Facilitated
by: Harry Skandera
(Harry Skandera)
We would like to welcome you to City
Reach Prayer. It is always a blessing to see faithful
gatherers and new faces as well. It is good to be back
here at Santa Rosa Christian School.
There are many things going on at
this time and the summer time coming up and the county
of Sonoma knows and recognizes this as a place of influence.
We have the Bohemian Grove conference coming up where
leaders from all around the world will come to gather
to discuss various issues impacting the world. If this
year, 2006 was the year of the Lord in Sonoma County,
how would that look?
What would you picture happening if
in some way the Lord presence manifested in our town
in a way that hadn't happened before?
What do you think? What would that
look like? Would all of the church bells ring in unison
every Sunday? How about it? What would we expect?
When we think about revivals that have
happened in the United States of America when the presence
of the Lord actually falls on a place, what comes to
your mind ...brokenness, yes that is true. People who
had never stepped foot in a church in their life would
be walking down the road and they would fall to their
knees and call out to God for forgiveness. What else
would you see.
(Comments from those present)
There would be more selflessness,
more reaching out to the poor.. Peoples' priorities
would change and their lives would be more spirit lead/Kingdom
focused.. The things that we find pleasure in with entertainment
would change like television, music, movies, going out
on the weekends, all of the things that consume our
time now instead of God.
(Harry Skandera)
Ok, so you think that all of those
things would begin to take place? I am wondering what
it would be like to be sitting at the Roxy and, you
know how they do those ads, and all of sudden one came
up that was sharing about the Lord.. or how when it
gets quiet before the movie comes on. If someone began
to call upon the Lord and the people began to enter
into worship. I ask this, because when we start talking
about the Lord's coming, you know, 2000 and some years
ago, there was a people of the Lord, God's people who
had a thousand years of prophecy, literally thousands
of prophecies about the Lord showing up among them and
most of them missed Him.
And taught about Him in the churches
in that day and even though the Synagogues were filled
those days, and even when Jesus came in the flesh, so
many did not accept Him or receive Him. We praise God,
because we know that He is going to show up in our midst,
but that we would be able to receive Him, so we are
going to sing one song. I am going to ask the students
who are here to help us in this time, then we are going
to break up into small groups of three or four people
and we are going to ask you to pray into how He might
show up in our city in this time. I am going to leave
it up to you as to what is the cry of your heart. I
am going to ask you to let other people in the group
to be able to equally share the air time. You may also
just be quiet and the Lord may use that time to fill
you with a picture of what is on His heart.
(Worship)
( Harry Skandera)
Ok, so we are now going to pray into
what the Lord might speak to us and what we might like
to see for the city of Santa Rosa.
(Prayer in small groups)
(Sharing of what each group
came up with in their prayer time)
That we would be carriers of the Lord,
that we are not just praying, but that we are carrying
the Lord with us wherever we go God's heart and desires
for the people and the county, that we have become His
partner in this county, so we are carriers of God's
heart and longing for this county everywhere we go.
We thought of the Kingdom of Heaven
and how the Lion will lay down with the lamb and how
the lion will eat straw like the ox and a little boy
will lead them and how everything will be at peace and
what the Holy Spirit revealed to us was that we should
be model citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven living in
the city of Santa Rosa. Everything that is in Santa
Rosa that has disruption or no peace that even though
we are going to see sin around us, that we would see
the city as our home, because we are citizens of the
city of heaven living in the city of Santa Rosa, and
so we said that we need to be the change that we want
to see.
I believe that there is idolatry in
the body of Christ that needs to be dealt with and that
the Lord tells us to love Him with our whole mind, body,
soul and strength and we are divided. We fit God into
our liking, into our conveniences, so there will be
holiness and worship of God in our churches, homes and
public places.
There would be all ages and denominations
getting together to worship God together with all different
types and styles of worship, yet we would all be united
in worship.
I am so glad that you mentioned that,
because we are in the process of getting something like
that organized here this year, talking with the various
churches, youth ministries and organizations etc.
