This mighty tome – in A4 format and running to nearly 300 pages – is the product of lived experience.

Strategy for prayer

The author, Sarah Winbow, is a Bible teacher and ‘serial’ disciple-maker. Most of all, she is a seasoned intercessor, with a strong sense of spiritual discernment. While living in the beautiful Eden Valley in rural Cumbria in the early 2000s, she helped form a small team of local believers who simply had a heart to seek God, listen to what He said, put His word into practice and then watch what He did. This book shares that unique and fascinating story.

But Restoring Eden does much more than that. It contains the reproducible strategy for prayer that God gave this small group – based on the biblical principle that “if a united group of believers identify the various footholds the enemy has gained in their community, ‘stand in the gap’ in heartfelt repentance and then seek God’s face in worship with humility of heart, we have His promise from scripture that He will hear our prayers and heal (restore) our land” (2 Chron 7:14).

Winbow considers consecration an essential pre-requisite of unity, and goes on to provide a highly profitable study of humility, glory, true repentance, death and resurrection, living sacrifice, ‘going deeper’, obedience and brokenness.

Prayer ‘Essentials’

The study begins with some ‘Basic’ (in reality, detailed and powerful) biblical teaching:

1. on what the kingdom of God really is;
2. on who we truly are as children of God;
3. on our unity with God and with fellow-believers.

Part Two, the central chunk of the book, focuses on five practical ‘Essentials’. These are:

1) Response. Included in this section are Community prayer cells (what are they? a typical life-cycle, how to form one, etc); the importance of having a leader; the necessity of a team and the essence of forming boundaries.

2) Consecration. Winbow considers this an essential pre-requisite of unity, and goes on to provide a highly profitable study of humility, glory, true repentance, death and resurrection, living sacrifice, ‘going deeper’, obedience and brokenness.

3) Enemy. While the author is quick to emphasise that the enemy has already been defeated, she feels it instructive to include some teaching on Satan’s deceptive schemes; his influence on believers to commit sin, which can, if not repented of, become bondages or strongholds in our lives, leading to judgement and even death.

4) Witchcraft and Freemasonry. This is in part a bible study – based primarily on Nehemiah, but also includes modern-day examples of witchcraft attacks, the Jezebel spirit, and a potted history of Freemasonry.

5) Pray and Seek. This chapter looks at the significance and power of prayer, offering a consideration of the ‘Outer Court’, the ‘Holy Place’ and the ‘Holy of Holies’, and providing teaching on praying the Word of God, wearing our spiritual armour, praying until breakthrough comes, and the different levels of spiritual warfare.

The author feels it instructive to include some teaching on Satan’s deceptive schemes; his influence on believers to commit sin, which can, if not repented of, become bondages or strongholds in our lives, leading to judgement and even death.

Steps to releasing the Kingdom

A vital closing section outlines a dozen clearly definable steps we can take towards releasing our communities for God’s presence and Kingdom to come. These highly important ‘Steps’ include:

1. Discerning your boundary;
2. Identifying your spiritual gates or gateways;
3. Understanding your ongoing responsibility (as gatekeepers and watchmen);
4. Covenanting with God for the land;
5. Discerning your immediate assignment;
6. Establishing why your place of focus is so-named;
7. Constructing an historical timeline for your focus area;
8. Systematically prayer-walking and cleansing your focus area (includes removing occult altars or power bases by prophetic and symbolic cleansing);
9. Holding a service of identificational repentance for your focus area;
10. Overcoming the strongman (five stages are identified in this, including personal preparation, dynamic worship, waiting on God for a strategy and engaging in spiritual warfare prayer).

Remarkable and unique

The book comes complete with guidance on researching your area, along with numerous appendices and a short bibliography. (Sarah states that additional testimony could be added regarding the release the Lord has brought in many areas of the Eden Valley since the book was published in 2015).

Sarah is confident that if God’s children are diligent in taking her suggestions to heart, then “little by little we would see the footholds of the kingdom of darkness being replaced by an invasion of the Kingdom of God – ‘Eden’ being restored at every level of our society” (p.vii).

This book is the fruit of many years of spiritual discernment and following God’s leading, openly sharing the mistakes she has made as well as the victories.

Restoring Eden is a remarkable and unique book – carefully written, methodical and comprehensive. Most important of all, the book is thoroughly practical. This is no academic treatise or pie-in-the-sky visionary endeavour. This book, rather, is the fruit of many years of spiritual discernment and following God’s leading, openly sharing the mistakes she has made as well as the victories. A wonderful labour of love - I know of no work like it.

The sheer size of the book might seem daunting to some. Best perhaps to treat it as a ‘go-to’ manual – one whereby you can helpfully turn to and focus on the section that you particularly wish to concentrate on.

For true intercessors everywhere, this is a valuable resource. I heartily recommend it.

Restoring Eden is self-published and is available from Amazon for £19.70 (inc p&p). A much shorter companion book (88pp), less theologically-dense, is also available - Steps to Releasing Your Community (from Amazon for £7.99 inc p&p).