A Call to Prayer

When I look back at the Big Things that God has done in my own life, my friend’s lives and the history of the Church I see a pattern. It has been bathed in prayer.

I was reminded of this recently. Many of you know that I went on a three day prayer summit at Point Loma Nazarene University. I can’t say that I loved every second of my time there, but it was a great time overall for many reasons. The first was that our denomination would even call pastors to pray, is pretty amazing, second was that pastors showed up and third was that I went. Jason Reiswig happened to be in San Diego and have some free time so he joined me on the first full day of Prayer. The leader was quoting from Jesus’ teaching on faith and prayer out of Matthew 17. “…For I truly tell you if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” Then the leader said does anyone have a mountain that they need moved, if so then come forward sit in this chair and we will pray for your situation. I was the first in the crowd of a hundred or so folks to jump out of my seat and sit in the chair.

The leader asked me what my mountain was. I went on to explain about our house in Kansas. When Julie and I were called to be Pastor at GGCC we owned our home in Kansas. It is a beautiful old home that we had started to fix up. We placed it on the market in July 2007. Like many other folks, we found out that we were in the beginnings of a housing crisis. We had people who wanted to purchase our home, but they could not get loans. If you remember, last fall was when the housing credit dried up and it did. We took the house off the market in November and had cleaned it up and placed it back on the market this past spring. We had a couple of people who wanted to buy it but were having difficulty selling their home in order to buy our home. Again this is common throughout the US and every time I heard a news story on the housing crisis I was reminded of our monthly payment on an empty house in Kansas.

So when the leader asked if I had a mountain, I thought of my mountain of a house not selling and asked for prayer ( I also said, “I know  many of you are from Kansas City and might know someone who needs a house so if you or someone you know needs a house see me after the session.”) They gathered around me and prayed. A couple of folks came up to me and got the info on the house and said they would pass it along to their people back in Kansas City.

I walked outside during the break and saw that I had some emails from friends back in Kansas. It turns out that through a series of events the New Young Life Area Director was looking for a house they could live in this week. They were trying to buy a house and it fell through and needed a house to move into right away. So these friends were wondering if we could rent it to them. I called this family. They have three small children under the age of five and they were moving from Indiana to do Young Life in Bonner Springs. We came to an agreement and they moved in a week later with a one year lease.

The cool thing is that I know many of you have had our “Kansas House” in your sights since we arrived.  I know that this has been a matter of prayer for more than this one prayer session. The cool thing was and is God’s timing. That it would occur so close to this time of intense prayer, that it would occur right after I would publicly confess to my peers that I needed their prayers and God’s help. Lesson learned.

I am asking that you would spend the next two months in prayer for the future of GGCC.  I want us to pray for the City of San Francisco, for a vision for our future together, for the body of believers and for the leadership of the church.

I am asking that you set aside fifteen minutes four times a day to pray with all of us. The leadership is meeting in October to seek the Lord for our future and what He would have us do.

If you want a copy of this fixed hour prayer here it is.

P.S. Some of you heard me mention Drew (Julie's friend Jill's nephew) who was hit by and IED in Iraq. He is doing much better, here is a link to his families blog: Drew.

Thanks for praying for him

Peace

Edwin