The more we pray at Experience Life, the more we realize the necessity of prayer. As we look at the New Testament and at church history we realize the quote by A.T. Pierson is so true. Revival or Spiritual Awakening can not come except when it is proceeded by prayer. In Acts we see the early church consistently in prayer. The reason signs and wonders happened, the reason the gospel was preached with boldness, the reason the church exploded was that this early church knew the importance of prevailing prayer.
We opened Monday night prayer with thanksgiving. Each week when we announce how many people have committed their lives to Christ the previous week we are celebrating how God has answered our prayers.
We prayed for a sister church in our city Trinity Church and asked Gods blessing upon a prayer time that they are having on Sunday nights as well as encouragement for their senior pastor Carl Toti and his family.
I told the story of a grandfather and grand daughter who were a reality cop show on t.v. When a criminal came out of a house with his hands raised, the grand daughter said look grandpa he is worshiping. The little girl recognized the man was in a posture of submission, I give up, I recognize you are the authority here. This is how we wanted to enter into a time of worship tonight, surrendering and recognizing Gods as our authority.
We sang four songs finishing with "A beautiful exchange" and "the stand". After worship Gary Galanos shared a couple of stories from the Hebrides revival that began in 1949.
Then we invited people to come up and pray for revival. Young and old came up and called out to God to come. Come in power upon us. It is powerful to see them come and pray. I have found that quickly after we pray corporately like this, something begins to happen. I am excited and look in anticipation at what God is going to do with these prayers.
We prayed for people who sensed a call to be a person who helps pray in this next movement of God in West Texas. We also prayed for people whose finances were jacked up. We prayed for those who were dealing with depression.
We are praying that God will show himself great in our day and in our time. We are praying for revival in West Texas.
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Elements that worked tonight:
Sharing a story of revival (Hebrides revival in 1949) and then inviting people to the mics to pray.
Having two men at both mics to adjust height of mic or to let anyone who went too long know.
Memorable moments & phrases:
Over 100 people stood as we asked for those who sense a call to be part of helping usher in revival through prayer to stand.
There has never been a revival or spiritual awakening throughout history that has happened without people who prayed.
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