(Singing “This is the Day” and “Glory, Glory Hallelujah Since I Laid My Burdens Down”)
(Sam Tillery)
Well, I want to welcome you on behalf of the Pastor’s Prayer and Ministry Alliance to City Reach Prayer. I am Sam Tillery and I pastor the Foothills Community Church and also serve on the Servant Leaders Team with the Pastor’s Alliance. My partner, Harry Skandera is out of town, so I will be kind of solo leading tonight.
What this is, is the gathering of the Body of Christ to pray together in alignment with the heart of God that we would be one in prayer, serving, and worship so that the world may believe. We have been doing this the first Friday of every month in various churches throughout the County of Sonoma for the past 8 years. It’s not a matter of how many come out, it’s that we faithfully come together from our different and diverse backrounds to seek the Lord together. As we do that, we begin to feel a different aspect of God’s heart. We hear others pray in different ways and it begins to expand our perspective and enrich how we come before the Lord as well, and then it begins to bring about a oneness and unity. I have said it over and over again; but that scripture where it talks how where two or three agree, that God hears and answers…If you trace the word “agree” back to its roots and look it up in the Greek, it is where we get the English word, "Symphony”. Sometimes we think it means that we have to agree exactly about everything that is said or on this or that, but that’s not it. When we come together in symphony…remember that a symphony isn’t made up of one instrument, two, three or four, but it is made up of many instruments that when they are playing the same song, they are playing different notes and they blend together and create this incredible sound and expression that draws people.
When we come together as the diverse Body of Christ, we come together in agreement, in symphony. We each bring a little different flavor, sound and tone and, blended together before the presence of God, it is a beautiful sound. It blesses God’s heart. That is not possible in our individual denominations. Now, what makes us one is Jesus Christ. He is the One who makes us one, so in Christ we come together and pray. I set the context, because as we come together, we want to mix up. You may be here with some people that you know and we want to encourage you to get with someone who you don’t know when we pray.
This is a prayer meeting and we are petitioning the Lord together in symphony, and to get that symphony…one church may be the horn section, another church may be the violin, etc… If all you hear is one type of instrument, after a while it gets a little stale. Alone, that instrument is powerful by itself, but when it blends into the entire orchestra, in the symphony of God in a region, great things of God begin to happen and oneness can be seen and experienced.
We are going to talk about and pray about some of those different areas for prayer tonight, but first, if you have your Bible, please open up to this passage that we are going to use as a guideline for our prayer tonight. In a symphony, what makes it work is there is one individual who is called the conductor, and the conductor has chosen a song which everyone agrees they are going to play, right? So, when we pray in symphony, we want the Spirit of God to be the Conductor and simply all that I am going to do tonight is to facilitate the theme or sense of direction and focus of which now your unique sound, impression and distinct passion in your heart can express itself as we pray together as a large group.
Then, later on, we will divide into some smaller groups of 2, 3, or 4 and pray specifically, so there will be a whole lot of prayer happening, that we would see transformation happen in our community and address issues/strongholds that can only be torn down in the unity of the Body of Christ. It is in the unity of the Body of Christ that strongholds are torn down in ways that cannot be as we come as individuals. That is not to say that our individual prayer is not important, but it takes on a different tone.
City Reach Prayer is divided up into two different parts. The first part is that we begin to focus together and we pray about the issues within our city. We are not going to pray for the world, we are going to pray for Santa Rosa. When City Reach goes into Sonoma, Petaluma or wherever it might be, then we focus in on that city. But there are some unique challenges that we face in Santa Rosa and who is going to pray about those things, especially in symphony? That is what we are going to do tonight.
The second half of City Reach Prayer, we focus in on the host ministry, which tonight would be Community Baptist Church. We are going to hear from its leadership what its passion, vision and some of its challenges are, and then the rest of us who are here representing other parts of the Body of Christ will come together in symphony to agree that God would bless, provide, breakdown and do His work right here at Community Baptist. That blesses the heart of God when we begin to care about the success and the purpose that God has for each individual local congregation. That is what City Reach has been about for the past 8 years now and we have seen phenomenal things unfold and a richness begin to be birthed within our community.
