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(Sam Tillery)
Thank you so much for coming. As we are here amongst the various offices of those who represent our city in various different ways, we want to take time first of all to acknowledge who God is as the Supreme and begin with prayer.
(Prayer)
(Harry Skandera)
I have a particular scripture for tonight, Proverbs 20 verse 4. “A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.”
Sometimes we have been interested as Christians in a harvest where we can come and preach or teach something and then, BOOM, everything changes. There may have been a time in America when that was so, but that is not this season. I want you to kind of get in the mode tonight, because we are not sluggards. We are sewing a seed that will be harvested in due time.
This is a season of what many people are calling the Apostolic. However you struggle with that word apostle or apostolic, know that you can do something apostolically and you're not an apostle. We have people who prophecy all the time, but they are not a prophet, but they minister in prophesy at given times. That’s what I want you to consider what we are doing here tonight. Why? We are doing something apostolic, because we are doing something that is foundational in time. Apostles lay a foundation.
We are not talking about planting a church. We are not talking about trying to lay a ground work here so that we can preach the gospel in these city counsel chambers, that is not our intent. One of the reasons we are here particularly tonight is to speak and to declare some things that need to be declared about our city.
In the early 90’s we had a Christian mayor. One time, when he was in his counsel chamber, he suggested that they open meetings with prayer. There were some people in the audience who made an outcry and basically the Christian mayor was shouted down and the headliner in the Press Democrat the next day was, “Santa Rosa, the city that would not pray.”
Those of us who read that, it was like a knife going through our hearts, because what it screamed out was that we were not interested in talking with our creator. What a grief to our creator, to our Father, that we would reject Him in such a way as a city. Well, be it as they may, many resolved and said, “No, we are going to be a city that prays.”
You are here today, because many before us said no, we will be a city that calls out to the Lord. We will be a city that calls out to the Lord, we will be a city that hears our Fathers voice.
So, we are here tonight to pray and to see that Santa Rosa will be a city that speaks and proclaims what is in heaven on earth. Santa Rosa will be a city that hears the heart of God and lives it out. We are not trying to squeeze everyone into our churches, we are trying to go and be people that carry the heart and message of Christ for the people and that will naturally bring them to Him. There are a lot of people in this world that do not know Jesus, but their conscience works within them, because they were made by the creator and they are hopeless, they are frustrated and a lot of other things.
Just this last Wednesday at Pastors Prayer Fellowship, we released, blessed and commissioned a group of young people who were here in town proclaiming the goodness of God in our city's square. Wednesday night market that is exactly what they did. Part of what is happening in this season and part of what we are proclaiming is that we planting the seeds of God’s visitation.
What we want to do is proclaim in this place where that message went out over 14 years ago about us being a city that wouldn’t pray, the exact opposite and speak into the heart of our city which is to pray and go beyond into blessing as well. These men and women who sit in these chairs behind me, they have a calling. We have a calling and we want to pray for them.
(Prayer)
Father, we thank you for this evening, for this opportunity and for gathering the specific people that you would have brought here for tonight. Lord, I speak the release of what is in your heart in heaven about this city, how you want to speak and community to and into and through this place we call home.
(Harry)
Let’s all take some time to speak the things of heaven into our city and that we would be a city of no compromise, righteousness, and a city set apart for His glory. We would have God’s wisdom, peace and counsel. Even the name of our city comes from the act of confessing you, Saint Rose in her baptism. This would be a city that prays.
The leaders of this city would have a refuge as well and that they would be blessed in serving in this city as well. Justice and righteousness in this place. That those citizens that come here to have a voice would know and sense that they are being heard and served by those in leadership hear and that it would be a God honoring partnership.
(Prayer time declaring God’s heart for this city)
( Sam Tillery)
As we pray for these counsel members, understand that many of them are volunteers and that they are to represent what the community wants and needs and they do not know what the community wants or needs unless the community tells them. We have a responsibility to show up to these hearings and represent.
These are all different people, coming from different perspectives in life, yet working for a common goal. Ironically today, we believe that this building will be attacked by some vandalism, so you see a security guard wondering around, ironically we are here at the same time, so there is a reason why we are put in the place that we are and for the time that we are.
