God, that was quick!

We are beginning a church-wide prayer initiative soon.  You will hear about it in the next week.  However, in the mean time, I have asked a couple of people to begin praying with me for very particular things as we lead ourselves into that initiative.  My hope is that this group will include more people in the future, and that their task will remain a most important one.  I am confident that will come to pass.

We are praying for several things including: church leadership; community issues; health and life concerns of members and friends, etc. Yesterday, however, I sent this group their first prayer specific assignment.   The assignment was taken from a line from a book I am reading now--Missional Worship.  It is not a novel prayer request, but it is one important for us as we begin our prayer commitment.  There are two parts:

1) God, bring me people who need to talk about faith.  That is, bring to me (john, for example) these people.
2) God, bring us (Oak Haven UMC) people who need to talk about faith.  Let our church be a place for people to seek God.

That is pretty straight forward.  You may not know me; I'm just another John.  So, let me tell you that I believe in the power of, trust in, depend on and encourage prayer.  I know what prayer can do to those being prayed for and those who are praying.  That said, I sent the email at 4:30 pm and within two hours had the first answer to my prayer approach me! 

God, please help me let others talk about faith in you.

I wanted to share this story for a couple of reasons.  One, this is the kind of prayer that our churches--that includes yours, too--need to be committed to.  We are getting there!  Secondly, I'll confess, I was sure one of the other group members would have their story to share first.  Thanks, God; now I get to tell how awesome you are first.  Finally, I want you to be in prayer.  You can join us in our first prayer assignment, or pray about anything else.  Just pray.  Would you like to join us?