If you have your Bibles, turn with me to 1 Peter Chapter 1, beginning with verse 3. If you don’t have your Bible, listen carefully, because this is going to be your outline for prayer tonight. We are going to do things in small sections. We are going to hear a passage and then launch into prayer about that, so you are going to want to refrain from going off and praying about your dishwasher, because it is about homing in on what the passage of scripture is having us pray.
I may help steer you in the right direction, so don’t take offense. It is like when the conductor says to the musician that they may be a little off so that they can get lined up with where the song is going and what it is sounding like. So 1 Peter 1:3 reads,
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”.
Now, think about that for a moment. One, we want to take a few moments to praise God in prayer. Praise is not praise when we think it, it is when we speak it, so we want to speak praise to God, but notice what for…
In His great mercy He has given us a new birth…
There is a transformation that has happened, there is a newness that has come in us. Wouldn’t you say that perhaps the church needs some awakening to that reality? So, that might be a thrust in your prayer.
Into a living hope…
Interesting! A living hope. God wants us as His church. We are going to focus on praise to God first, but realize that the problem in our world is not the world, but we, the church, are the problem. The Bible says that the harvest is ripe, but that the laborers are few and we are the laborers! What we just read is that He gave us new birth into a living hope. What we need to be praying about is that He would quicken and make alive His church; this church and the life-giving churches here in Sonoma County, but right here we are looking at Santa Rosa, that the living hope would be manifested.
We are going to stay in a larger group, so just short prayers that are to the point as we share the air time and we are going to pray this for our city and the Body of Christ here.
(Prayer, Praise and thanks to God)
Lord, would you help us now as we come before You. We give You praise that You have given us new birth. Lord, stir in us what You would have us give praise to you and released right here in this place tonight.
( Sam Tillery)
The scripture goes on to say in 1 Peter 1:12-13
Therefore, prepare your minds for action. Be self controlled, set your mind fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed; as obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance, but just as He called you to be holy as He is holy, so be holy in all that you do. For it is written,’Be holy as I am holy.' "
One of the areas in which we at the Pastor’s Alliance have been praying into as we meet every Wednesday for prayer, has been around this theme that we would walk in holiness, but realizing that there is idolatry in Sonoma County. There is idolatry in churches. Idolatry that leads to a mindset of looking to other things than to looking to God. We realized that we were guilty in many different ways, but that we were blinded to the things that were hindering the move of God and the presence of God, so we are in the midst of this process in which we are saying, “God, reveal to us those things which are hindering your move in our midst, in our churches and lives. Begin with us, that we would be holy.”
Now the word 'holy' means to be sanctified, that is to be set apart as different, and somehow we see in Christianity a blending of things to where it begins to look just like the world. Would you agree? That is not a good thing and so we need wisdom for God to reveal to us and bring Holy Spirit conviction, which brings about repentance.
Now, you remember about what happened in the book of Corinthians where, in his first letter, Paul writes and it is kind of a correctional book. Every chapter is correcting the things that have gone amiss and awry. He begins to write them and to say, “Hey, let’s get this right”, and he goes on with that. Then he writes the second letter and about midway in that letter, he talks about the fact that he is sorry that he made them sorry. He was sorry that he had to correct them and make them sad and sorrowful, yet at the same time I am not sorry, because it brought about Godly repentance that brought about a change. Sometimes it takes others or the spirit of God or circumstances to bring us face to face with specific things that are hindering our testimony of being set apart and different. We slowly erode away from those fundamentals of the faith.
It’s not about living the Christian life in the do’s and the don’ts, it’s about being holy. People will see the difference, because God is living in us. I would like us to take a few moments and I would like you to break up into groups of 3 or 4 and try to be with some people who you don’t know or have not prayed with before.
