Relational struggles, financial strangleholds, emotional strife; whatever your mountain, through prayer God's power can move it. Jeff Short chats to author and popular speaker Debra Green OBE who also runs ROC (Redeeming Our Communities)

Debra: Yes, and praying with a positive focus. There are so many negative things that we would like to see change, but start by praying with a positive focus. Pray for the welfare of the city, thanking God for what's good about it. It raises aspirations because people want to live in a place, which is being celebrated, and there are so many good things to celebrate about Stoke. My friend Lloyd Cooke who I know works extensively across Stoke bringing churches together through Saltbox ministry. He tells me so many stories about how God has answered prayer.

Jeff: There are two things that come into the book that may be out of the experience of some people. One is, a lot of the prayer has a prophetic element, which isn't foretelling but is God speaking and saying I want you to partner me; I want you to be involved in praying for a certain thing. It's like God telling you what to pray not you telling God what you want to pray. Would that be fair?

Debra: I do think prophetic prayer is very interesting and you can interpret it in a lot of different ways. But it definitely has the future aspect to it, the future nature of what God is going to do. But it also has the present; what is the present word of the Lord? What is God saying today? What is he saying in the immediate context?

Tuning in in prayer is about listening as well as about speaking; it's a two-way communication. And as we listen, we might have an impression, some people might call it a picture; it might be a word from scripture or it might be a dream, a vision. Gods speaks in different ways to different people and we then tune in to that and try and discern what it is that he is really saying and how should that impact my prayers and how should it impact my life and my actions.

Within ROC, what we've done is to spend a lot of time in prayer. We still do this today, we still have a couple of regular prayer meetings every week where we're praying about what is the next direction for ROC; what are we supposed to be doing, what are we here for as a charity. That can apply to churches and to individual Christians.

Jeff: It's also a good reason why Christians should get together and pray because I might have something I've got an impression of, a picture of, a scripture comes to mind that is for you. Or you might have one that's for me.

Debra: It deals with this in Corinthians, doesn't it, where it talks about the spiritual gifts. It's very much written to the church rather than to an individual. Sometimes we can't make sense of what we're hearing God say until we get together with others. Somebody might have a different angle or an interpretation or a way of helping you respond to that. Some of these impressions might be too big for me to comprehend.

I often joke and say if I'd known what ROC was going to become I'm not sure whether I would have had the courage to do it because for me God only revealed the very first step. And that first step seemed quite manageable and easy. I have an argument with him about that occasionally. It is possible to do that.

Jeff: There's one other thing; it's one of the most fabulous illustrations from a preacher that I've ever picked up and stole shamelessly. You said you were watching the snooker and were absorbed in it and all of a sudden you see a cameraman come into shot very quickly and then disappear and you get that instinct that there are all sorts of things around that table that you don't see. And you liken that to a spiritual realm. Christians talk about spiritual warfare where there are good and evil in competition. I thought that was a fabulous picture. Is that your encounter that sometimes you feel you come up against wars of evil?

Debra: Yes, definitely. We've done a project called Battle stations where we talk about times where the mountain that you are seeking to move seems to have quite a sinister persona and you know we're not fighting against flesh and blood but principalities and powers. I think there is an enemy who wants to silence the church and wants to stop the call of God on our lives or thwart it. He can't do that unless we allow him to.

Coming back fighting in prayer, knowing that we're in a battle, I very much argue that those times you need to be praying with others because their faith might be strong around that issue. You might have a health situation going on, somebody else comes along to pray with you and they've got faith for healing you might not have. That battle, if they sense it is a battle situation, they can go into battle with you. And it's the prayer of agreement: where two or three agree in my name. I will answer their prayer.

Jeff: Mountain Moving Prayer and it really is a good read, it's inspirational and it challenges as well. There are times when you think wow; I could never be there. But as you say, it started with first steps. Thank you for coming on and we pray God will continue to bless ROC and continue to bless you.