History
William & Karen Porter write as leaders of the Beacon:
Just to share a snapshot of the journey behind this vision… We moved to Stoke on Trent in 2003 to serve a local Methodist church. At the start of 2006 we stepped out of that to seek God for a future direction in ministry. It felt as if we were standing on the edge of a new field with God saying ‘you can’t see a way but I will make a way.’ Over a period of six months we prayed and talked with friends about possible church planting or developing a new ministry. One word became crystal clear—’God is calling you to raise up houses of prayer, healing and renewal’.
In June 06 we shared this vision with some friends who were walking our journey with us, and we formed a core of what soon became known as the ‘Beacon’. We simply gathered to worship, pray, minister to each other, listen to God and flesh out this vision. Informal community worship began occasionally in the summer and a weekly Sunday worship gathering started at the end of September at Packmoor Community Centre which now has about 30 adults and a dozen children. We wanted a simple ‘fresh expression’ of church as a core fellowship who facilitate and resource a wider house of prayer ministry for the area.
Over 2007 we have slowly developed the prayer vision, with regular times of 24 hours of prayer, worship and prayer gatherings and exploring creative prayer spaces in worship. We made a significant visit to International House of Prayer in Kansas City, and contacts with other prayer ministries are beginning to develop.
A search for a building as a base for a house of prayer led us to the top of Tunstall. Council planning blocked a bid for a larger warehouse we were looking at, and then we discovered a small office premises, on which we took a lease at the beginning of August 2007.
It is an exciting and slightly scary ride for us as a fellowship of friends as we now offer this house of prayer as a resource to the wider church in the city and region. The word ‘Beacon’ sums up a lot of the vision—may it be a light of God’s presence, a fire of night & day prayer and a signal of burning hot Christian spirituality as people live out Jesus’ love.