May 3 2002 City Reach Prayer
I want to thank you
for coming tonight for out City Reach prayer time and it’s a real joy for us to be able to host it. For you who are visiting, my name is Dave Parsons and I’m the pastor here at Bethel Baptist and I’ve been to other City Reach prayer meetings and we’re just excited to be able to have the Church of Sonoma County come together tonight to worship the Lord.
I’d like to open up as our worship team is going to come up and lead us in a couple of songs to get started, but Psalm 95 says, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song for the Lord is a great God, the great King above all gods.” I don’t know about you, but yesterday there were a lot of prayer meetings going on and I think I made most of them. But tonight is going to be kind of an overflow of that as we just continue to seek our Lord and worship Him. Will you bow with me in prayer? “Lord, what a joy it is to be able to gather together once again, to seek the great King who is King above all gods. And Lord we pray that you will just come and fill this place tonight. We welcome you Lord.
We invite you to come and fill your church tonight with Your presence and with Your power as we seek You. In Your name we pray, amen” We’re going to begin by exalting God through Scripture and song. If you are familiar with the music, feel free to sing along, but if you’re not, you don’t have to, you can just listen.
I’m going to begin out of Nehemiah chapter 9 – “You are the Lord. You alone. You have made heaven the heaven of heavens with all their hosts; the earth and all that is on it. The seas and all that is in them and you preserve all of them, and the hosts of heaven worships You crying Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts. The earth is full of His glory.” Song - ‘LORD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH’ Lord of all creation, of water, earth and sky. The heavens are Your tabernacle; Glory to the Lord on high. God of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy. The universe declares Your majesty. You are holy, holy. Lord of heaven and earth. Lord of heaven and earth. Early in the morning, I will celebrate the light. When I stumble in the darkness I will call Your name by night.
God of wonders beyond our galaxy,
You are holy, holy.
The universe declares Your majesty.
You are holy, holy. Lord of heaven and earth.
Lord of heaven and earth. Hallelujah!
You’re the Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Hallelujah! You’re the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Hallelujah!
You’re the Lord of Heaven and Earth. Lord of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy. Precious Lord reveal Your heart to me.
You are holy, holy.
The universe declares your majesty.
You are holy, holy, holy, holy, Hallelujah!
You’re the Lord of Heaven and Earth Hallelujah!
You’re the Lord of Heaven and Earth Hallelujah!
You’re the Lord of Heaven and Earth Holy, Holy, Holy ………
“Therefore God has highly exalted Him and has bestowed upon Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Song - ’ABOVE ALL’ Above all powers, above all kings, above all nature and all created things. Above all wisdom and all the ways of man. You were here before the world began. Above all kingdoms, above all, above all wonders the world has ever known. Above all wealth and treasures of the earth, there’s no way to measure what You’re worth. Crucified, laid behind a stone. You lived to die, rejected and alone, like a rose trampled on the ground. You took the and part of me above all. Above all powers, above all kings, above all nature and all created things. Above all wisdom and all the ways of man. You were here before the world began. Above all kingdoms, above all, above all wonders the world has ever known. Above all wealth and treasures of the earth. There’s no way to measure what You’re worth. Crucified, laid behind a stone. You lived to die, rejected and alone, like a rose trampled on the ground. Crucified, laid behind a stone. He lived to die, rejected and alone. “Surely He has borne our grief's and carried our sorrows, but we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, but He was wounded for our transgressions, He was wounded for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that made us whole and with His stripes we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”Song - ’WORTHY IS THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN’ Worthy, worthy, is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and honor, all heaven and earth and every tribe and tongue will bow before the King, will bow before the King, we will bow, we will bow to our King. Worthy, worthy, is the Lamb that was slain to receive glory and honor, all heaven and earth and every tribe and tongue will bow before the King, will bow before the King, we will bow, we will bow to our King. We will bow, we will bow to our King. “And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all therein saying, ‘to Him who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and power forever. And the four living creatures said ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshipped.”
On behalf of the Pastor’s Prayer Fellowship, we would like to welcome you here tonight. The first Friday of every month, we gather as the body of Christ to pray, to bow down, to see what God has for us and to humble ourselves and to seek His face and to specifically ask Him to bring about His will upon this earth. What we’re going to do tonight is, we’re going to pray. Typically with our City Reach Prayer, the first half we really focus in on the city, we hear a little bit about some of the history and some of the dynamics so we can be informed and know how to pray into the areas of our city and then the second hour we focus in on the host ministry, so we’ll be hearing from those in leadership here and we will hear what God is doing and their vision and their heart and then we’ll pray as the body of Christ for God’s blessing upon and to meet the specific needs of this ministry. So that’s how it’s kind of going to go.
