Awakened Hearts

This past Monday night I would characterize as a time of awakened hearts.  People are coming to our prayer times with expectant hearts.  You can sense the expectation of God showing up and moving among people.  And we are hearing tons of stories about God changing people and encouraging them in their walk with Him.

I don't know how often I have thought that a Monday night or even some of our weekend services were completely amazing and unsure how they could be topped and then to have this feeling again and again.  Monday night was one of those times.

People connected strongly in worship this past week.  Someone handed me a note and I thought it was appropriate for the service.  The gist of the note said "Tell them not to seek me for what they can get, but to seek to know me.  I desire to be a father and a friend".  We prayed that we would check our motives and be there to know Jesus more.

We prayed for our lifehouse and life transformation group leaders.  We shared how God had saved many the prior weekend and we prayed for the coming weekend.  One of our mission partners (Greg & Michelle McClanahan joined us from Chiapas Mexico.  Greg came up and shared briefly what God was doing in the ministries of Harvest Evangelistic Association.  Greg also shared about how God called him out of his own comfort zones, how he was an ordinary guy that God called to do extraordinary thing for God.  He shared about hearing Gods voice and being obedient to that voice.

We then added on this night an extra 20 - 30 minutes for people to come and call out to God.   I invited people to come up and kneel or to find postures of submittedness to God as we are calling out for revival in our city and our region.  The band came back up and led out with "Fire fall down".  Our prayer teams were on the sides to pray for people during this time.  Many came, of all ages and kneeled or prostrated themselves before God.  There was a powerful sense of His presence.  Many came and were prayed for.  It was hard to leave Monday night.

We broke our record attendance as we had 336 in the service and then probably another 60 - 70 in our children s area.  Numbers aren't what we are looking for, but when more come to pray we get excited because we know that God is faithful and will answer people who are hungry and seeking Him.

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Giving Thanks for:

27 first time commitments to Christ