40 Days
- 40 Days to seek the face of G0d
- 40 Days of fasting as God prompts
(food/ sleep/ a meal/ TV/ computer/ ... yeah, anything that might free you to pray and to seek God's face)
- 40 Day to read the book of Colossians... Read the letter once a day for 40 Days
- 40 Days to pray!
- 40 Days to unite as a church!
- A great starting point might simply be to read Colossians 4.12 and to ask God how He might ask you to 'wrestle' in prayer for Emmanuel..... for the glory of God.

What could happen if we pray? Devote yourself to prayer!! (Col 4.2)

Week Six 7.20.09 - 7.24.09
- 40 Days is moving toward closure.... We have experienced 40 Days of seeking God.... 40 Days of feasting on His Word... 40 Days of a Flipt life and 40 Days of God choosing, by His grace, to use Emmanuel to flip lives.
- During this 40 Days, we have shared in a journey to camp with our students; two missional opportunities to Daytona and PSJ; Vacation Bible School; the launch of summer ministries that are truly changing the face of marriages; parenting; and our own personal journey in Christ.
- During this 40 Days, we have not solely asked God to bless the stuff that we are doing, but we have asked Him for more of Him... more of His truth... more of His life....His grace and goodness and faithfulness. He is good.
- God has revealed Himself. He has revealed Himself personally and He continues to unveil His flipt plan for our lives, both individually and as a church.
- As God leads us toward the end of a 40 Day journey, we have the privilege of praying for kids who will head to Flipt Camp... over 90 kids and leaders (2 - 5th grade), will be on venture to cam next week. Invite God to be Himself and to do, in their lives, audacious things. Ask our God to draw them toward Himself and His purposes and His ways.
- In Him (Christ), we live, move, and have our being.....

Week Five 7.13.09 7.19.09
- The Word is Alive. Life, based upon truth and conviction, is not easily swayed. I am asking God to build our lives and the life of emmanuel on the core conviction of His truth and His way. I am praying that the 'Word of Christ finds deep dwelling among us' and that we challenge one another and encourage one another and press one another more deeply in Him. May the Word of Christ dwell richly among you and among us this week.
- A team ventures to Daytona this week. They will prepare a beautiful wing to minister to children, THEN a second team will actually love the kids that God sends in a VBS. What an incredible week and what an opportunity God has given us.
- How are you 'fasting'? How are you making space for God to be Himself to you? How is He inviting you to know more of Him? To trust Him? To Love Him? To Be in Him? Seek first the Kingdom of God......

Week Four 7.06.09 – 7.12.09
- Park and think about Colossians 1.24 – 29… God is inviting you to treasure Him. He is inviting you to treasure His goodness and His grace and His life in you. He is inviting you to love Him and through that love, to love those around you. Verses 28 – 29 will compel you to fast. God is challenging us to present those in our sphere of influence as perfectly mature in Him. We must deeply love Him and allow that love to pour out and to disciple those around us. What a magnanimous joy. What a challenging privilege.
- How is God asking you to pour Him onto those around you?
- This week, our fellowship will be on adventure to Port St Joe. We will lead a family impacting week. We will teach children of the boundless love of God. Pray for our family that will be on venture.
- Pray… Seek.. Fast… Expect… Enjoy!

Week Three 6.29.09 - 7.05.09
- This is a week to celebrate freedom. It was for freedom that Christ has set us free! Colossians 1.13 – 14 are amazing verses of freedom. Let freedom in Christ and from Christ and for Christ ring in your life!
- This week, our family of faith launched Fantastic World (Kids); Primal (Students); Flipt Summer Studies (Adults)… it promises to be an amazing summer for our families. Fast and pray for God to move in Spirit and in Power in and through the life of our fellowship.
- What will happen when a church prays?
- We will discover more and more of the goodness of God
- We will see our students return from camp with their lives flipped completely
- We will experiences hundreds of kids at VBS (493 to be exact); dozens rescued into the story of God; and a thousand dollars or more given to provide VBS for another church (Daytona)
- We will share story after story after story of the beauty and wonder of Christ!