I’m going to ask Harry to come and share a little bit of history and overview and then we’re going to pray into that area and then I’ll come up and I’ll share a few other things and we’ll pray into those areas. So you’ll get to know one another in just a few moments as we pray together. Just a couple of things, there is a clipboard that is going around. We really want to encourage you to sign that. It kind of helps to continue to keep in contact with everybody.
Those of you who have been to City Reach before know that you receive either post cards or e-mail and we just want to remind you that as we meet each month in different places for City Reach, you all of course are welcome. I see many familiar faces as well as some new ones out tonight so we’re really glad that you’ve come together. Tonight, I don’t know that it’s so historical as what I usually share. I hope that will be okay. But the focus of what we’ve been doing for these last three and a half years as we’ve gone from one congregation or ministry to another as we’ve been invited, we’ve been of course here to Bethel a few times.
So we have one, prayed into the city from the different locations and so forth and also to hear something of the vision of that particular local congregation. And it has had a theme in our going. You know as I was asking the Lord just how we would pray tonight: there’s so many things that we could pray for our city, He led me to a scripture. When we began to worship tonight, I began to cry. Cause for a while I was wondering just what the whole connection was and He had led me over to the creation account. I’m going to use this pocket Bible up here if I could. You remember the creation account, I know you all do. Say yes, amen.
You know there is sometimes as you’re reading through scripture and you’re kind of praying through it and so forth and God will job your memory or give you a picture of something that maybe you’ve been thinking about a lot and all of a sudden you read across a scripture portion and it’s like there’s a match up. It’s like, wait a minute, haven’t I seen this somewhere before just recently? You know when I think of the City of Santa Rosa and its history, and the flavor of this city, one of the things that really strikes me in studying history is how diverse this city is and it’s interesting that at Pastor’s Prayer, one of the main things we’ve begun to talk about and express is what Dave mentioned tonight.
Many congregations: one church. And I don’t think that’s accidental. I think it’s something we’ve seized upon and we’ve heard or it’s resonated for us as we have prayed for the city. I believe that it’s not accidental because I believe it’s the way that this town has always been meant to be and that it’s always been a place that has been a refuge for people. A lot of people have come here for many different reasons. Some as simple as just getting away from the City.
You know people would come up here from San Francisco at the turn of the century. And we were kind of a vacation spot. But it was also a place where there were many revivals out in the Santa Rosa plain and in this county. In the 19th century, most of the denominations had their tent revival meetings here in this area, right around Santa Rosa and the sites of many of those prayer meetings, actually there were some where hundreds if not thousands of people gave their lives to Christ. And so we have a rich history of a diverse number of people, different types of Christians, and receiving something here.
While I was reading through the Creation account, I got over to the fourth day “And God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also and set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good and the evening and the morning were the fourth day. “ What made me laugh and cry at the same time as we walked in and we began that first song, the Universe Declares Your Majesty -- Holy Holy, and it had the picture of the firmament and the stars and I realized that you know sometimes in God’s greater purposes there are those little coincidences that occur in our own life that bear witness to the revelation of God in very simple and personal ways and that was one for me. Because I believe that again, just as the light, God began to divide the day and the night, it reminded me of this city and that there is a real destiny in this place about the way that people of many different backgrounds, if you look at the church, many different denominations, come here, I teach at a school, a Christian school and we have seventy different churches represented at that school. That strikes me as unusual in that it’s uncommon.
The world wants to have peace, but wants to have diversity, but hasn’t figured out how to do that without division. In our history in Santa Rosa, somehow we miss that ourselves. And I notice that up until really the last ten years, the church in Santa Rosa has been characterized by rivalry, division, competitiveness and it’s as we’ve begun to pray together, that we’ve begun to experience a real love for one another and not just, Oh there’s Dave and he’s got a church on one side of town and there’s Sam and he’s got a church over on the other … but a real genuine concern. Not only interpersonally and among the pastors but things like tonight where it’s easy to come together and pray. Those are things that I believe are good things, but I guess what I’m saying to you is that they’re not accidental, they’re providential. And that happens, I believe, to be a characteristic, a part of the spiritual DNA of our community. And while I would like to see us pray into that, it’s because I believe when we align ourselves with the things that God has intended for us to do and to be, you know how that the Bible tells us that He set out good works for us to walk in them, and some days we hit those things and some days we don’t. I believe there are good things of destiny that every community has to fulfill its calling and its purpose on the earth.
