Experience Life Prayer Blog

Moving for the Moment

2011-09-28T14:15:00.003-05:00

Hi everybody,

I am moving for the moment to a facebook page for corporate prayer. Come check us out at https://www.facebook.com/elifecorporateprayer

What could be better than Monday Night Prayer ?

2011-09-01T11:08:00.001-05:00

The only thing that I can imagine that would be better than the hour of corporate prayer we have on Monday nights is having two nights of corporate prayer. This past Tuesday we started the corporate prayer gathering at our Downtown campus, 1313 13th street, in Lubbock. We had 131 people come out and help us dedicate these new facilities to God.

We have seen the power of corporate prayer at our southwest campus and now we want to implement the very same thing at the downtown campus. In four years we have seen how corporate prayer has brought many people to commit their lives to Christ for the first time. We have seen how people are excited about getting baptized. The 646 we saw baptized the past two weekends could only be explained by God people coming together to pray consistently.

If you live in Lubbock and can't make it to our prayer gathering on Monday nights from 7:15 - 8:15 at the Sportsplex, now you can go downtown and pray at our downtown campus on Tuesday nights from 6:15 - 7:15. Childcare is provided.

The Art of Giving Thanks

2011-08-25T15:06:00.001-05:00

There is some art to helping people express thanksgiving. I am learning more about that. When you have something really exciting to tell people, it is good to build up the anticipation a little before you share. We had the opportunity to share with our people this past week that we had 326 baptisms and 21 salvations the previous week. To help build toward some excitement, we shared some facebook posts from people who had been baptized and some comments put on comment cards in our services to stir peoples hearts. I then had everyone stand up and roll their necks. The thought was to loosen them up a little. I then had them roll their arms. I told them I was concerned about them hurting themselves when they began to cheer about the news I had. I also encourage them not to hurt their neighbors.

Then I had them hold applause until I had told them four sentences. The final sentence had the 326 total baptisms on it. Then I could say "Somebody need to give God praise." People were so excited about he baptisms and salvations that they went into cheering and clapping. The band was ready to take off on a fast song as that happened and we got to spend some great time giving God thanks for the remarkable things He is doing among us.

A Corporate Prayer Gathering

2011-08-04T14:59:00.000-05:00

The corporate prayer gathering is part of our dna at Experience Life. It was the first meeting we had as a church and continues today as a primary weekly meeting.

Famous Prayer Quote

2011-08-04T14:58:00.001-05:00

The discipline of prayer and the discipline of Gods word must work hand in hand. When we give up one we are in danger of losing both. - John Wimber

Highlights from Prayer Recently.

2011-08-02T14:46:00.002-05:00

As I reflect back over the past couple of months, I am reminded that the key element of corporate prayer is communion with God. The whole idea of prayer is about us connecting with God on a personal intimate level. We come into His presence and are involved in a dialogue. He speaks to us and we speak to Him. We make requests to Him according to His will. The very nature of prayer is the communion of a relationship.

Here are some highlights from our corporate prayer gathering recently.

Seeing 100 or more people come up to the mics and give a one sentence of thanksgiving to God. (Seems like this is what church should be)
During worship seeing hundreds of people come forward and write the names of lost people they know on canvases so we can pray that each one would commit their lives to Christ.
Having jr high and high school students come forward and take a stand that they would be willing for God to use them this year in their schools and in their lives. (So cool to see tons of people surrounding about 50 students praying over them.)
Over and over hearing stories of answered prayer in peoples lives. People having "ah hah" and realizing they needed to be saved or being convicted of their selfishness and submitting their hearts more fully to God. We heard how high school students served the homeless and grew in boldness as they prayed for people in parks.
Having a local mission partner, the Dream Center, join us one night and being able to pray for them as they serve our city.
Seeing 732 people fill the Rink the first week in June giving us our largest prayer gathering so far.
Having a communion service at prayer and seeing people get prayed for by our prayer teams as they came up for communion. (Another picture of the body of Christ working as it should)
Seeing the continued results of salvations happening in our weekend services as we pray. (we understand there is a direct correlation between the numbers of salvations and our prayers.)
Seeing people commit their lives to Christ during prayer.