A faith would be demonstrated in people
that displaces fear. There would be leadership amongst
the youth and a desire to abandon all and to follow
Jesus like the disciples did. We would be true disciples.
The perfect love of Christ will effect
every area of the city. We would be praying the presence
of God into our city like never before.
(Harry Skandera)
We are seeing how the spirit of the
Lord is simultaneously inspiring people all over the
country. There are many believers and churches on the
rise that are going to their mayor's and asking what
they can do to help the city out and to bless the city.
Here in our city, the mayor has asked
us to come out and to help clean up the city which was
what we did at "Spring Clean". I hope that
you will all be able to help out with that this year.
An amazing event has taken place in the New York area
where hundreds of churches and volunteers had given
of their time and resources to save the city thousands
of dollars to be a blessing to the city.
I am certain that people are listening
and we are beginning to see that in our county, so this
year 2006, we want to continue as we pray to listen
and let the Lord fill our hearts and show us the things
that He wants us to do for Him in this place in loving
our city. We are going to sing another song and them
move into our second part of the gathering where we
will be praying for the ministry of Santa Rosa Christian
School and will be introducing you to some of the staff.
(Worship)
(Harry Skandera)
Tonight we are visiting the campus
of Santa Rosa Christian School where I happen to be
the dean of spiritual development. Santa Rosa Christian
school has been here for over 30 years and I could say
a lot more, but I would like to hand the microphone
over to a tremendous Christian woman who the Lord has
brought in the answer to our prayers to Santa Rosa Christian
school. She comes from southern California, so we know
that this is quite a change for her, but I would like
to introduce Dr. Sowers
(Dr. Sowers)
Thank you all for coming here tonight
to pray for us. It is such a tremendous blessing to
be here and I deeply blessed to have your support. We
just have an amazing staff here. There is so much that
can happen with the transition of a school principal
and I have just been so welcomed and have had such a
smooth transition.
The staff here are excellent and we
have fun, maybe even a little too much, but that is
so important I think and it makes the hard work part
not so hard.
We have a three fold mission statement
here.
The first part would be God honoring
academic excellence. Academics doesn't just have to
do with what goes on in the classrooms, but it's everything
that has to do with the school. It's the curriculum,
the living curriculum, it's the people touching the
lives of the kids. Excellence honors God and the opposite
therefore implied is meritocracy is a sin, and that
is one thing that we are trying to give these kids.
Just as in Ephesians 2:10, academic excellence matters
based on a Biblical world view.
Thirdly, we are transformed what for?
To go out into the world and to make a difference. Our
logo we designed was designed to express this. It shows
the background of the world. We are hopefully helping
these kids to be able to transform lives and to go out
into all the world just as we have all been commissioned
to do. I believe that Jesus wants the body of Christ
to be able to come together in an educational setting.
I know that I have been commissioned
here and that God called me, because I didn't want to
come. I have no family up here and I knew no one.
Would you pray that this mission that
we are embracing and that we are clearly receiving repeatedly
for our students and for our staff, that our staff now
would embrace it now more than ever and that our students
will understand it and embrace it, that all of us will
be so full of ambition, that everything in our mission
statement will be made so true in this excellence for
the Lord based upon His word.
It is just going to end up touching
lives for God's kingdom. Please pray that that mission
does become imprinted on our hearts. Please pray too
that we will have the personnel to carry it out.
The number two most stressful job in
the world is educating as teachers in a classroom. I
can't imagine being an elementary school teacher, I
mean can you imagine how many split second decisions
that are having to be made all day.
Also, we need to pray for the kids
that are at this school. If you would come here on a
school day and just walk around this campus, you would
see that we have the most wonderful students here. There
are all such great kids.
We do not have all Christian students
here and that is intentional and sometimes that is a
battle too. We love them and we want them to find out
about Christ and I am so glad that Harry and Steve are
willing to start doing this volunteer kind of worship.
