Rivers Of London – Counters Creek

Rivers Of London is one of a number of ways REACH has engaged churches in what we call Camino Prayer Walks in our city. Nine underground rivers flow beneath our feet around the capital and flow into the Thames. Many individuals and groups have now prayed along the routes of their local rivers, asking God to pour out revival and listening to hear what He is saying about mission and discipleship in this season.  

Simon Blanchflower of Latymer Community Church records his experience of walking Counters Creek in West London.

‘Having long had an interest in underground London I was keen to participate in the Rivers of London Prayer Camino and to hear what God was saying about the waters that flow beneath our city and how spiritually they will rise up and flood our streets. A small group from Latymer Community Church walked the route of our local hidden river – Counters Creek – which flows from underneath Kensal Green Cemetery to join the Thames at Chelsea Creek. We picked up the route of the river just south of the Great Western Main Line at the top of Little Wormwood Scrubs and followed the route, as closely as the street layout allows you to, all the way to Chelsea Creek and the banks of the Thames.

Things we sensed God saying as we walked pretty much the whole length of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and passed close by our church were as follows:

• As we started our walk at the top of Little Wormwood Scrubs there is a wild area which reminded me of how as God’s spirit moves there is an unconstrained nature to it – a freedom to flow. However, very quickly we moved from the wild area to neatly cut grass and then into the streets of North Kensington, a sense of moving from the unconstrained to the tamed, because people feel the need to control/harness the stream.
• As we came through the Silchester Estate (which is one of those that our church works on) we passed a beautiful wildflower meadow that had been planted near one of the tower blocks and which was starting to come into flower. 
• God spoke to me at this point about signs of breakout, that whilst the stream had been tamed into an underground drain, that there are pockets of wildness and life… that God is at work in our city.
• A bit further on we passed the Warwick Road development, a large modern estate that is in the process of being built, there was a look of sterility to it, with tightly managed garden areas – a real contrast to the earlier wildflower meadow. The planting in this area was drought resistant, reflective of the hotter and dry summers that we face in London and a few streets later we noticed hanging baskets with artificial flowers in. Both of these observations brought to mind a sense of people conforming to the prevailing context and culture rather than seeking for the authentic and that God’s call for us is not to be conformed by the world but to be distinctive.
• Our walk took us through a mixture of areas some of which had an air of dereliction, others were areas of new build and some enduring Edwardian/Victorian terraces. I felt God saying that life can come through all of them, and that the river is the connection, the common link. This was also reinforced as we passed a parish boundary marker in the wall of a house dated 1874 and denoting the boundary between the old Kensington and Hammersmith parishes, the river linking the two.
• When passing the Earls Court re-development site we noticed a hoarding, the phrase on it and the watering can logo (see photos) really spoke to us about what God wants to do.

Let’s pray that that the hidden rivers of London will once again bubble forth, bringing long-hibernating sites back to life; that heavens spring rains will come and His Spirit will move in revival on our city with the church not conforming to the culture and context of our time, but being blown and led by the wildness of God’s Spirit.