(Prayer)
(Sam Tillery)
There are things that have been changing in this county, because people like you have been praying. One of the exciting things that I have witnessed since being involved in this prayer movement for the past 12 years or so, is that we have been meeting together consistently with a number of pastors. This praying together has moved us to a caring for the city in various avenues where we would labor together with Spring Clean and City Kids Festival and joining together with many churches to begin to express the love of Christ to the community and that’s been wonderful.
We’ve recognized that the relationship among Christian leaders has increased, because we’ve prayed together and have begun to labor together, and those relationships are growing deeper.
Recently, just a number of weeks ago, the first time that I am aware of in the history in this county, pastors have begun to come together weekly to study the Bible. Lee Turner and I have the privilege of being a part of that group. There are about 10 pastors who are coming together and we believe that more will continue to come; but we are doing a manuscript study on the book of Ephesians.
As we are going chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and just walking through it reading it over and over again, we are hearing God together. One of the things that God showed to me, I am going to show to you, because it just really popped out. I have been a pastor for over 30 years and we are always learning and growing, but I just didn’t see this in the same way and there are things that I am learning as I hear others in the faith of different evangelical denominations who are looking at the scriptures. It’s all of a sudden like, wow what you just said really makes sense. A light bulb goes on when a symphony of study happens. We just started a few Wednesday mornings at 7am. The first hour we study the Bible and then at 8am we pray together. That is a miracle when you have pastors who supposedly “know it all”, meeting together and submitting to one another to see what the scripture says. That is a miracle!
I want you to look at this one portion of scripture right before Paul walks us into his first prayer in chapter 1 of Ephesians; verse 15 he says this,
“For this reason, I since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the Saints, have never stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”
That kind of fits. He is praying for people that he hears about their faith. Something was alive that he heard in other places about the faith of the Body of Christ in the region of Ephesus. Basically, Ephesians was written to Asia minor, that whole region which represents a lot larger of a space than just one little city. As we see here, Paul writes,
“For this reason, since I heard about your faith…
Wouldn’t that be something that we could pray about? “God, may the people of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County hear of our faith that moves mountains. They are hearing of miracles, of signs and of wonders. They are hearing of the love”. The unbelieving world will know that we are His disciples by our what? Our love for one another! How are they going to hear of our love for one another? We are going to have to get out of our little fortresses and intermingle with one another, and they will behold that we are holy, different, because we are working together. We are diverse and different and others will begin to see that.
As Paul had stated that he had heard about their love for all the saints. Now, what the community seems to hear and think is that we love those of like kind and of certain denominations, and so we mix with those of our like kind and have our exact thinking and style of worship, but there is something about when we come together, they hear of our faith and our love for one another. How are they going to hear about our love for one another if we stay within our comfort zone? That’s why things like Spring Clean and City Kids Festival and a myriad of other things are vital, because it displays our love for one another. When you have some 30 to 40 churches working together as with City Kids Festival, they say, “What’s up with this?” Then we say, “Oh, it’s about Jesus Christ.” Does that honor the Lord?
We have to pray for God’s protection of these things, so let’s take a moment in this large group and pray. When Paul said that he never stopped giving thanks for them, how does that apply to us? If I met you once, interacted with you and prayed for you, but I don’t interact with you again, do you think that I am going to forget about you? It’s like out of sight, out of mind. So, when Paul said that he never stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, there has got to be an ongoing interaction of faith and love.
The Bible says that the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. What is fervent prayer? Well, if my child is sick, I fervently pray for my child, because there is a relationship there. We are not going to pray for one another unless we engage in things like City Reach Prayer and we start to intermingle and pray with one another and all of sudden when we see one another in the street, it’s like, “Hey brother, hey sister!” There is a relationship that has been formed and that is a blessing.
Tonight we want to pray out from those two verses, verses 15 and 16, so let’s go ahead and do that and pray that this would become more of a reality here in Santa Rosa.
(Prayer)
Prayer for the tent meetings put on with the Four Square churches, Light House and Hope Chapel this weekend.