And that’s why again we look at the history of Santa Rosa and Sonoma County because we, it helps us to see some of the things that have occurred in the past, both the things were we’ve been successful and the things were we’ve failed. So we’re in a city that’s meant to be diverse but not divided. Many congregations; one church. So one of the things that we want to pray tonight is that each of the churches in this city will continue to fulfill the vision that God has given for them to fulfill. I know that when we divide into groups to pray, there could be many different ways that we would seek to pray into that. But one thing I would like to suggest for you to pray tonight and that we know when another church in the community is in trouble, when they’re going through a split or there’s problems in a church, we hear that or we read it in the paper.
There’s always been a division in this community and there remains one between the Catholics and the Protestants. You know I was raised definitely Protestant, definitely anti-Catholic and it took many years of walking with the Lord before I could receive the thought that there were people that went to the Catholic church that might end up sharing heaven with me. You know we laugh at that, but it’s given me a distinct amount of pain as I read in the paper day after day as our brothers in the Catholic church are getting pummeled. There are obviously some things that, some sin that is being addressed but there are a lot of other people, good brothers and sisters that are bearing that shame and are suffering persecution and slander every day in our town and they are innocent. So when we pray tonight and begin to pray into that part of the vision that one church – many congregations, if the Lord would move upon your heart, I would ask that you would pray for our Catholic brothers and sisters, that God would give them grace in this time and that the light of God as it shines in dark places that it would cleanse and purify. Not just our Catholic brothers but all of us.
We need to begin to more completely identify with one another, to rejoice when each of us rejoices and to weep when we weep. The second thing that has been a distinctive about the idea of the us dividing, you wonder where I was going with that whole Creation thing on the fourth day and all that. He said that He divided the night from the day, something as contrasting as dark and light that would fit into one time frame, but a division was made so that the earth could have its signs and seasons in their place. And I guess what I’m trying to say in all that is that even as God made a world that is so diverse that you have something as contrasting as night and day that they fit together in a way that makes the world a beautiful place and there is a perfect time for each of those realities. And what I’m saying to you is that I believe that Santa Rosa is the kind of place where very diverse things can exist together under the spirit of God. And that is why what we do tonight is so important.
Because without the Lord, we get the division, not the diversity. Without the Lord we are divided and we are not able to experience the richness of diversity without fragmenting. The Bible tells us that Jesus holds all things together and that is why we need Him. The second aspect of diversity is in our racial groups. I believe that there have been many times in the history of Santa Rosa where God has actually brought other peoples here and we rejected them. And they were meant to play a part in our city. You know one of the things that divides our town, between the east and the west, is the freeway. Before the freeway was there, it was the railroad. And when the railroad went through and kind of there was one side of the tracks and the other side of the tracks. Just before the turn of the century, we had a great influx of Italians. And that is in fact when the Catholic church got started in 1892. There wasn’t a Catholic church in this town until then. Once the Catholic church came and the Italians began to move in, we wouldn’t let them live on the good side of town. They had to live on the other side of the tracks and it became like Little Italy. After it took over fifty some years before we elected our first Italian mayor. And it was of note in the paper when that occurred that it was of historical significance.
For a long time Italians were not accepted in regular Santa Rosa society. That’s just one group, I mean we could go through every group in its way. And I guess what I’m saying about that is part of our history in being diverse is being able to receive people that God sends here. And to help them find what it is that why God has sent them here. Maybe they’ll stay, maybe they’ll go to a different place, but our place is to be able to welcome people in a way and to receive them as part of the destiny for this place. The third part of this diversity is in our ability to relate to the different generations. One of the things that we fight in our city is the cult of pleasure. And convenience, part of which wrapped up in that is that there is an ideal time of life that’s youth. And when you get old, well, that’s not so ideal. So then maybe that’s not a good thing and we have places where we put people as they get older. I guess what I would suggest is that part of the diversity that’s meant to be in our community is a joining and a unifying of our generations.