Week Two 6.22.09 - 6.28.09
- a beautiful week ahead. VBS launched last night and it remains one of my favorite weeks of the year! Pray for God to DEEPLY impact the lives of many families....
- I love the theme..."It all comes back to Jesus"... After reading the Letter to Colossians daily, stop and think about Colossians 1.15 - 20... Christ supreme. Christ Beautiful. Christ amazing. Pray that Christ will not only be the head of this church, but that He will guide us into every thing that He has for us and that we will move with Him.
- I love that thought from yesterday. Worship is life. Everything. May your life be an ongoing, never-ending, amazed and beautiful act of worship! May our worship of God leave this city and the nations glad and rejoicing in the goodness of the One who overwhelms us.
- Pray... Fast...Seek... Expect

Week One 6.15.09 - 6.21.09
- An amazing week ahead..... Colossians 4.12 could be an amazing verse to pray. Invite God to teach you to pray and to be a person who stands in the gap for this church.
- Students are at camp.... If you would like a list to pray over, hit comment below and leave your e mail addy. Pray for the 90 students/ leaders at SLC!
- Boomerang Express is gearing up next week.... Ask God to pour out His life into the lives of our kids and workers in the days to come.
- As you pray this week, pause and consider the wonder of Colossians 1.15 - 17. All things are held together in Christ... He is supreme... He is enough... Is your life given 'for' Him?

What excites you about 'wrestling' in prayer with the entire emmanuel family? Hit comment and share....

Pray... Expect....Hope....Be

A friend, this week, shared a great summary to the verse Colossians 4.12. She said, 'that verse has messed me up.' With the joy of a 'mess us up' verse, we have discovered a solid plural name for Epaphras. Ready?!?! Here you go.... Epaphrites. Yep, doesn't really ring my joy bell either, but what an incredible thing to aspire toward.

Can you imagine a whole slew of people who wrestled with God on behalf of each other? I mean, it would be spiritually remarkable for a church... a movement of people who are giving great chase to God, to pray and to wrestle and to ask God to grow us into maturity and that we would be fully assured and that we will stand firm in and for the glory of God. Epaphras wrestled with God for his friends at the Church at Colosse.

Honestly, my imagination runs wild as I think about the people in that church. They kept having amazing things happen among them... you know, people being rescued into the story of God; families putting the pieces back together; people selling their stuff so that other people could have stuff; parents committing to train their kids in what it might look like to follow Christ. Things like that and so much more was happening and the people of the church were just in awe of God. They had to be asking, 'how does this stuff keep happening? How does all of this God-stuff keep springing up around us???' Yeah, Epaphras wrestled with God on behalf of the church, that they would be mature and assured and that they would stand firm in the Lord.

So, I'm hoping that our church might just be made up of a bunch of Epaphrites. That could be wildly fun..... God-sized... people in Crestview might just look at us and like what they see. So, who are you praying for? Who is praying for you? When is the last time that you wrestled with God in behalf of another? Let's go for it!

By Grace... For Glory,
Mark

Incredible day around Emmanuel yesterday. We did the Nole chop and chant, which made a portion of the room happy and left the rest of us a bit nauseated. But, we also talked about what it might look like to live for the name of God. Colossians 3.17 was our launching pad for thought and it was fresh to consider what it might mean for us to truly live out and flesh out the name or the essence of God Himself in our everyday encounters.

Honestly, I was really challenged by I Samuel 3.19.... I mean, what a verse to latch onto and what a risky verse to pray for yourself. To actually say to God, I don't want a single action or deed or word that you have for me to fall to the ground. Honestly, if we were to ask God to so posture our lives so that there was not a single action... not one task that He has for us... not a Word that He is speaking to us that might fall to the ground, we could live in the midst of a revolution of the Spirit and the Presence of God. I have no doubt that God would enjoy dwelling in an environment like that and He would give us His 'face'... His presence.. His glory. I want to live for the glory of God and I really want to share that zeal for His glory with a whole bunch of people!

Speaking of living for the glory, we collected a ton of money yesterday in order to prepare a nursery area and to prep a kids area in Daytona Beach. Via a single plea, we gave over $1100 AND a crib and we also have more than a dozen who will pile in and head toward Daytona in July. I think that we were the church yesterday.... we met and worshiped and talked about hundreds of lives that will be impacted in Crestview through this summer AND we met a critical need in another part of the world with immediacy. Amazing! I love sharing life in this environment and watching God move among us. Details are coming about the trip in July. Tentative dates are to leave on Friday July 17. Work the evening of the 17th; Saturday work; afternoon of the 18th; wrap up work on the 19th (Monday) and head back to the 'View. Changing the world.... Gotta love it.

Enjoy a remarkable week and give great chase toward the 'face of God'. Play for Glory.

By Grace... For Glory,

Mark