Closet prayer changes lives but corporate prayer changes cities.

Famous Prayer Quote

2011-07-27T08:22:00.001-05:00

Intercession executes the will of the King, ripping into the strongholds of hell with the two-edged sword of God's Word. - Jack Hayford.

Thoughts on Our Prayer Gathering

2011-06-25T15:43:00.000-05:00

I think that Monday Night Prayer for me has not only stepped up into a new level of intimacy between me and the Lord in those corporate times, but it has overtaken my personal prayer life. Every answer to prayer we have seen corporately has awakened my heart to not give up on the thing the things that i have been praying for in my personal life. That persistency has taught me to completely understand that "holy stubbornness" Carl Toti talked about in his sermon. I want to see prayers answered in my life no matter how silly they seem to me letting go of my fear of migraines, seeing my dreams come true, and to the prayers are not so silly to me like seeing my family members saved, even the ones that seem to have the hardest hearts.

I do not know how long some people have been praying for some things to come to pass such as revival or their love ones to come to Christ, but I do know that God is walking among us. He is changing the heart of those willing to listen and seek his face and that excites me. There seems to be alot of attacks and tears being shed, but I think the Lord is using this time to draw us closer to Himself. What the enemy is meaning for bad the Lord is turning and using for good and his Glory. I think as we keep praying and seeking for revival and rain, the Lord is going to become evident and intimate to those willing to see Him. Mathew 6:33 says "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well"

Erin Mullins (Elife prayer teams)

Famous Prayer Quote

2011-06-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

William McKinley, Jr. (1843-1901), 25th President of the United States

Let me repeat the oath administered by the Chief Justice: “I will faithfully administer the oath of the President of the United States…” This is the obligation I have reverently taken before the Lord this day. To keep it will be my single purpose and my prayer. Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers…who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps. From his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1887

Multifaceted Nature of God

2011-06-14T14:35:00.000-05:00

I have watched this month as God has shown up in different ways at different times at our prayer gathering. You begin to realize how multifaceted God is. Two weeks ago there was such an excitement about the gathering. People would clap during a prayer because they were so excited about what was being prayed. You just sensed faith in the place where we gather. The energy of God was in the place as He was empowering and encouraging us.

This past week though was so much more of a peaceful night. We had an acoustic set from our worship team and you could sense peace over the skating rink at the end of prayer. So much so I encouraged our people to take some time and just be still and let Gods peace encourage them. During that time I quoted some verses that came to mind like 1 Peter 5:6 & Matthew 11:29,30. The peaceful nature of God was the encompassing feel of the night.

I am glad God knows what people need and at the right time they need it. Some nights it is empowering, other nights compassion, some nights peace and others joy. I love is how multifaceted God is and how He comes each night with the part of His nature we need most.

The Right Presentation

2011-06-04T16:25:00.001-05:00

I went to a ordination service for a pastor in another denomination the other day. I realized in that place the appropriate attire for me to present myself with was a suit and tie. I rarely ever wear a suit and tie anymore, but it was the the right presentation for that day in that place.

I think there are appropriate ways to present ourselves to God in prayer. Humility is an important way to present ourselves to God when we come to prayer. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says "Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land." and James 4:6b - “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.”⁷ So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come close to God, and God will come close to you. ...¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.

I am convinced that we learn to by humble before God. It is something we can equip people to do. We can't force them to do it, but we can help them understand how to go there. A few of the ways we try and help people practice humility as our Monday night prayer are:

Encouraging people to have postures of prayer.
We encourage people to kneel from time to time.
We let people know that raising their hands in worship is an expression that is welcome at prayer and is also biblical.
Letting people turn their palms up in an expression of "I need you God" is something we do from time to time.
Letting people pray on a mic who will model humility.
Encouraging leaders to model vulnerability if they are leading prayer.
Model authenticity in prayer (being real) and not posturing. This is a value we teach in our prayer training.