That people would come and worship and just praise God
in a way that would grow.
We have about 60 or so home-schooled-kids,
so we are thrilled to have them a part of our community.
So, they participate in our sports and I am trying to
get them more involved in our social activities, I want
them here for our prayer time. Pray for those kids please,
so that all of us put together can go out and change
our little corner right now of Sonoma County and that
kids will taste and see that the Lord is so much better
than what the world offers and that it has joy and fulfillment
that no power-house job can bring. God may use them
in a power-house job to change the world, Hallelujah.
What I am trying to say is that these
kids will have such a clear vision of hearing God's
voice, that no matter where God takes them they will
be excellent and able to make the most impact for the
kingdom. Please pray that our kids get that mission
too.
Finally, we need partners. The school
is in a real transition time. We have some real rock
and roll days, well since I have been here. We are praying
that through this, God is doing His work to get us ready
for the next big step. Would you please pray that, first
of all that we would have more prayer partners. We need
more people praying for this school than ever before.
We also need a bigger network.
I mean, I really don't have the network
to do some of the work that I need to do, but God will
bring the right people to get accomplished what He desires.
I am going to a big church, but I don't have any friends
yet. We also need a network of financial support to
do the amount of work that we are doing. We do pray
for that for our kids, that's just a reality. Just like
many of you are a part of a wonderful ministry, but
God's got the right people for each ministry to support
it, He's got the money too, and if we could have the
people that are really dedicated to out mission being
the ones who are contributing, that is really what I
would like to have. I think that our mission isn't too
far off from the mission that most followers of Christ
would believe in, is it? So, that is my request. This
is a great place and I can see how it will be effecting
the whole county as we move forward and be excellent
for Him. Thank you.
(Harry Skandera)
Dr. Sowers, if you could stay there.
What we are going to ask is that all of the Santa Rosa
Christian students line two rows of chairs right here
down the middle and have us pray for you.
(Dr. Sowers )
Really quick, I wanted to mention
that among out staff and students here, we have our
chairman of our board here, along with his wife who
runs our prayer group and others who work closely with
the board in all that we do, so if I have left anybody
out, please let me know. We have excellent help, but
let's pray, in a nutshell we need extra partners, that
our students lives would be transformed, that we would
have personnel that would embrace the mission, and that
the mission would be clearly achieved. This mission
is a wonderful mission and I am just standing on the
shoulders who have gone before, but that we would carry
out the mission that God has placed on our hearts.
(Harry Skandera)
Ok, so we are going to have to move
some of these chairs around.
(Prayer )
Father, we pray that this school would
be so focused and bright that it would be like a laser.
That your Kingdom come, your will be done Father. Lord,
we pray that you would cast out anything that would
bring you dishonor here. We pray that you would bind
up any darkness that has been sent here to this school
to effect the student, board members or faculty in any
way.
Fill this place and these people so
much with your Holy Spirit that the enemy would flee
in terror in Jesus name. Lord, we pray for these young
people of God, that the light would be so strong in
them that it would be opposite peer pressure.
That the students that are coming to
this school that don't know you yet God, and they are
worried about how they look, about having certain friends,
and about making a name for themselves.
I pray that the love of Jesus would
just envelope them, that you would use the students
that know you God to just love on them and not to judge
them. This would be a place where they come and experience
Christ, get to know Christ, feel Christ's love and not
rejection or judged, because there is plenty of that
to go around in the world.
So, we pray that this campus would
be different, that you, God would use the Christians
here to love and to look past the dirties and love them
and be their friend anyway's. That they would even take
a step to love one's that they would normally be turned
off by or irritated by, those who are harder to love.
Let us remember that we serve a supernatural
God and that is why we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Father that we would be able to shut down the enemies
plans to make anyone to feel isolated, by welcoming
them and loving them actively and doing the exact opposite
that the enemy would want us to do, in Jesus name. Make
this that kind of a place Father God.