(Comment)
Let’s begin to get people out to speak up instead of complaining about decisions being made. We can be a voice and represent, especially as people to support, encourage and inform these leaders to give Godly direction. As a citizen, you could even come and for your 3 minutes of allotted representation, you could pray, you could encourage and thank those counsel members who are there and you could voice the Godly opinion about whatever topic is being weighed.
As we go into prayer, keep in mind the scripture passage that states that the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. What that points back to is that we are the problem, the church. We are to be active and to bring the kingdom perspective. We are not going to experience or come forth a harvest of a more peaceful, less violent atmosphere, cleaner, more fulfilling unless God’s laborers show up, step in and take responsibility.
We are going to take some time and let you respond to the Lord in prayer.
(Prayer)
(Sam Tillery)
We are now going to have 2-3 of you stand behind each one of these counsel members chairs and whichever one you are behind is going to be the one for which you will be praying specifically for.
(Harry Skandera)
We want to enter into prayer for one more thing before we leave this portion of the evening and it is in regards to the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts, formerly called the Luther Burbank Center. It used to be a church and it has gone through many changes and there is a bigger story there.
The people in the arts center want to move, because they can’t make it there. It wasn’t a big enough venue, and so again, for many of us we are thinking that that is good and it will come back to where it should be, but we need the arts in this community, because God wants to speak life through the arts.
One of the plans is that this building would be moved to a 5 story thing across the street and this would be leveled out and become a huge art center where they could bring in broadway plays, etc., etc…We want to see the art that is in God’s heart would be displayed here. Again, you remember the scripture that we started out with about the sluggard not plowing in season, you see, this is going to take years. This could be ten years for this to be planted, for the arts to be in the center of the city.
We have been doing prayer walks for many years and I remember one of the things that we had prayed about is the city was divided by 101 and now the changes that are being made to return this to a city square and how that is in regards to what we had prayed into that is just now beginning to take place.
The plowing in prayer and the seeds that had been planted, now is moving into reality as the city is responding and there is becoming to be more cohesiveness in the city. So, as we pray into the arts, that the arts would come alive to the purposes of God and blessing and the expression of His heart for the city. I say this to encourage you about things that we have sewn into prayer in the past are becoming reality. What we are doing here is quite signifigant.
(Prayer)
Father, we proclaim that you are King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You are the Word of God and that all things came to being by you and that nothing came into being apart from you. That all domains and dominions are created by you, all powers and principalities are created by you. We think of you tonight, Jeshua, Jesus, our Savior, our lifted and resurrected King, creator of all things. That you brought forth the Mayor, You brought forth the counsel, You brought forth Vice-Mayor, You brought forth the city Attorney, You have brought forth every office of every domain and every dominion. You bring forth the arts and the expression of creativity and by You all things are created, and so we say, “Hear, oh Santa Rosa, the Lord our God is One, even Jesus the Lord is one, Amen.”
(Sam Tillery)
We are going to swiftly walk one block over to Ed’s office complex.
Ed is the general services administrator of Santa Rosa and he can explain what that entails and what happens in this complex under his command.
(Ed Buonaccorsi)
First of all, I command nothing, but I am here as a servant. This building is under lease to us and we are renting. The city of Santa Rosa has grown larger than it was in the 1960’s when the city hall was built. It was proposed in 2003 that there might be a performing arts center where we are at now and as a centralized center for resources in the downtown area, there are a lot of reasons for it.
One of the reasons is that politically it is a wise move, another reason is that they find if you have government in the center of the city, the city will thrive. If you pull it out the city will dive in a sense, so there is a lot of stronger reasons for this decision and how it would profit us and the city.
In this building currently we take care of all of the purchasing for the city of Santa Rosa, from utilities to the various other categories and we have an excellent staff. We also take care of the maintenance for most of the facilities in the city and the building, planning and architecture.
Right now we are in the middle of being involved with the fire stations and there was a bid that just went out today for a fire-station to go out in the south-west area for about 2 million dollars. The city of Santa Rosa has extreme creativity. Measure O has brought in additional revenue so that for the first time a fire station was open in the south-west area. The south-west area has really expanded, unfortunately the resources that you might enjoy in your community or your area, are not shared in the south-west area.