24 Hours of Prayer

2011-05-04T09:17:00.001-05:00

This past Easter season we wanted to stretch our faith and pray for 500 first time commitments to Christ. This is over double the numbers of FTC at last years Easter weekend. We knew it was a big prayer goal. An increase in prayer would be needed to meet this challenge God had put in our heart. We doubled our staff prayer times on the week preceding Easter and this year we added 24 hours of prayer during the weekend. We have intercessors praying during each of our services so we decided to have 24 straight hours of intercession.

We did sign ups for our whole church and had about 70 sign up to participate. We scheduled people on hour blocks. We had a handout in our prayer room that people went through as they prayed. So from 12:30 pm on Saturday to 12:30 pm on Sunday people were praying. In the night many would walk through the skating rink (place where we have worship services) and pray or would stay in our prayer room and pray through the agenda. We had live worship at two of those hours.

On Easter week and the following week we had well over 500 first time commitments to Christ. I think 24 hours of prayer will become an important part of our prepartion for key weekends where we target the lost.

Pray with Patience in Trouble

2011-05-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

Romans 12:2 says “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.”

I find all too often I think of trouble as a virus to dealt with and get out of my system immediately. Lately I have recognized that trouble can be a true catalyst for the maturing of my faith. I wonder if trouble is a tension to be wrestled with rather than a problem to be solved. If we recognized that trouble was a part of our existence, a part of our pathway to maturity we might be more apt to take Paul's advice in Romans 12. Be patient in trouble (it is maturing your faith) and keep on praying (not just to get out of trouble but pray to hear God on how you can mature in the midst of trouble.)

Prayer is so much more than looking for God to be our cosmic Santa Claus giving us whatever makes us feel good. Prayer is encountering the God of the universe who wants to mature us into the image of Himself, an image that loves greatly, is rich in mercy, and willing to persevere to a wise end.

Getting People Involved in Prayer Gatherings

2011-04-27T13:24:00.002-05:00

Prayer gatherings are about getting many people involved in prayer and taking their next steps in growing in prayer. Here are a few ways we try and do that at our Monday night prayer gatherings.

1. Prayer Ministry Time
   Having people stand for various needs and all the people around them gather around them to pray. This helps everybody be involved. We usually encourage 1 or 2 of these people to pray out loud for that person. This involves the people praying out loud but also models for those who have never prayed out loud how to do that. We might pray for single moms one night or people dealing with hopelessness or people who are dealing with illness, etc. We often do this toward the end of our prayer time.

2. Open mics.
   We may pray for a particular topic for the night such as revival. We let people come to the mics at will and pray. We do have parameters. People are encouraged to pray sentence and paragraph prayers and not pray chapter prayers. We have some people assigned to mics to lay a hand on the shoulder of anyone who is going too long and straying away from the topic that night. On another night we may have people give thanks to God as we did this past Monday night. We asked people to pray sentence prayers beginning with "God I am thankful for..."

3. Specific people praying.
   We may pray through various topics in a given night. I may say take a moment and pray for people to get saved this coming weekend. We give everyone a few minutes to pray and then someone that has been asked beforehand will pray on a mic to close that topic. If you aren't a large prayer times you can do the same thing with just having those people specified to pray out loud.

4. Prayer Teams
   At the end of our corporate prayer we have teams of people up at the front to pray for anyone who wants to come forward and receive prayer. We have worship music praying in the background for 15 minutes after prayer has dismissed. Our prayer teams have gone through a 1 and 1/2 hour prayer training before they can be on a prayer team.

These are just a few of the ways we try and get people involved in our prayer gatherings. We know that Jesus said his house should be a house of prayer. We are trying to get as many people involved in helping that happen as we can.

Setting an Environment for Prayer

2011-04-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

We have found that a little preparation before the gathering on the environment makes a big difference in the gathering itself. One of the elements we put into play in our weekly prayer gathering is playing worship music 15 -20 minutes before prayer begins. We have found that this little thing begins to move peoples hearts towards a focus on God before we begin the corporate gathering. We have people that will come and just sit during this time and be with God or pray as they wait for the gathering to begin. Another thing we do is turn the lights down as the music begins. This helps the mood of the evening.

