Prayer Network Newsletter - April 2011

Scripture for April – “And He . . . wondered that there was no intercessor.” Isaiah 59:16

Quotation for April – “One of the subtlest burdens God ever puts on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning other souls.” Oswald Chambers

Director’s Message: Answering the call to intercede involves more than a willingness to spend time in prayer. It requires the humble heart of a true worshipper. Oswald Chambers makes this clear in a series of three remarkable devotionals (March 30-April 1) in My Utmost for His Highest. Allow me to share a few of his most pungent sentences on this subject:

“Worship and intercession must go together, the one is impossible without the other. Intercession means that we rouse ourselves up to get the mind of Christ about the one for whom we pray. Too often instead of worshipping God, we construct statements as to how prayer works. Are we worshipping or are we in dispute with God—‘I don't see how You are going to do it.’ This is a sure sign that we are not worshipping. When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God's throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people. Are we so worshipping God that we rouse ourselves up to lay hold on Him so that we may be brought into contact with His mind about the ones for whom we pray?”

Brother Chambers forcibly highlights the selflessness required for true intercession. We must pray from a spirit of discernment rather than a spirit of direction—agreeing with God’s plan for others instead of telling God how to fix them. In the process, we will find that the Lord will draw both the object of intercession AND THE INTERCESSOR closer to Himself.

Daily Prayer Emphases for April:

MONDAY – Pray for new IPHC churches to be birthed and for like-minded unaffiliated churches to seek fellowship with the IPHC.

TUESDAY – Pray that the Lord to prepare the hearts of the students and workers who have divine appointments scheduled at youth camp this summer.

WEDNESDAY – Pray for your new Regional Pastor as he works to bring pastors and churches together in a fellowship of mutual support and ministry outreach.

THURSDAY – Pray for those in your church who work with children to plant “Gospel seed” in both word and deed.

FRIDAY – Pray for the Lord to guide and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials as they lead us forward in Kingdom Expansion.

SATURDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 112th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

SUNDAY – Pray that your pastor and the other leaders in your local church will “weary not in well doing” but by the grace of God grow stronger as the battle grows hotter.

Prayer Network Newsletter - February 2011

Director’s Message for February: This afternoon, as our church leaders are gathered in Falcon, North Carolina to celebrate the centennial of the merger of the Pentecostal Holiness and Fire-Baptized Holiness Churches, the original covenant of membership will be renewed. I am presenting this covenant below and am asking that you join me this month in praying that our generation will live up to this covenant and disciple the next generation to continue all that is biblical and godly in our heritage. In Christ, Dan Woods

We, having been called out of the world by the blessed Spirit of God, and having become acquainted with the articles of faith and polity of The Pentecostal Holiness Church, and believing it to be of God, and having given our names and thereby become members of the same, do solemnly, but cheerfully, and with joy and gladness enter into this Covenant: We will watch over one another with brotherly love and kindness, not that we may have whereof to accuse our brother but that we may with meekness correct each other's faults. We will abstain from frivolous conversations, such as foolish talking and jesting, and from backbiting and tattling or taking up a reproach against any one, especially our brother. We will heed the injunction of the apostle, who exhorts us to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We will bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. We will also heed the exhortation of the apostle recorded in 1 Thes. 5:12: "And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly (disorderly), comfort the feeble minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men; see that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men." And we will recompense to no man evil for evil, but provide things honest in the sight of all men, and if it be possible, as much as lieth in us, we will live peaceably with all men (Rom. 12:17). And we will be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us (Eph. 4:32). As opportunity affords we will be engaged In works of mercy; such as visiting the sick, and imprisoned, and the distressed, and to all who may need and will accept our ministrations. We will have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness (Eph. 5:11), but keep ourselves by the grace of God (1 Peter 1:5), unspotted from the world (James 1:27). All this will we do, God being our Helper.

Daily Prayer Emphases for February:

MONDAY – Pray for the IPHC to remain true to all that is biblical in its heritage.

TUESDAY – Pray for the unemployed & underemployed in your community; pray for new jobs with good benefits to come to your town; pray for giving to be increased in our churches.

WEDNESDAY – Pray for an agonizing awareness of sin to overshadow our communities—especially on the young adults and teens.

THURSDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 112th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

FRIDAY – Pray for the deliverance from all manner of addiction in your community; pray for children all around your church who live in danger because of their parents’ lifestyles.

SATURDAY – Pray for each local church to have lively & impactful Children’s and Youth Ministries.

SUNDAY – Pray for the Lord to lead and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials as they lead us in “Kingdom Expansion” during 2011.

