One of the great strengths and inspirations of pastoring in Narrabri until recently was the weekly pastors' prayer meeting. We started these about 15 years ago and at their peak 7 out of 9 pastors were meeting together every week to pray.

What I valued then was the genuine friendships that developed amongst us- real love and respect.

Times change and pastors move on. The prayer meeting hit hard times.

And so did the relationships between churches.

It came to a head at the Ministers' Fellowship meeting last month when we asked the question "What does this meeting actually do?" There were some indications that we were on a bad track

• finances were dwindling because we haven't done anything combined for ages
• we were looking at not being able to fund scripture in schools next year
• nobody had realised that one of our colleagues has been seriously ill and his wife had suffered a mini-stroke

Suddenly it became clear that organisationally and relationally we were in a very bad place.

I was pleased when someone suggested that we need to meet fortnightly for prayer. The time was set as 6 pm on a Monday- not the best time for me, but a chance at last to turn things around.

So tonight we had 6 people from 4 churches who prayed together and discussed a draft mission statement for the Narrabri Christian Network. It was a bit stilted but it was a good solid start.

Now we have to work at making the idea grow to develop true unity in the Body of Christ in Narrabri.