(Sam Tillery)
Now, look with me at Matthew chapter 5. I know that it is a familiar passage, so be sure that you don’t check out just because you have heard it before. Sometimes we think that we understand a passage of scripture, because we have heard it before, but that doesn’t mean that we get it and I want us to get this.
Matthew 5 verse 14,
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl, instead they put it on it’s stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
As we have seen this happen in our own city and county in endeavoring to do things together, the community has begun to see the light of Christ and praise our Father in heaven. This really has happened in that, this happened through Spring Clean which is the uniting of the churches to bless the city by picking up garbage. Some might say that this is seemingly not spiritual and souls are being directly saved, or such and such, but it is kingdom work. We are the stewards of this land and we are to model stewardship of the land, so we have been doing that.
In the unity of the Body of Christ, it was about 2 years ago that the Mayor of Santa Rosa came to me and Adam Peacock as we represent the pastors alliance. There was a concern for the rising gang problem, more than what the public is aware of. They began to do research and look at how other cities are dealing with the issue of gangs and they found that a number of cities where finding a great deal of success in dealing with crime, violence and the gangs through Christ-centered programs. So, they did some further research and found a ministry in Fresno called, “Hope Now for Youth” and it is a program that provides jobs and speaks about Jesus.
A team from the city, non-believers, saw the results, came back here and, because of the relationship of our posturing ourselves as united churches to serve the city, the Mayor came to us and said, “We can’t do this, because we are government and this has religion, but we have found that Jesus works. We know that the faith-based programs are making more of a difference throughout this country than any other program when dealing with violence and gangs. You guys have done nothing but bless the city (she named a number of things) and have been in relationship by serving the city in this way.”
You see, when we let our light shine, they will glorify our Father. The fact the Mayor comes to us is glorifying the Father by saying, “Could you oversee and bring to Santa Rosa a faith-based program to deal with the gang problem?” Have any of us dealt with gangs? No, we don’t know much about it and typically the local church isn’t geared that way, but what was our answer? Sure!
To make a long story short, we now have presented a new ministry called “Hope Works” and it is about jobs and Jesus. You will be the first public gathering to have seen this video that was just finished, highlighting Hope Works and what God is doing. This is significant, because this is a program that as we have put ourselves on a hill, not to glorify ourselves, but unite together in Christ, we are able to do things together that we are never able to do alone. I asked that same Mayor, Jane Bender 5 years ago, who said to me, “Sam, we have had bad things happen to us by working with individual churches.
They tried to shove Jesus down our throat, but we will work with the united churches (she knows that we are united in Jesus Christ), because politically it doesn’t tie us to one church or to one denomination, but to the unity of the body.” Do you see this? The fact that we are united in Jesus Christ, so I want you to watch this video and we need to pray for Hope Works. This video is about 5 minutes long and as you're watching it, think about how you are going to be praying into this, because as this gets going and we don’t pray God’s protection and direction, we are in big trouble as well, but these are meeting real needs on the streets of our community.
(VIEWING OF HOPE WORKS VIDEO)
(Sam Tillery)
That’s what happens when the Body of Christ comes together. That’s happening right now. Right now 15 gang members have been brought from out of gangs, have jobs and are hearing about Christ. There are another 15 on a waiting list being worked with.
One of the challenges is that, what we are endeavoring to do is to hook these people up with a job. That means that the Body of Christ steps forward and people that are employers might take the risk, yet use it as a ministry to provide an opportunity to develop and train these men to be productive citizens and be a catalyst to them coming into a relationship with Christ. So, as they are provided a job, whether they know Christ or not, are being discipled and loved on. This man that you just saw on the video doesn’t know Christ, but everyday Eric is praying with him, sharing with him about the difference that Christ makes in his life. What do you think is going to happen to him? He is being transformed and that is what happens when the church comes alive together.