You know a lot of people think of the way the real estate prices have gone around here is a bad thing because it’s hard for people to get started here. And I’ve looked at it that way a lot myself, but I was thinking about that. There are really only three kinds of people that can settle here now. Servants, people that come in to serve the people that have the money. People who are inheriting something from their family because they couldn’t possibly get started as a young couple so they got it as an inheritance. Or people with a tremendous amount of faith. And you know if you think about the characteristics of that, people of inheritance, servants, or people with a tremendous amount of faith, that could be a good thing, a very good thing. And so instead of looking at that as a real bummer, I think actually I could see the purposes of God in all of that. And I believe that we should pray for the real estate prices that God would set ‘em and now then we can trust that the people that come, the people that are discouraged because of real estate prices, maybe they shouldn’t be here anyway. Maybe it’ll take more faith or it’ll take more family or it will take more serving for them to actually be able to be here.
We’re going to turn to prayer and we’re going to divide into small groups and I’d like us to pray into these three things.
1) That God would continue to make us into one church – many congregations. And as you pray that, listen to what the Lord is saying back to you. He may prompt you to pray for a particular church. Maybe the one you go to or one of the churches within the group in which you are praying. He may encourage you to pray for the Catholics who we know are suffering.
2) The second area that we want to pray is to pray for our ethnic groups here. That God would continue to help us be reconciling among the races.
3) Third, that God would help us as we seek to bring generations together and that He’ll use the circumstances of His place to build families and not tear them down.
What I’d like you to do just now is to break up into groups of three to five and preferably if you can find somebody that you don’t know, introduce yourself very quickly and then when you pray in groups, keep in mind that this is the time that we are gathering the body to agree. So, it’s not the time for you to be off in your mind praying about something else – how can you be agreeing when you’re praying somewhere else? So think about what someone else is praying so that you can agree. Keep it short and to the point.
Remember what it is that you are asking God to do, and get to that part instead of explaining about the problems. He already knows that. What are you asking Him? What do you think He would want us to ask Him for? So let’s break into groups right now. We’ll call you out of them in a little while, but pray into these specific areas so we’re all together in different groups, agreeing on these primary areas that Harry has mentioned.
PRAYER TIME
Harry’s passing out a sheet that will be our outline for this next phase of this evening. We will walk through it together and then you’ll pray through it. A number of years ago, more than ten, probably about fourteen years ago, a couple of pastors began to get together and pray for the city. And as a result of their faithfulness, of course it’s grown to the what we have now as the Pastor’s Prayer Fellowship here in Sonoma County. What I’d like to do is walk through some highlights as to what God has brought about because of the faithfulness of the few that have prayed. I want to motivate and encourage us to continue but these areas, as we walk through them, we want you to when you break up into your groups pick an area and thank God for what He’s done.
But we know that as we advance the cause of Christ, the enemy and his crowd is going to do all they can to discourage and break down and cause us to, as Hebrews chapter 2 talks about “those who so easily drift away.” So we need to pray that God will sustain and strengthen and maintain these areas that He has given to us. We’re naïve to somehow think that they’re okay. And so as we look at the work of God in answer to prayer, this is what He’s done of course it’s grown into the past weekly. You’re looking at weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually:
Weekly the Pastor’s Prayer Fellowship, so you want to pray to that and thank God for that and pray for the many pastors. On an average there are 35 to 40 pastors and spiritual leaders who gather together on Wednesday mornings for prayer, to pray for one another in this city.
The Santa Rosa Prayer, I think it’s been changed to Sonoma County, is that right? I wasn’t sure so I kinda gave both there, and these individuals gather on Saturday to pray and this relates to the corporate body of believers and of course there’s lot more prayer going on in individual local churches but this is the elective gathering of the greater body of Christ or representation of the greater body of Christ.
Every Wednesday morning along with the pastors that are praying there is a group of intercessors who are the Wednesday Pastor’s Prayer Fellowship Support Intercessors and they are praying for the pastors and spiritual leaders as they pray. And that’s every Wednesday. And then what has been established by the Intercessors and that relates to something maybe you have or haven’t heard about which is an event coming up called Vertical Call. And what Vertical Call is is the greater body of Christ, the invitation is to Northern California and beyond that in October, 17-26th, ten days, 24 hours a day, that’s 240 hours of prayer, intercession and worship by the body of Christ and so that is an event which is birthed out of two people praying years ago as it began to move and grow through the body of Christ.
