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
3 comments:
WOW!!! Already two days, and I'm reminded as I pray that Jesus sets an open door, which no person or devil shall be able to open (Rev 3:7-8). EBC, a church like the church of Philadelphia, a faithful church who kept Christ's word and did not deny him. Wrestling with God, in prayer, for so many!!!
His sheep, Joyce
Most Christians would agree that prayer has power. Yet the phrase, "I will pray for you" has become the spiritual rhetorical statement similar to "How are you?"
As I have sat and listened these past two weeks my thoughts are, if I am not praying for my husband who is? Or my children? Or my sister who has walked away from Christ? Who is praying for me?
Our church has so many giving people and does so many wonderful things. We see people come to Christ and be baptized. What if we were all praying daily for this?
I'm praying that families will be healed. That loved ones come to Christ. That forgiveness and grace spring forth and that my character is changed. That we will be a church devoted to God's desires, seeking opportunities to love others. That we will be convicted of sin not for the sake of guilt but of freedom.
I want us to be a church that invites Jesus into our bodily temple and asks him to overturn the tables in our hearts and lives that contain all of the things we have carelessly or intentionally collected - things that we have tried to use to satisfy ourselves. And we allow Him to replace those things with Himself so that we might truly be fulfilled and reflect the image of our Savior.
I have not asked 'How are you' the same since Ian challenged our church on that topic a few months ago. He was teaching on a Sunday morning and he invited us to not allow 'how are you' to be empty rhetoric, but to be filled with the biblical mandate of love and community. He actually asked me/ us to 'care' when we asked how someone might be and also that we might be a place of authenticity and encouragement.
Perhaps this focus on prayer will serve a similar purpose. Rather than the rhetoric of, 'I'll pray for you', we may actually experience the profundity of a church that truly and deeply prays...holding one another up with joy and with expectancy.
I will rest my head this evening praying for 'you'. I don't know who you are, but I am so thrilled to know our God who binds us together.
I hope that prayer gives birth to a church that asks, with authenticity, 'how are you.' After hearing the answer, follows with 'I am praying for you and let's do that right now and I won't quit, relent, or give up.' That will be a place of encouragement and God-sized activity.
Mark
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