Core magazine

Have you ever wondered whether we are really on track with prayer - whether we’ve discovered all that God intended the conversation to be?
Gill Mott wondered… and then did something about it.

“What exactly is ‘Nightwatch’? Well, I can say it’s definitely biblical. The Street Bible frames it like this: (Matt 14v22-24) ‘Eventually they’ve all left and Jesus climbs up the mountainside to talk things through with God long into the night.’

Phrases such as ‘All night long’ or ‘Watches of the night’ crop up throughout Ezekiel, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Joel, Nehemiah and even from Paul in the New Testament.”

John Wesley too often practised the nitewatch - a fact not lost on this East Lancs small group. One night, whilst praying in a Methodist church cellar they discovered a life-size statue of the man, and included him in the gathering!

“We began in a living room, and steadily progressed to using different church buildings as available. Every week a few extra people joined even though we weren’t advertising.
Sometimes God moved and there was silence in his presence. Sometimes we sensed angels with us; Sometimes we argued theology until we screamed! Sometimes we worshipped with a full band set up, in candle light. Sometimes drunks banged on the door and wanted to come in! Sometimes we fell asleep! Sometimes we laid our musical instruments on the altar and knelt for hours on freezing cold marble in the chancel. Sometimes we prayed on the beach, in the pitch black, standing at the waters edge and shivering in the force of the wind.

Nightwatch is organic, it’s sheer, spiritual, indulgence. Once we watched ‘The Passion of The Christ’. We projected it along an entire wall, and then rewound it and stood in the light of the projection itself. Jesus’ blood and sacrifice all over our shirts. By His blood we are made clean.”

Gill Mott runs an organisation called David’s Key, engaging young people in music & spirituality.