You’ll be hearing more about Vertical Call, but we want you to begin praying into that, but one of the things is that now there is the goal of which is 100 plus intercessors between now and the Vertical Call that are praying on a weekly basis very specifically for God to bring the body of Christ together. This is a serious group of folks that God is calling out from the greater body of Christ on a weekly basis. That’s pretty incredible to recognize that there are some 30 to 40 pastors and leaders weekly gathering and these individuals and now the group.
Monthly we have the City Reach Prayer which is this group. Which has been over the past several years traveling to different churches and ministry locations which is an extension of the Pastor’s Prayer Fellowship on Wednesdays, it’s calling the greater body of Christ together. Now it’s not about the masses praying, it’s about the church being faithful to pray. It’s not measured by how many people are here but that every first Friday of every month, it doesn’t fail, you see we had a prayer meeting last night and the thought would typically be, well it’s back to back maybe it’s canceled.No, we don’t cancel. City Reach Prayer is faithful and it’s fervent. It just continues one, whoever’s there, were there, it just continue to come before the Lord and that is birthed out of God’s people praying.
Also on a monthly basis now, between now and the event called Vertical Call, which is not so much an event, but we’ll tag it as that at this point, is ah, once a month, Vertical Call 24-hour prayer meets at Christian Life Church for 24 hours every month in preparation for leading up to the ten days of 24 hour prayer and worship. Quarterly, we have our concerts of prayer and praise, gathering the greater body of Christ to celebrate and rejoice together. Coming up this August the 22nd is a part of the quarterly gathering but we do a in the summer time here, a prayer walk.
Last summer we prayer walked and actually got in vehicles and buses and drove to the four gateways to Santa Rosa which is the edge of the city limits to the north, the south, the east and the west, and we prayed and then went back to a central location and celebrated. In preparations for that. What this is is a testimony of what God has done because of prayer, but that it is also our guideline tonight that God would protect and preserve and carry these works on. And then the Annual Pastor’s Prayer Summit. Beautiful testimonies last night and particularly I was blessed with Larry from Sonoma, he and his wife sharing how in a small struggling church and feeling all alone and yet as the City Reach came into their city and prayed with them and other pastors have come on board and they are encouraged and lifted up – what a blessing. That is a resulted of the united prayer of the body of Christ and now they’ve joined us as we’ve gone to Healdsburg and different places and such so, but Larry was introduced to the Pastor’s Prayer Fellowship at the Annual Prayer Summit.
This year we’re adding the wives and the dates are there for you to pray. Real quickly just let me run through some general statements about what God has done that this county has been shaken up in significant ways because of your prayers, your faithfulness.
The united church ministry support, the church has united and supported one another. We have a united church we didn’t have before in evangelism and there are many things that are taking place where churches are gathering together with evangelistic events reaching more people than one church could ever reach. The united church in discipleship, churches are working together to disciple their members. Our church is now working with another church and of course we’ve got different events and things going on, but as pastors, we’re co-laboring in our areas of strengths to minister to each others’ churches. Instead of one pastor trying to do it all and be it all, we’re dividing that up and sharing that. We’re in two different places, one church that we’re working with is in Sebastopol and my church is in Santa Rosa.
The united church in community service such as the love feast is a wonderful expression of many ministries and congregations working together. There are more people who have come to Christ through this event over the past couple of years than any of our churches collectively, I would say, over 800 in a day’s event because the body of Christ worked together. This is an answer to prayer. Shared ministry vision for the city. Churches are now sharing in their vision to realize that we together can reach the city.
God has not called just one local church to the Great Commission.
Somehow we’ve got the idea that we’re responsible as a local church to fulfill the Great Commission, and yet we act like it with our differences. Well God’s breaking that down in this city because of prayer and because we’re stepping out and involving ourselves. Shared ministry resources. Churches are now sharing their resources of equipment, and personnel and ideas. That is worth volumes not just in dollars but in knowledge as this sharing is taking place because of relationships are being built among spiritual leaders and churches through prayer. Everything else seems to divide us but prayer is bringing us together in Jesus Christ. Does this encourage you. Shared missions support. Churches are working together to share in missions.
