TKC 2020 is launched!

Now going into its 5th year, Thy Kingdom Come has gathered more than a million Christians in nearly 90% of countries worldwide, to pray for more people to come to faith in Christ during the period of Ascension to Pentecost- a traditionally historic time of year the church prayed for evangelisation.

Here in our Diocese, events will include an ecumenical prayer event along the South West Coast Path on Saturday 30th May, a 24/7 prayer event, and our beacon event, the Diocesan Thy Kingdom Come Service on Pentecost Sunday at the Cathedral.

Thy Kingdom Come came out of the Archbishops’ Evangelism Task Group, as the Church of England wanted to see a culture change in the Church in this country on evangelism.

Christians from around the world, including Australia, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Netherlands, Thailand, Mauritius, South Sudan, America, and Canada will be taking part in this year's Wave of Prayer.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has spoken about the potential life-changing power of prayer during Thy Kingdom Come:

“What excites me is that as we come together and pray for people to be filled with the Spirit, so they come to know and love Jesus Christ, to repent of their sins and turn away from all that is wrong and to find the love of Christ filling their hearts, we are in fact praying for the changing of our world.”

This year a special print and digital resource will be distributed to almost half a million Key-Stage-2-aged school children in Church of England and Methodist Schools across England and Wales.

Building on from last year’s Family Prayer Adventure Map, this year’s digital version uses gaming and augmented reality technology to bring the 11-day themes to life. For example, each day there will be either a game, Bible story or video reflection from contributors including Archbishop Justin Welby, CBBC’s Gemma Hunt, Guvna B, Jonathan Bryan (Eye Can Talk), New York Times bestselling author of the Jesus Story book Bible Sally Lloyd Jones, and storyteller Philip Glassborow.

The digital map comes to life through an app, which can be downloaded through any smartphone and was created in collaboration with Leeds based charity, Missional Generation.

Enduring favourites, such as the traditional Novena and the Prayer Journal were also previewed, which this year included the famous ‘Prodigal Son’ artwork from world-renowned artist Charlie Mackesy on the front cover.

The Coastal Wave of Prayer is the vison of a local church leader in Exeter who, while walking on the South West Coast Path, had the idea of encircling the whole South West in prayer. His vision was to have someone praying on every mile of the 630 miles of coast path at 2pm on Pentecost Saturday.

Thy Kingdom Come Resources will be available from next week.