Highlights from this past month

2011-04-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

Monday nights at Experience Life continues to be the fuel that drives our engine. In the past weeks we have focused on larger topics God has given us to pray; salvation for our city, revival for West Texas, power for our local and foreign missions partners, and Gods continued guidance and empowering of our own vision. Here are some highlights.

Showed a video of the account of the Asbury seminary revival. People were moved by it. We opened the mics and people openly confessed sin and came up to pray.
Brought out canvases filled with people who we are praying get saved. Used worship time to come up front and pray for names
Prayed for couples going to unreached people groups
Shared a powerful email from a missionary who God delivered from the hands of bandits.
Began praying for an impossible request: 500 saved at Easter.

Some comments from this past month or so:

Phenomenal! ..... I don't know why I even bother wearing makeup!
After the open mics for confession - Monday Night Prayer at eLife tonight was one of the most powerful times we've ever had together!
Amen! To both most powerful and not wearing makeup :) lol
it was my first time i usually go on sat nite but we decided to go tonitw to try itvout i absoulutly loved it i have goose bumps the whole time i felt Gods presents there ....i will b there again on moday nite.
3 people committing their life to Christ on Monday nights the past six weeks.
such a good night at prayer...taste and see the Lord is good

The Focus of Corporate Prayer

2011-03-13T16:57:00.000-05:00

I read an article on prayer by Jonathan Graf recently. He made a point about corporate prayer that I thought was important. His article was on the focus of corporate prayer. Here is what he said.

Most prayer that takes place in church settings is not corporate prayer. It is more often individual prayer in a corporate setting. Let me assure you that individual prayer in a corporate setting is not wrong. It is an important, valid, needed kind of prayer. But it's not corporate prayer. True corporate prayer seeks God's face as one body in one voice about one thing.

How often do you hear people who gather for prayer praying about 1000 different topics. This is valid prayer but not corporate prayer. Corporate prayer is when the group has a focus and is praying together for that focus.

I am convinced God wants the church to pray big focused prayers together. We should pray for salvations, we should pray for revival, we should pray for vision, we should pray for missions. This focus of corporate prayer will bring big results. Many times we are thinking too small as we pray. If we can get Gods heart for our corporate prayer times I think He will lead us into requests that are bigger than we could think of and bigger than we could complete on our own.

Let your corporate prayer times be a time of being one body in one voice about one focus.

Specificity Helps Repentance

2011-02-12T10:49:00.000-06:00

From time to time at our corporate prayer gathering we have times of repentance and confession. We had one of these times recently and it seemed to go well. As i was talking to some of our prayer people they let me know they appreciated the specificity of the repentance time. I read from 1 Corinthians 13 about what love is. I would read a verse at a time: "Love is patient" then I would say "have you been impatient in the past week at any time?", then read "Love is kind" and "Have you been unkind to anyone this past week. People can review the week and think of specific situations when you give them some direction.

Monday Night Prayer

2011-02-10T14:48:00.000-06:00

Here are some highlights of Monday night prayer this past month.

Seeing hundreds write the names of lost friends, family, & hardest hearts in our city on a canvas so that we can continually pray for their salvation.
Hearing hundreds pray out loud for those lost ones.
Hearing Erin and Casey's story about a young relative who died and their remorse at not sharing with him the gospel and their new commitment to be involved in the lives of their families to share the gospel.
In worship singing "In their lives be glorified, in their world be glorified, in their love be glorified" as we prayed for the lost.
Having communion at prayer and inviting all to be prayed for by one of our prayer teams.
Having one of our prayer team ladies lead her first person to Christ while on the prayer team for Monday night.
Hearing of God speaking to various people at prayer.
Watching a clip of a Shelly Hundley video where she shares how she came to Christ. "I was the hardest heart on my campus". "Go after the hardest hearts".
Asking God to give us his understanding and heart to pray for the lost.

Coming up at prayer

Feburary 21st - our first extended prayer time of the year.
February 25th - Prayer training for intercessors, prayer teams, & anyone who wants to know more about prayer.