So, I want us to continue to pray about Hope Works as it is one of many things that God is using when the Body of Christ works together to make a difference. The devil doesn’t want this to happen and we need to pray into it. Like Adam said, “We can't arrest our way out of the problem.” Hope Works is only one aspect. We need programs with children and the parents of children are learning how to parent so that they never get to that point of being in a gang, so for us to do this, we have got to be laboring together with the different giftings in the diverse Body of Christ together to consistently meet these needs. One local church cannot sustain ministry to the degree of problems that we are facing in our community.
When the city came to us, the Mayor was pleased to inform us that measure “O” money gave the Alliance $100,000 to start this program. Here you have taxpayer money given to a faith-based group to do something about the problem. That’s amazing! Do you know why? Because the scripture teaches us in Matthew that they will behold that we are His disciples…And when we let our light shine in different venues, that makes a difference to build a bridge in relationship that allows the truth to be shared that the church and the Bible does have answers. Practical, fundamental answers to the problems in our community. Most of the needs in our community are not being met inside of the church building. To me, I see that this is a rallying point for us to then go into the highways and bi-ways and compel them by our love to come into the kingdom of God and we’ve loved them whether they come to Jesus or not. When we do that, the atmosphere changes, because we pray, we care and then it opens the door for us to share.
Let us take a moment to pray that God would help Hope Works and that employers would step up and hire these who are waiting. Pray that the finances will continue to come for the program, because $100,000 can run out quickly. Pray for the board of directors and those employees who are working directly with these youth.
(Prayer)
(Sam Tillery)
Pastor Coffee, if you could give us some prayer points, things that we can pray into for you here at Community Baptist Church that would be great and then as he is sharing with us, we want to listen and grab a hold of something that is really a passion in you for this ministry. Then, we will divide into smaller groups and pray for this ministry and blessing for Community Baptist Church.
One of the things that I would like to say quickly, is that City Reach Prayer meets the first Friday of every month, like I said for 8 years. The location changes every month, so you go to the website to find out where. What we want to see and are encouraging is that churches would send delegates, so if it is Community Baptist or whoever it might be, that there would be delegates that would come and represent their congregation and pray into what is happening that evening. Then, they could go back to their congregation and report what they have heard and let them know of the exciting and alive ways that God is working throughout their community and city.
You may be here and your pastor isn’t even aware of City Reach Prayer, so you might want to talk to him about that.
We are moving toward changing the name of our website to have an umbrella name of the unity movement, and so it will be called, “Together in Christ Sonoma County”, that speaks of what we are about. Together in Christ Sonoma County, Santa Rosa and such. It has been pastors prayer and ministry alliance, and that is still in existence. There also is a growing HINGE group which is a Christian leadership alliance and we are all trying to find how to provide leadership in all of these venues. You will be hearing more about Together in Christ, so you can type in togetherinchrist.net and it will take you to our website and you can then click on City Reach Prayer and it will tell you the location of the next one. Or, you can type in unitedprayer.org, that’s been a tag that we have used. We are in the process of re-working that, so be patient with us. We are trying to make it much more user friendly and kind of a simple hub of all that is happening within the Body of Christ in the community. A lot is happening.
Rev. Coffee, would you share with us prayer points of how we can be praying for you here at Community Baptist Church.
(Rev. James Coffee)
Thank you. I just appreciate being able to work with all the other churches and to pray. First, I want to praise God. This Sunday, we will be able to burn the mortgage on all of our properties that we have been blessed with. This building here, the learning center and the houses, plus two other churches over in the South Park area that we provide for and a community garden. That has been a real blessing. God has blessed us here to be able to be here and we started out 20 years ago.
I just want to praise God for our on-going ministries here and I would like to pray for them too. You were talking about gangs and preventive programs, we would rather build a fence at the top of the mountain than a hospital at the foot of the cliff. We have a ministry that I would like to pray into called, “The rights of passage”, where we take kids ages 14 to 18 and they get 6 months training and many of them wind up going to college and doing great things of faith.
Then, we have a Village Project for young children. We have a Saturday Academy for youth and all of these are preventive to keep them from getting into gangs or other things that might otherwise draw them in.