That money has purchased a concrete building/warehouse, and because of creativity within the city, we have turned it into a fire-station. The same building is now being expanded to be a permanent fire station and would have up to three bays, so there is a lot of creativity going on in this city and it is not just in the government, but it’s the partnerships and I am very fortunate to be a part of that.
This is the only city that I know that has two homeless shelters. Homeless shelters are usually a county functioning operation, but we had extreme passionate counsel members who, because of their leadership and years of being dedicated toward that, it finally happened and that took up to 15 years for the whole process to open up the first one and the other one opened up about a year and half after that.
That is a incredible story in itself, because of the creativity and the power that is in this community that I don’t think everyone realized with all of the stuff that is happening here. We are a light for a lot of the other communities.
Sam Jones Hall, it is a homeless shelter and a community center. It opened from an existing building that was abandoned by the Federal government as an army reserve building. It was on the market, the city purchased it. We have 9 acres that are preserved for tiger salamanders and all of this stuff is happening, unfortunately, the homeless shelter is going, the preservation is going really well, the community not utilizing it.
It is in an area that is not attractive for whatever reason. The city of Santa Rosa has tried different things, but nothing has caught on. Ironically the city also leases a lot of it’s buildings to churches, for example the Finley Community Center, so maybe churches can use it and the community can benefit from that, because it is highly under utilized.
So, with the creativity a lot of great things are happening that you won’t read about and I am just a part of that and am one of those people that helps get certain things done. The directions from the city counsel. We have Jeff who is an incredible city manager and it is mainly his leadership and I am just a part of that.
(Sam Tillery)
As we pray, Ed what would be some of your dreams that you would like to see? I know that you grew up in this area. I know that you have been a huge catalyst in bringing together the city in unity with the body of Christ in more than just what we hear about Spring Clean, so before we pray, I am going to have Harry share what he has to tie into this.
(Harry Skandera)
One of the things that we have talked about when we come together is earned virtue. Not so that we can pat ourselves on the back, but because when we are obedient to something that we know the Lord has asked us to do and to be, He is able to pour things to and through us, because we have done what He said.
For many years we have been praying that we would be many congregations, one church in our city and our county. We have begun to do things together and No, we are not fully unified, but at this point we have to go with what we have and keep being one as much as we can.
Things like Spring Clean. The thing that caught me as we go into that, I want to read a scripture from John 17, Sam quotes it all the time, but I want you to allow that to resonate in you, because you are praying out of the unity of the body of Christ for the unity of the city.
Ed doesn’t know it, or maybe he does, but he has a gift of faith and the Lord allows him to speak some things that are of faith. I heard something that he said on the DVD about the city and county having the faith to work together, because by golly, if the churches in the city can do it, they could do it. What he was saying right there was a picture of God’s heart.
Sometimes as Christians we tend to look at people who do not believe and pray, “Lord, will you change them”, well God has a hold of us. We are the ones in his hands that can be changed if we will let Him. If we will let Him change us, he will release through us that which will changes the world.
So as we pray tonight out of our unity, again, you’re here tonight from several different churches and more than one city in this county and you’ve come together intentionally to pray for this city that it would be one. So, after I read this scripture, let’s pray about these things that we can pray into in unity.
(Reading of John 17:20-23)
We all know that we haven’t become one because we all can sign the same doctrinal statement, but that our unity comes from our mutual confession and the allowing of the Lord to change our hearts or us responding as sons and daughters to our Father in heaven, that’s what the world needs. To the degree that we’ll allow Him to transform us, He will be glorified.
So, Ed do you have any specific dreams that we can pray into with you or other ways that we can pray?
(Ed Buonaccorsi)
From my stand point I think that I would like to see wisdom for all of us so that we know what our strengths are and for us to have our weakness over powered by our strength. I would like to pray for wisdom and action on all of our parts and that we would pray whatever is in us. Whatever that passion is that we follow.
(Sam Tillery)
The word that comes to me is “release” as he gives leadership to the staff here, so in your prayers, just finish that, “Lord, release….for Ed.” So, we are going to pray very specifically from the top down for Ed. We want to pray for Ed that he would have courage and be equipped and blessed with all that God would have for him specifically.
Special Thanks to Christelle Eddy
who transcribed this document. |