I just came back from the country of Latvia where we had three different ministries that shared in financially, and in personnel going to that country to minister to that country and there are many things like that that are beginning to blossom and take place. It’s exciting to see what God is doing. Churches are united in conflict resolution and arbitration. Churches are coming together and when there have been conflicts, their leaders are striving, working, struggling, but endeavoring to reconcile their differences.
And then the police chaplaincy has been birthed out of the prayer of this prayer movement.
The united support of ministries in need as churches have fallen into difficult times or various ministries, the collective body of Christ has come together and financially given resources to meet those needs. Recently there was a fire in Fulton and monies were collected amongst the pastors and churches and met that need.
And then I mentioned before 100 + intercessors. Wow!
(testimony from the audience that could not be heard)
What a blessing. That's seed money of just, I mean, that's spiritual warfare. You know what that is? You know, doing the right thing and caring for the body of Christ that's different than you blesses the heart of God.
So you're in your groups. You've got this as your guide. Go through yours, don't spend a lot of time, ah thank the Lord for and then just pray God's protection and direction and then I want you to just flip, ah okay I'll do that later. On the back there's thanks, but go ahead and start praying into this sheet.
Prayer
I think you can wrap up the prayer in your group and we're going to turn our attention now to this ministry here at Bethel Baptist, and I'm gonna ask that Pastor Dave if you'll come and just give us a quick overview of how you would like for us to pray for this ministry here.
Well it's exciting to be able to be together again tonight and we've got some power point slides up here that, um, I want to go to the second one. I just first of all want to give a big praise because it was August 2000 when we had the City Reach Prayer here and I don't know if some of you were here. I know that Gary was, were you at that one Sam? But anyway we had the City Reach Prayer here and the Lord led us that night to go out to the four corners of our property and I don't even know why we did that but somebody was led to do that. And there was just a group of people at each corner praying and they started that the Lord would use the land and expand the land, the facilities and as a result of that, about the next month we started working on our building project and you can see there's the day that it was signed and we took occupancy about a month ago. But the building sitting right next to our building and that is an answer to prayer right there, so let's just give the Lord a hand for what He's done.
And I want you to know that that is also a testimony of the Pastor's Prayer Fellowship because Harry and Sam and others know that there were a number of occasions where I came to the Pastor's Prayer Fellowship and said you need to pray today, we need to get our permit, you know we're working today and it's raining cats and dogs, and they prayed faithfully through us through many things. So I want to thank the Lord for that.
Just quickly, to share with you some of our needs as a ministry and how you can pray for us.
I wanted to share with you our mission statement as a church.
"We seek to glorify Jesus Christ by making disciples who worship God, pray, obey the Bible and reach out to others in love."
I kind of look at it as four legs of a table. You've got worship, you've prayer, you've got obedience to the Bible and then you've got outreach. Reaching out to others in love which would include missions. And just kind of using that outline, I want to first of all ask you on the worship part, if you would pray for us. Jeff Gillman shared with us the other day that A. W. Tozer said this, "God saves us so we can become worshippers." I like that. God saves us so we can become worshippers and we have a wonderful time of worship here. I really appreciate our worship team's at both services. A need we have though for the last year or so, we've been praying about and looking for somebody to come on staff as a Director of Music and Worship or a Minister of Music and with a lot of other things going on we're just seeking God's wisdom on who that person would be and at the right time, but if you could pray tonight for us in the worship area and that we are really beginning to seek God regarding that because we're having some key lay people who are the organist/pianist in our second service who are going to be moving in August. They're going to Denver. He's retiring and I'm still in denial on that. But we're going to need somebody on staff because I've threatened to sing solos and stuff and they've said please don't do it but I don't have the musical gifts so we need somebody to come along and help me in that.
The prayer part, we devote as a church, we devote the first Monday of each month to prayer and fasting. We devote the first forty days of the new year to prayer and fasting and I'm part of the Pastor's Prayer Fellowship. I'm helping Sam and Carter and some of the others on the Vertical Call and preparing the fasting part of that on the Vertical Call. But I would really like our church to not just do the programming of prayer. I want us to be a church who has a passion for prayer. Who is joining the other churches in Sonoma County in prayer but prayer will be one of our highest priorities and so pray tonight for that, that we would be that kind of church and I think we're moving in that direction.
