Sowing seeds for revival... In June 1998 I launched out into a venture that has proved to be significantly life-changing for me. I had been involved with a set of meetings in Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, London since the June of 1997. These were initiated by Gerald Coates, and we were helped in the process by a prophetic minister from the US, Dale Gentry.

Those meetings were a call to prayer for revival, with an opportunity for people to experience the presence of the Lord, and to put whatever they needed right. Many people were touched, numerous people found faith, there were some incredible baptisms where people were totally overcome by the Spirit of God: those were great days. The flyer for those meetings had a strap line: 'Sowing the seeds of revival'.

I was privileged to be involved in those meetings and toward the end of 97 and the early months of 98 the Lord was speaking to me to venture out. I initially thought it was to be a 'Marsham Street on the road', but as I began to discover a phrase that impacted me ('relationships for territory's sake') I realised that the major emphasis would be to take a team from across churches and geographies, to a specific area where we could work alongside believers in that area. We would come to pray, and as God moved see people touched and impacted for the future.

The venture we initially called 'sowing the seeds of revival' but as the months went on we changed it to a less-pretentious name: sowing seeds for revival.

So in June 1998 we left as a team to Leeds and completed two weeks there. This was followed by time in Preston, Sheffield and the Wirral. We have not looked back since then. Many new aspects have developed but the core of promoting one church in the area, and concerted prayer has remained.

I owe a huge gratitude to Colin and Marie Easton who tirelessly over almost a 10 year period travelled with me, watching my back, bringing invaluable insights and generally giving care to the teams that travelled.

The book with the same title (now 'Gaining Ground') is an account of the theology that developed as we travelled in prayer.

The work has developed so that now there is a greater emphasis on (and request for) helping the people of God be (re-)positioned in society, so that there is an opportunity to steward what has been cleared. Books such as The church beyond the congregation, Liquid church, Organic church are all pointers in that direction.