I was part of an ‘online prayer’ meeting this past Wednesday. Sounds kind of strange and impersonal. However, seeing everyone’s face around the virtual table and being able to mobilise people from three different regions of the world to pray was a definite encouragement and certainly a plus to spend this time praying ‘virtually’ together.
Our prayer facilitator shared a brief word from the Scriptures, emphasizing how prayer is not something we should do out of duty, but out of a sense of opportunity to meet together around the possibilities that our great God has for His work and people in this world. Now the first part of that insight is something we all know, but it was that second piece about ‘opportunity’ that stood out to me in a new way.
We were given the opportunity to have our awareness raised as to what God was doing in one part of this world and raise our voices to pray for that part of the world, joining others around the world in that work.
The World Team Day of Prayer is one such ‘opportunity’ for us. Maybe we should re-name that time to something like: Join the WT Prayer Opportunity? No matter what we might name it, there is plenty of room for innovation and taking our global prayer points and praying them with our teammates, our larger team, or even virtually with people from different parts of WT.
However, it’s done, it’s our opportunity to ask God will to fulfill His mission through His Church and His people in the world.
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Back in 2014, we re-introduced one another to the idea of building community with others for our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. A small working group put together the document: “TC4u: Transformational Communities“. If you have never seen this document or can’t currently find it in your files, drop me a note and I’ll make sure to send you a copy.
In our World Team Global circles, we are used to hearing the phrase: “preaching the Gospel to yourself every day”. By that we mean to say our hold on the Gospel is tenuous and our hearts need to be reminded of the deep love of Christ each and every day in order for us to live out of the Gospel.
Let me give you a couple of examples. First, during the time of prayer, everyone prayed, all at the same time. In our local church, maybe in yours as well, people pray out loud one at a time, one after the other, during time dedicated to open prayer. Now I had experienced this kind of ‘all together’ prayer in small group contexts, but never in a church meeting of 40+ people. Second, they gave room for people to grow in their gifts and talents. The young woman leading worship explained, at one point, that a year ago she did not know how to play the guitar. However, the need arose when their main worship leader left. So, the church encouraged her to learn how to play the guitar and let her ‘grow’ in her ability over the past year. She is now writing worship music which local Christian editors would like her to include in a new release of songbooks for churches. Third, for a small church they had an exciting and adventurous vision. At the end of the service, the pastor explained that he would be leaving for Africa that week because of a ministry opportunity the church had to train a group of women in microfinance. This would allow these women to meet the physical needs of their families as well as open doors of opportunity for the church to minister to the community where these women live. As we left, Rebecca and I both commented on how amazing it was that such a small church could have such a large vision.
at he would recommend I do to continue to grow in spiritual understanding and character. His simple words were: “Select each year one topic of study, one area of life, and dig into it.”
Thoughts Along The Journey 