Prayer Network Newsletter - January 2011

Scripture for January: “What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?” Isaiah 5:4 

Quotation for January: “[A] large percentage of “millennials”—people born between 1980 and 2000—don’t consider religion important in their lives. A new book, The Millennials: Connecting to America’s Largest Generation, says only 13 percent of people in this age category consider any form of spirituality to be meaningful. . . . This must become a ministry priority for America’s churches.” Lee Grady 

Director’s Message: In America there are now more “millennials” than “baby boomers” (those born between 1945 and 1965). But do you have more “millennials” than “baby boomers” in your church? If you do, your church is bucking the trend. We have to go back over two hundred years to find a generation less influenced by church and biblical principles than the “millennials.” For the vast majority of them we have become irrelevant. Perhaps this is why only 15% of 18 to 25 year olds are married, and why 93% of unmarried young adults who describe themselves as “in a relationship” also report that they are sexually active. I share this not to discourage us, but rather spark us to action. “Millennials” may be “wild grapes” but they are the harvest field set before us. It is our calling to “thrust in the sickle and reap”—our responsibility to reach out to them with the love and truth of the Gospel. In the coming year, would you join with all of us in praying specifically that the burden for this generation will grow across our conference, and for the Lord to give our pastors and other ministry leaders creative ideas for engaging them? If we are to see “Kingdom Expansion” in 2011, reaching the “millennials” must be at the top of our priorities and in the forefront of our prayers. I believe that the Holy Spirit is poised ready to show us what we can do differently in our vineyards in order to bring in a bountiful harvest of “good grapes.”  

Daily Prayer Emphases for January:

MONDAY – Pray for ideas for reaching and discipling the burgeoning “Millennial Generation.” 

TUESDAY – Pray for the unemployed & underemployed in your community; pray for new jobs with good benefits to come to your town; pray for innovative business ideas to take root where you live. 

WEDNESDAY – Pray for the Lord to lead and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials as they lead us in “Kingdom Expansion” during 2011.  

  

THURSDAY – Pray for each local church to have lively & impactful Women’s and Men’s Ministries. 

FRIDAY – Pray for the drug-addicted and for the victims of domestic abuse in your community; pray for children all around your church who live in danger because of their parents’ lifestyles.

SATURDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 112^th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

SUNDAY – Pray for an agonizing awareness of sin to overshadow our communities—especially on the young adults and teens. 

Prayer Network Newsletter - December 2010

Scripture for December – But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. I Peter 4:7 NKJV

Quotation for December – If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for.  Charles H. Spurgeon

Director’s Message: One of the most precious intercessors at our church, Sister Lula Thompson, likes to pray that we would all be found "RAPTURE READY." Peter told us to pray always with the Lord’s imminent return in mind. When that Day takes place, only those who know Jesus as their Savior & Lord will be found ready. For the rest, it will be—as Bishop Leon Stewart once put it—Too Late. We need to live—and we need to pray—in the long shadow of the Second Coming. This is what Peter means by being “serious and watchful” in our prayers. The compound word in Greek that is rendered here as “serious” can also be translated “sober minded” or “right thinking,” but its most literal meaning (based on the root words it brings together) is “salvation-minded.” In the quote above, Charles Spurgeon shows us what it means to be serious—to be salvation-minded. 

The thought occurred to me yesterday, the first Sunday of Advent, that we would do well in the weeks ahead to be less focused on wrapping & more focused on the Rapture. How easily we can let the pressures of family & church holiday expectations sap our time & energy. But the baby we are celebrating came to die. He came destroy the works of the devil. He came to restore to sinners to right relationship with His Father God. He came to save souls from Hell. With great intentionality, we must keep our prayers “serious and watchful” during the Advent Season. Jesus came once. This we celebrate at Christmas. But He also is coming again. And this we must be ready for. Let us pray that everyone with whom we celebrate Christmas this year will be found RAPTURE READY when Jesus comes back again. 

Daily Prayer Emphasis for December:

MONDAY – Pray for the Lord to guide and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials and our local pastors as they lead us forward in Kingdom Expansion. May we be a “Spirit-fed” & “Spirit-led” people.      

TUESDAY – Pray for Biblical values to be respected by our national, state, and local politicians—and pray that each of them will know Jesus as Savior & Lord.  

    

WEDNESDAY – Pray that our “Sunday Morning Only” folks will develop a desire to attend mid-week Bible studies, prayer meetings, and discipleship classes.   

THURSDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 111th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

FRIDAY –  Pray for new IPHC churches to be birthed and for like-minded unaffiliated churches to seek fellowship with the IPHC.  

SATURDAY – Pray that this Christmas season will be a time of great conviction, repentance, salvation, & deliverance.  

SUNDAY – Pray that our people will be more unified & utilized in the work of the Gospel.  

November 2010 - Prayer Network Newsletter

Director’s Message: If we are not careful, our prayer time can be so overwhelmed with crises—broken marriages, broken homes, broken bodies, broken ministries, broken churches—that we spend all our prayer energy on these emergencies. Sometimes I feel that my “secret place” has become a “spiritual ER” and my prayer life is in perpetual “Code Blue.” To counter this, I try to follow Paul’s example of “preventative praying”—asking the Lord to mature and establish believers before any crises develop. Here are some examples of what I like to call his “wellness prayers.” I find great encouragement in praying them over my church, family & friends.  

Philippians 1:9-11 – And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Ephesians 1:15-19 – Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power. 

Ephesians 3:14-19 – For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

   

Daily Prayer Emphases for November:

MONDAY – Pray that our single adults will not fall into sexual impurity—and if they have, that conviction will so overshadow them that they repent and change their ways.     

