pray act speak
This morning I was having coffee with a friend when the conversation turned to those outside- the-church friends God has given us that we are praying for. I wasn’t surprised – it feels like that’s been part of most of my conversations this week.
It began Monday morning. Bryan and I were scratching our beards staring at the stack of prayer cards you all turned in. A tall stack! Tuesday’s conversations touched on our prayer too. In my own prayer, two of the friends I’m praying for are my workout partners, and as I’ve seen them this week I feel such a greater sense of intentionality as I see and pray for them.
As we noted on Sunday, Paul was in a cultural context not unlike our own: religiously pluralistic, radically skeptical, and tolerant of most any belief so long as it didn’t demand a change on anyone’s part. How does one share God’s grace in such a context? Pray, act, and speak, Paul says.
Prayer. The bulk of the work of witness does not happen when we speak to people about God, but when we speak to God about people. Salvation is primarily about God’s work of drawing people to himself, and the most significant thing we can do is pray.
What about you friends? I’m very confident that God is drawing us collectively into a season of intentional prayer for our friends who are far from him. I want to invite you to lean into this – God has placed people in your life for you to pray, act, and speak God’s grace to their hearts. We want to be part of the joy of what God is doing, and we want to utilize the window of opportunity a new worship space and time affords us as well. First and most importantly, this means being people who devoted to prayer.
Switching gears: this Sunday is our last one in our current building, and it is also our annual family meeting (which happens partly during worship, and concludes after for those who don’t want to stay for the whole thing). It’s going to be a great night. The following Sunday (Feb 5) we will be worshiping in the new building and breaking bread together (email deannefunk@gmail.com to sign up to bring something). Amazing!
Lord bless you friends, and we’ll look forward to being with you this weekend –
Tim
Mt633