I really need prayer for my own personal life and health. I need prayer that God would help me fill the ministries that God has placed on my heart right here within our church. As a matter of fact, I’ve got 300 of them that I would love to see filled, but some that I would like to see filled right away. I have a medical ministry on my heart. Also, we’ve got a lot of men at our church and I want to get our men strong in the kind of thing that we are doing here tonight. I also would love to pray for our women’s ministry, we have one here, but I want to see them involved in more ministry, actively working together.
Pray for our church that we would continue to do outreach. We are dealing with racism and hatred. “Hate Stops Here”, the race equality program that we just started here this last Sunday at Finley Park, that is something that we want to pray about and keep it going. Also, the work with The Redwood Gospel Mission and St. Anthony’s Farm and rest homes.
We need to be surrounded, so please pray. Is there anything that I have left out? Go ahead and speak up.
Don’t forget our Bible studies. Getting the youth to have a good foundation is what I would like prayer for as well. I see Sunday School as being very important, because that is where the most Bible understanding happens.
Pray for all of the ministers in this congregation.
(Sam Tillery)
What would you say are some of the main challenges that you face here that are specific to your congregation?
(Rev. James Coffee)
We have a lot of youth here, but satan has really challenged them and I want to see them committed.
(Sam Tillery)
Go ahead and pray into any obstacles that you see that are specific to the destiny of this church and pray for them within your small groups.
(PRAYER)
(Sam Tillery)
One last thing that we would like prayer for tonight is that there are 4 of us who will be gone this week to Kansas City for the Mission America annual meeting. The Mission America is the largest Christian coalition in North America. We happen to be in Santa Rosa which is one of the 9 pilot cities in North America for City Transformation, because a lot of what God is doing (of course, there is a lot more to happen and we have nowhere near arrived or anything…), but they have asked us to come and share and I will be representing us to speak about how us as a community of churches care for Santa Rosa.
In the Mission America movement in which we are a part of and we carry these three words that kind of give us direction and that is Praying, Caring and Sharing. We pray for the community, we care for the community together so that we can be postured to share the gospel. They have asked me to speak about the caring component, so for example what you just saw in the Hope Works video, I will be sharing about that.
We have several other videos that we have produced. We have a Christian television production team of Christians full-time and so that is another part working together. We have other videos that we have produced to communicate what God is doing, letting the light shine in such a way for His glory. We will be sharing these components. Monty Fortcamp, a Christian businessman from our community will be going with me and Harry Skandera will be going representing Santa Rosa Christian School and Ed Buornacouski, who is a product of prayer, caring and sharing. He is one of the city administrators and some of you know this, but last May, through Spring Clean and interacting with him as a city administrator, the early part of May this last year right down town, I had the privilege of leading him to Jesus Christ. He then traveled with us to Israel in May and was baptized in the Jordan river. He will be joining us.
Leaders from around the country are coming together, seeking to unite in Christ and see their cities brought into a relationship with God and the Kingdom come in their cities. Before Ed seeing us work as a united Body of Christ, he had no concern for nor saw a place for the church, but he was compelled to listen as he saw the church loving one another. He beheld our loving one another and our community with no strings attached. We demonstrated the love of Christ which allowed for the sharing of the exact gospel of Jesus Christ and he said yes to Jesus. He is a living testimony.
Remember Jesus’ prayer is that we would be one so that the world may believe.
Please pray for the team of us who are going. Pray that people wouldn’t be enthralled with what we are doing, but that they would get the heart of God and own it for themselves, their congregations and their cities. I want to speak in such a way that God’s heart is caught.
We need to also especially be in prayer for Rev. Coffee and his wife and all that they have been doing and are doing here. They have poured out so much and Rev. Coffee has been and is a father to so many.
(PRAYER)
(Sam Tillery)
Thank you Pastor Coffee for hosting us here tonight and for all that you are doing.
(Rev. Coffee)
You are always welcome here any Friday night that you want to. Lord Bless you.
Special Thanks to Christelle Eddy
who transcribed this document. |
