The chapters are built around what Lucado calls, "A Pocket Prayer." The prayer is short, memorable and provide a nice frame work for offering daily prayers.
Lord, You are good
I need help
They need help
Thank You
In Jesus' name, Amen.
In last night's session Lucado (on DVD of course) tells about a trip he made to John Maxwell's former church in San Diego. While there, Maxwell gave Lucado some insight to the prayer ministry of Maxwell's church. Lucado came back to his congregation in San Antonio, Texas and implemented the ideas. He was concerned about the life and health of the church and so he asked for 120 people to commit to praying for the church, its ministries and for himself every single day.
Lucado described the results in the video: increased weekly attendance, increased growth, increased giving, restored health of some in need of healing and so forth.
I prepared the study on Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon I reflected and prayed about what I had heard. Wednesday evening I resolved to do the same as Lucado did.
So at the end of our Bible study I asked the class if they would become part of the 70.
I'm concerned about the spiritual health of our church.
Weekly attendance in 2015 has fallen slightly behind 2014's numbers. This has never happened in the history of LICL.
With the additions we've made to our church budget, there are concerns that we are going to bleed red ink this year.
We have spent months and months going over the idea of embarking on a new building project and rather than drawing our congregation together, it seems as if the project has had the opposite effect.
The grapevine has never been more active, spewing out all kinds of hurtful and damaging talk. And the devil continues his evil work of lying and tempting God's people to disobey His Word.
I'm not willing to just sit aside and watch all of this happen to the church that I dearly love and care for.
Last night we got started on recruiting 70 people who will pray everyday for the spiritual health of our church. But I need some more folks who will faithfully pray and ask the Lord for His help for Life in Christ.
If you'd like to become part of the 70, just let me know. Drop me an email to licl@licl.org.
Don't be offended by this next statement - please don't respond if you're not willing to pray every day for our church and its people.
It's just that I feel that we need regular, consistent, faithful prayer partners for this effort.
Will God produce the same results for LICL as He did for Lucado's church?
I have no idea. But this morning I feel so much better that a bunch of people are joining me in turning to the Lord to seek His will and direction for our church.
May God bless us according to His will and for His glory. Amen.