Father, we recognize that Santa Rosa
Christian School doesn't stand alone, but that it represents
so many churches within the county, I think about 70,
but I ask you Father, that you would send the support
that we need from the outside to hold up the army that
is here.
That they can become all that they
are meant to be and that they will not be an isolated
entity, but an integral part of our county. We pray
for financial release Father, for all that you have
in mind for this campus. We know that you are a faithful
provider and so we are praying release according to
your will Lord, and that you would do it beginning with
your own people.
That we as a community would join together
and give of ourselves in a way that allows for your
purposes to come forth. We pray Father for united hearts
here, that there would be an end to gossip and slander
and that there would be a release of blessing springing
forth right here.
We pray Father for an efficient band
of prayer warriors that would set the platform and release
all that you want to do here, let it be so Lord.
We pray over the students and staff
here to not grow weary in doing good, for in due season
you shall reap a harvest if you do not lose heart.
We pray that the staff would rise
up and be encouraged in the Lord. That they would see
the inheritance that is being built in the lives of
the students that they are sewing into. God, that you
would just encourage them to continue to pour into the
students' lives that which you have entrusted them with.
Lord we pray for supernatural strength,
that when they grow tired that they would mount up with
wings like eagles, that they would choose to wait upon
the Lord and that their strength would be renewed. Father
fill them with your joy and may that be the strength
of their lives. Father we pray that you would be calling
people from the north, south, east, and west to rise
up and pray for this school. That you would divinely
send those who you would have to be here and to pray
for this vision.
This school would be a light and that
people from all over the county would see that there
is something different here, that there is excellence
here, that there is children that are being raised up
in excellence that will effect every nation of this
world.
Father we ask that these students would
come to know who they are in Christ, that they are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood in Christ and
that all that they need you have given to them. All
that the faculty needs and the school needs, you have
given to them. You said to focus on you Lord and that
all of our needs would be supplied. Lord, let this be
a school that burns for you, let people feel your very
presence just as they walk by. Father, let the teachers
feel your presence and know that when they touch one
child, that they are touching you, Lord.
Whether they know you or not Father,
you are in them and you have made them in your image.
So, Lord, we ask for transformation, that even tonight
that there would be an igniting of the fire of God and
would start to stir up hope and excitement in the students
that they are world changers, that you are in them,
the creator of the universe. We ask the favor of God
to be released tonight on this place in Jesus name.
Colossians 1:9-18... Lord, we thank
you that you have preeminence in all things. We thank
you that Jesus, the salvation of God, the Savior of
God, the anointed one of God, that you created all things.
Whether they are visible or invisible, thrones or dominions,
principalities or powers, all things were created in
Him and for Him. Jesus, you created education.
You created the system, domain and
the whole dominion of education, knowledge and wisdom,
this you created. It is by you and it is for you. It
is to bring you glory.
You want it Lord. You own it, you possess
it, you died to take it back from captivity and you
rose to give it life. Lord, this is the truth of your
word that we read here and we proclaim it into this
place. We want to speak to this place, that Santa Rosa
Christian School would rise up in it's mission. Would
rise up in it's vision, would come out of whatever captivity,
lethargy or division. Lord whatever slump that it has
found itself, that it would rise up and come into the
preeminence in you that education ought to have in it's
community.
This is you Lord and we know this to
be what you desire and what you gave your life for,
what you live to intercede for, even now and we speak
it into this place. Lord, that you would do a fresh
and renewed work, such a new thing in education through
S.R.C.S. and through the staff that is here. May they
have authority and power in this community as daughter's
and son's of the most high God as joint heirs with you
Jesus Christ. Come Lord into this community.
Take hold of the education in Santa
Rosa. Use these servants here who want to do your will
and follow after you. Network them with other domains
Lord, with government, commerce, medicine, science and
arts. Network them Lord, that you might have preeminence
in this society and take this culture and bring forth
the glory of the Father.