TUESDAY – Pray for Biblical values to be respected by our national, state, and local politicians. 

    

WEDNESDAY – Pray for the Lord to lead and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials as they lead us forward in Kingdom Expansion.

THURSDAY – Pray for the adult children & grandchildren of our pastors & ministry leaders who are far from God. 

FRIDAY –  Pray for new IPHC churches to be birthed and for like-minded unaffiliated churches to seek fellowship with the IPHC.  

SATURDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 111th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

SUNDAY – Pray that sinners will be saved & believers discipled in our churches today.  

Prayer Network Newsletter - October 2010

Scripture for October: “Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the LORD, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.” Hosea 10:12b (New King James Translation)

Quotation for October: “Many of us have no heart-sickness for the former glory of the Church because we have never known what true revival is. We stagnate in the status quo and sleep easy at night while our generation moves swiftly to the eternal night of hell. Shame, shame on us!” 

Leonard Ravenhill (Why Revival Tarries) 

Director’s Message: Like breaking fallow ground, praying for revival is hard work. But a “heart-sickness” over sin—over the souls all around us headed straight to hell & over the church’s fading compassion for the lost—will keep our hands on the plow of intercessory prayer. It will shake us out of our complacency and our self-centered tendency to strive primarily for our own creature comforts. It will get us out of bed at odd hours & drive us to our knees. It will cause tears to course down our cheeks at seemingly the slightest provocation. Such heart-sickness over sin will cause us cause us to hunger for the soul-winning power that our churches knew in past generations. I close by asking you to consider these hard-hitting questions posed by Leonard Ravenhill: “Do the Pentecostals look back with shame as they remember when they dwelt across the theological tracks, but with the glory of the Lord in their midst? When they had a normal church life, which meant nights of prayers, followed by signs and wonders, and diverse miracles, and genuine gifts of the Holy Ghost? When they were not clock watchers, and their meetings lasted for hours, saturated with holy power? Have we no tears for these memories, or shame that our children know nothing of such power?” 

   

Daily Prayer Emphasis for October:

MONDAY – Pray for the Lord to lead and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials as they lead us forward in Kingdom Expansion.   

TUESDAY – Pray for a move of God among the foreign-born residents of your community. Pray that Christians will befriend them & show them the love of Jesus. 

    

WEDNESDAY – Pray for a revival of repentance—sparked by an agonizing awareness of sin—in our churches and in our communities.

THURSDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 111^th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

FRIDAY –  Pray for new IPHC churches to be birthed and for like-minded unaffiliated churches to seek fellowship with the IPHC.  

SATURDAY – Pray for more of our churches to become passionate about supporting our missionaries with their prayers and their finances. 

SUNDAY – Pray that our pastors will preach with an increasing unction and that increasing numbers will be saved, sanctified, & filled with the Holy Spirit in our services. 

September 2010 - Prayer Network Newsletter

Scripture for September: Then He [Jesus] came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Mark 14:37-38 (New King James Translation)

Quotation for September: “It has been said that the church advances upon her knees, . . .” Noel Brooks 

Director’s Message: I once heard Adrian Rogers say the following after quoting Mark 14:38: “Frankly speaking, we often do not pray as we should because we’re lazy.” I don’t know about you, but sometimes my spirit is more willing than my flesh when it comes time to dig in and pray. 

Noel Brooks, in his wonderful little book titled A Biblical Basis for Missions, explains as cogently as anyone I have ever read why the church must overcome this weakness of the flesh if we are to be mighty in the Spirit. I will turn the remainder of my column over to Brother Brooks:

“Almost every chapter in the Book of Acts has a reference to prayer. It has been said that the church advances upon her knees, and the Book of Acts certainly demonstrates this. The early church received the Holy Spirit through prayer. It received divine direction through prayer. It overcame opposition through prayer. In other words, it really did advance upon its knees. It’s an absolute must. A prayerless church will perish. A prayerless mission will surely fail. Prayerless people, prayerless missionaries, prayerless pastors, prayerless leaders, rather than helping to build the church, are helping to kill the church. This is a vital spiritual principle.”  

   

Daily Prayer Emphases for September:

MONDAY – Pray for new IPHC churches to be birthed and for like-minded unaffiliated churches to seek fellowship with the IPHC.     

TUESDAY – Pray for the victims of domestic abuse in your community; pray for children all around your church who live in danger because of their parents’ lifestyles.

    

WEDNESDAY – Pray for the Lord to lead and empower our Cornerstone Conference officials as they chart our course for the next four years.  

THURSDAY – Pray for every local church to have a spiritual & productive Men’s Ministry, as well as lively & impactful Women’s Ministry. 

FRIDAY – Pray for the unemployed & underemployed in your community; pray for new jobs with good benefits to come to your town; pray for creative business ideas to take root where you live. 

SATURDAY – Pray that President Obama and the members of the 111^th Congress will prove to be friends of Israel and friends of the innocent.

SUNDAY – Pray for a revival of repentance—sparked by an agonizing awareness of sin—in our churches and in our communities.