And then making disciples who obey the Bible, I think with our new Ministries Center, which was up there before, we're now able to do more Sunday School classes. We've added some, we call them core classes on Sunday morning, Bible studies and so we're able now to do more equipping, mentoring and discipling which will help us in that area.
And the last one is the "O" the Outreach, reaching out to others in love and pray for us because each year we have a different emphasis. A couple years ago it was a year of prayer. Last year the year of building. This year it's the year of outreach and we've already done some things. We've sent nineteen people down to Mexicali on a short term missions trip and they came back really excited. At Easter time we went out into our community and gave them a gift, to just let them know the Lord loves them and we're doing things with the other churches like Sam mentioned. We're involved in the love feast. But we want to grow in our outreach. We want to use the ministry center to reach our community. Some of you, some of the churches here may need to use our facilities. A couple of weeks ago the Redwood Gospel Mission used our facility for about eight hours to do their annual leadership training and we want to be a church that reaches out not only to our community but also to the world.
Karen Larson who is here tonight kind of oversees our women's ministry and we're going to be doing something on Saturday, June 8th. It's going to be our women's spiritual advance. They don't call it a retreat, they call it an advance. And what they're going to be doing this year is they are going to be focusing on equipping for outreach. It's a one day Saturday event where they are going to be encouraging and equipping the women for lifestyle evangelism for being more effective in their outreach. And any of you ladies here that would like to come to that advance that day, you're sure invited to come. Just contact our church office. So be praying for that.
Also Pastor Pat is here tonight, our associate pastor, he's in the back back there. He would just like us to pray that the youth in our church and in our community would develop a love for God and His word, be committed to fulfilling the Great Commission, again discipleship and outreach, secure undistracted devotion to Jesus Christ, experience God working in and through their lives and persevere through the hardships they face.
And in a couple of weeks, our elders, moderator, Joseph, he's here and myself will be meeting for a church leadership day of planning, of long term planning, that's a week from Saturday. And we're going to need God's wisdom on that.
So in a moment, if you pray for us, you're going to say, man he said a lot of things, I don't have any idea what we should pray for, so I'm gonna help you here. I'm kind of crystallizing it for you. The verse I shared with you earlier in the evening, I'd like to read to you just one verse from Psalm 95 and it says this,
"Come, let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker."
And I want to just to take that word "bow" and I guess the three things that we could really use prayer for is first of all rejoicing in our new building but there's some things we need to do to finish it. The grounds, the outside of it, also we need a miracle to finish paying for it about 42% of it has been raised and we are thanking God for that. The "O" in "bow" is Outreach. Just pray that this will truly be a year of outreach for us here at Bethel and for our community. And then thirdly the "w" is the Worship. If you'd just pray for our worship needs here and thank God for the worship we've had already and that's pretty much it Sam.
All right remember, "B" stands for the building, "O" outreach, and "W" worship, there you go. I'm going to ask the worship team would you come up here right now? If you'll come on up and just sit along the front here and I'm going to ask us right now, those that are here, if you feel led, let's just come on up and lay hands on this worship team. And as they represent the worship team here just pray as God leads you over these that represent this ministry here.
Prayer time -
Father we would ask that You would release a new freedom within the congregation to join in and express themselves to You and that You would move in such a way that there would be no question that You have entered them. Lord may there be a new and a fresh holiness and joy and excitement within this church body that those who come in that are not a part of your family would be drawn by you and hunger for the worship that they so oh God in this congregation. Father bring forth the lost in such a way even to this worship may they even see and feel your presence and be drawn closer to You. So Father bless this worship team and that which they represent within this church. Anoint them and touch them and release Your blessings through their songs we pray in Christ's most precious name. You all agree with that? Amen!
I'm going to ask that if the leadership, your elders or deacons or pastor staff if you will kind of replace this worship team, replace them and we're still going to stay gathering around here. Let's gather around these leaders and pray God's wisdom and direction in their lives.