Lord, it is in this day that your doing
this work. We see it around the globe. Do it here we
ask. Do it in this city and use this place as one of
the representatives in education. Hallelujah, we trust
you for it, we believe you for it. We wait in hope upon
you for it Lord.
(Harry Skandera)
I am going to ask that you would go
back to your seats and we are going to be praying again
here in just a moment in a little different manner.
I wanted to testimony to the work of the Lord in this
place. In the past year, I know that this is the only
school in Sonoma County where in one of our chapel services,
one of our faculty members received prayer and was healed
from cancer.
I know that this is the only school
in Sonoma County where two of the faculty members were
released to go with a group of pastors to the nation
of Israel, not only as a representative of their church,
but of S.R.C.S., because we believe that what is happening
in Israel is something that is significant for all of
us. I know that this is the only school in Sonoma County
where a member of the faculty is commissioned by the
board and it is part of their job description, participates
and is present at every Pastors Prayer Fellowship and
Ministry Alliance, that happens throughout the whole
year.
I know that this is the only school
in Sonoma County that purposefully sends a mission group
of kids and faculty along with other members of the
body of Christ in Sonoma County, to go to a foreign
nation for the purpose of building relationship with
a public school in another nation and brings back kids
on scholarship to S.R.C.S. to be drawn closer to Christ.
We will be going again in June. We
have two students here this year from Latvia and we
will go again and do like a summer camp thing and take
some of our students as well as other young people from
around the county, other churches. There are many things
that as yet are not really that visible to our community
at large, but we believe that our God, our invisible
God is at work in this place to let us be a part of
transforming this community.
We also know that we have an unseen
enemy. In the last 10 days, we have had to paint out
2 pentagrams that were painted at either end of our
campus. One at the north end and one at the south end.
There is a lot of graffiti in this town and many of
us have participated in painting it out, but I have
got to say that I have never come across any other location
in town where there was a random selection at either
end of your boundaries to put pentagrams. We have blotted
those out and prayed over them and so forth, but really
my point in that is that we serve an invisible God.
We also have an invisible enemy that
is very aware of what is happening here and, because
of that I would like to ask if you would pray and bind
together with us tonight. I don't want to be distracted
by the enemy or give him too much attention, but I would
ask for your prayers of protection and boldness in the
face of opposition.
I am going to ask Dr. Sowers to come
as head of our school. I am going to ask Lawrence Lehr
to come up as president of our board. I am going to
ask Jan to come as a representative of the elementary
faculty. I am going to as Ronnie Smith to come as a
representative of the secondary faculty. I am going
to ask Stephanie Coldwell, who is a graduating senior
and is our chapel worship leader.
If you would all come up and have a
seat here. I am going to ask that everybody else would
circle around and just pray out loud, however the Lord
puts in on your heart to pray and you just go ahead
and pray it out loud, you do not have to take turns.
You are all representing the body of
Christ as you pray for us here tonight. We also had
a speaker come and speak to us recently from another
little Christian school in the bay area, and it was
really encouraging. He said that one of things that
was so important for his faculty there was to write
down the vision of what the believed the Lord wanted
them to do. He said it took the four years to write
it down, but once they had it down, we couldn't put
the buildings in fast enough. I remember when he said
that, I thought, well, that hasn't been the case here,
since we had ours written down 2 years ago and we are
still here, but I am aware of God's hand in moving in
His timing.
One of the things that we would ask
for your prayers here tonight is that we have realized
that the location and building that we have here now
does not have what it takes for us to fulfill the vision
that we have.
Our board is still in the process of
looking for a place here in this area that is large
enough to contain the vision. Before we close tonight
and have a closing song, I would like if we could just
go ahead and pray for God's hand in the finding of the
geographical location for this school where we will
be able to live out the vision that we believe that
He has given to us. Some of you just go ahead and pray
out and then we will have the closing song.
The next city reach prayer will be
February 3rd, at Hope Chapel West. We hope to see you
there and invite someone new.
Special Thanks to Christelle Eddy
who transcribed this document.
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