of you. Thank you for downloading these podcasts. You know, you warm my heart. We're gonna get out of here, and I'm just gonna pray
one more time. Father, I do thank you from the bottom of my heart, God, for every listener right now. I pray, Lord, that you'll bless their lives, however their lives look, whatever their name is, whatever culture they're from. I just ask you, Lord, that you'll bless them abundantly. Lord, and they'll never give up. They'll never give up in prayer, they'll never give up in that seed, that dream, that vision that you dropped in that spirit. So Lord, bless them today, and I thank you for their lives. May God bless you. You know my name. My name's Reverend Ben Cooper, and it's a privilege to just be able to ramble with you and just say thank you for taking time out. You know, I I guess you was expecting a another cracker of a prayer time, and thank you for staying with us when I stumble and I I make mistakes. You know, we could quite easily with the the gear that we got here, we could quite easily cut it, start it again, and polish it right up. But we're not about polishing it up because it's real, you know. I do cough, I do sneeze, I do um just get stuff stuck in my throat, you know, because it's we're praying, you know. And uh I just want to let you know this is nothing to do with showmanship, this is to do with real heart prayers, you know, and we are going through it right here, and I know you're going through it. Never give up. I'm out of here now. I've got to stop now. We've gone in 11 minutes and 20 seconds. Have a great day, you know. Have a great day, honestly. God is with you. Don't don't look at the storm. Everything is alright. God bless. We will see you very, very soon. We're back, we're back as we always are. But this is just a little chuck in there sort of thing, and I hope you listen, I hope you share everything out to your pastors and your friends and your families on your socials and to your prayer groups and whatever, because we got to get into prayer, sisters and brothers. Again, may God's love surround you, and I thank you from the very bottom of my heart in Jesus' name. Until tomorrow.