I want to make you aware of something we plan to focus on as a church this year. The statement that best summarizes what we are about this year and every year is our Mission Statement: "Thoughtfully inviting broken people to experience transformation in Christ." As broken people, we have experienced the power of Jesus Christ begin to put the pieces of our life back together again, and we want to be a place where more individuals and families can experience the power that God has to restore them.
That dream of the future won't happen just because we want it to. We need to take regular steps to move towards it. That is why each year we plan to have something we can focus on that will help us continue to become the type of church we believe God wants us to be. This is our focus for this year: We want to become a church where the gospel moves out from us like a ground swell that brings restoration. Over the next year, we will spend 4000 hours praying for opportunities to show and share the gospel with 1000 people in our community.
We decided on this as our focus because in order to help others experience transformation in Christ, God needs to move in people's hearts. We can get really busy and exert a lot of energy, but if God isn't behind it, then we are going to spend a lot of time spinning our wheels with no results. Because of this focus on prayer, we are going to be mentioning a lot of different opportunities to help all of us engage in prayer.
The first step we are going to take is something we are calling Pray for 5. Here is the idea: you pray for five people in our community who you regularly interact with and who are not a part of any church. Then we are asking that you pray for these people for 5 minutes each day, 5 days a week for 5 weeks. Some of you might not be able to think of 5 people to pray for and that is okay. We still encourage you to participate in this. What you can do instead is begin by praying for the 2 or 3 people that you regularly interact with. Then ask God to bring more people into your life that you can show and share the gospel with.
If you would like to participate in Pray for 5 you can sign up HERE. This link will take you to our Pray for 5 webpage that also has ideas of what to pray for, tips to stay consistent, and more. On Monday, September 30, those who signed up will begin praying. Throughout the 5 weeks, all participates will also receive text messages to encourage them as they pray so do not be alarmed if you receive a text message from us.
I invite you to join us and see what God can do as we take the time to pray.