Prayer time -
Father we gather around this group of servant leaders and we are asking that You will expand their territory, their sphere of influence, that is Father, their outreach would so move throughout this community that Lord this new building would be filled and that Father, You would give them wisdom as they reach out and that You would give them discernment and insight into the decision that they make. Make them one. One in the way they see their community as You see it, make them one in the purpose for which you have called them. Father quietly and lovingly help them to lay aside their little differences and bring forth the unity that comes when we focus upon You. Bless them Father with the finances needed to pay off this building. You own it all. So as You, Father have provided almost this first half, we ask that You would bring for the rest and that it would not be a burden in any way and that you would provide it in such a miraculous way their faith in you would increase. And the testimony of your provision would build their faith and those of their loved ones and those of this community to see how You care for this body. Answer their prayer. We unite with them tonight and pray your blessing of spiritual growth as they learn to obey you. So Father may obedience be released and the things that would hinder the obedience of the young people to respond to the Word of God, the obedience of those who have known you for years and for the young believers. Father release a fresh move of Your Spirit and bless this congregation. Thank You that they are a part of Your church in this city. And we thank You lord for the blessing they bring to this city, may that become more evident and through it all be glorified through everyone of these leaders and everyone who walks through the doors of this building and Father we continue to set aside this property that belongs to You. Stand around it and protect it and may they hear Your voice and it's in Christ's most precious name we pray. You all agree with that. Amen!
If you'll make your way back to your seats, we'll wrap up here and if the worship team, you wouldn't mind, have one more song. If you'll position yourself.
Before we do this last song, I'd like you to take your sheet and look on the back of it and I would encourage you every day this next week, every day that you would pray God's word right here for yourself, for your family and for this congregation and for your congregation: Ephesians 3:16-19 "Our prayer is this, I pray that from His glorious unlimited resources, He will give you mighty inner strength through His Spirit, so then you take that and you personalize it, Father may that be for this church here, mighty inner strength. Verse 17, and I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in Him, so Father for each of us here tonight, we pray that You would settle down and be at home and comfortable with us. Enable us to trust you even more. And may your roots go deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. Father may we be grounded in a deeper understanding of Your incredible love. And may you have the power to understand as all God's people should, but Father help us to have the power to understand how wide, how long, how high, how deep Your love really is and may we understand in such a way that it changes our lifestyle. That changes how we act and respond to those around us that we work with. Those that we fellowship with and that they would hunger to know the God demonstrates His love through our lives as we love You by loving others. And Father may we as a people experience the love of Christ though it is so great we will never fully understand it. Father may we increase in that understanding and never stop learning and growing in that love. So that we may be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Father this is our prayer and now I would ask Lord that as we go, may we not forget that Your Spirit every day would prompt us to take out this sheet of paper, open our Bibles and we will continue to agree together specifically this scriptural prayer for our own individual lives, for our family, for our churches and Father this I pray so that you would be glorified in Christ's most precious name. You all agree with that? Amen!
Let's sing
Song - 'LORD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH'Lord of all creation, of water, earth and sky. The heavens are Your tabernacle; Glory to the Lord on high. God of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy. The universe declares Your majesty. You are holy, holy. Lord of heaven and earth. Lord of heaven and earth.
Early in the morning, I will celebrate the light. When I stumble in the darkness I will call Your name by night. God of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy. The universe declares Your majesty. You are holy, holy. Lord of heaven and earth. Lord of heaven and earth.
Hallelujah! You're the Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Hallelujah! You're the Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Hallelujah! You're the Lord of Heaven and Earth.Lord of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy. Precious Lord reveal Your heart to me. You are holy, holy. The universe declares your majesty. You are holy, holy, holy, holy,
Hallelujah! You're the Lord of Heaven and Earth
Hallelujah! You're the Lord of Heaven and Earth
Hallelujah! You're the Lord of Heaven and Earth
Holy, Holy, Holy ……… Amen!As you leave, let me remind you of course City Reach the first Friday of each month, it's easy to remember. Next month will be at Santa Rosa Christian School as we pray for not just that school but the Christian education throughout our county. So keep that in mind and put that on your calendar. And if you're wanting to be aware of the various activities and reports of what God is doing, and various things in the prayer movement, check out the Pastor's Prayer Fellowship web site which is United Prayer.org.
And as I close I need to say something to the guy who's running the sound what's your name? Tom? You're doing a great job. I've been in some places you know I get up to speak and the mike's on about two seconds on after I've started. You know how that goes? So he's been right on the money and I appreciate that, that helps things flow nicely and he's paying attention, so I appreciate your ministry back there. That does make a big difference.
Lord bless you, have a great week! I have a few brochures on Vertical Call, if you need them, they're up here.
A Very Special Thanks to Santa Rosa Police Officer David Childress
for transcribing the audio tape for this web site.