Focus and Guidance in Prayer

2011-01-28T06:42:00.000-06:00

Recently I was reading the story of a young black man growing up in the south. He lived in times of great racial prejudice which could have dramatically destroyed his life. This young man surrendered his life to Christ. He sensed God was giving him a life verse of Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." He was trained as a scientist. One day in the lab he asked God "What was the universe made for ?" He sensed an impression in his heart, "That's too much for your little mind. Ask for something more your size." He then asked "Tell me what man was made for ?" Again he sensed, "little man you are still asking for too much." So then he asked "Tell me why the peanut was made ?".

This man who could have been overwhelmed by the life situations of the times ended up inventing 300 uses for the peanut. This young Christians name was George Washington Carver and he invented a little food product called peanut butter.

God not only uses prayer to help us do impossible things in this life. God uses prayer to guide us to where he wants us to influence others.

We'll Give Him All the Glory

2010-12-22T09:34:00.000-06:00

Our last Monday night prayer of the year was a time of celebrating the answers to prayer for the past year and experiencing Gods continuing presence among us. Here are some highlights.

Remembering the night we blessed single parents and seeing people in long lines to give financially and pray for them.
Lucys story of God speaking to her about how he put together all the pieces of her brokeness and made a beautiful mosaic out of it. She shared how vulnerable she felt sharing this, but how it had impacted many.
Loud applause as we announced that around 900 people had come to Christ this past year.
Erins story of how God spoke to her one night at prayer about how lovely she was to Him and how she was the bride of Christ.
Lora encouraging everyone that God uses all the things we have been through in 2010, good and bad, to grow us and to make us useful in the kingdom.
People who God is calling to take a next step in their lives standing for prayer and others surrounding them and praying for them.
Stories from our giveBIG outreach to the city.
Ending with the choruses of "Oh Come let us adore Him", "For He Alone is Worthy", "We'll Give Him all the Glory", and "We'll Praise His Name Forever".

I am pumped about how God led us in prayer this past year and how people at Elife caught the vision of prayer. Our prayer gathering more than doubled this past year. I have a real God anticipation about how God is going to move as we pray in 2011. We are set up to have about 1000 commitments to Christ by years end. I am praying our prayer efforts double in 2011 so we can see at least double the commitments to Christ this year.

Jesus, your amazing and we give you all the glory for what you have done in 2010 !

Confession Flows

2010-10-26T13:22:00.001-05:00

We are following an ACTS model on Monday nights for our prayer service. ACTS is Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, & Supplication. We try and incorporate all four of these types of prayer into the hour. Sometimes one of the facets will end up dominating the time. Monday night this week was heavy on the Confession side.

James 5:16 says:
Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

I think all of us would love to pray prayers that have great power and produce wonderful results. I hear the last part of James 5:16 quoted often. Yet the first part of James 5:16 I think sets the tone for the last. Before we can have great power and wonderful results in our prayers we have to be willing to confess our sins and pray for one another.

There is something about the confession of sin to one another that scares us. We are afraid of how we might be seen by others. In a public prayer gathering, isn't this someones fear, that their sins might become known or they would have to confess them.

Monday night something significant happened. After a worship set, that was purposefully slower than usual, we asked for people to come to the mic if they wanted to confess sin, either something they did or we as a group had done. As the leader opening a mic for confession of sin is one of those times where you hope you are hearing Gods guidance well. No-one could come up or someone could come up and spend the hour on their personal sin list. Neither of these is a good option.

I gave some guidance and asked our people to confess at the most two sins on the mic and if they had more then to spend time with God confessing others. It was one of those times that ended up leading itself. It took a minute for the first person to come up, but that seemed to release what God was doing and person after person came forward. A grade schooler asking for forgiveness for being disrespectful to her parents, a 40 something asking for forgiveness for taking over her life and not allowed God to be in control, a man asking for forgiveness for how he treated his girlfriend, a teen dealing with lust, a mom dealing with being ugly to her kids, another teen asking God to forgive the youth for getting distracted from following God, and on and on people came. They were vulnerable before God and each other.

Obviously because of how we spent the time, the night was heavier, it was convicting, it was challenging. We finished with some prayer ministry time for people dealing with rejection and for our staff.
________________________________________________________

Elements that worked tonight:
Having a worship time that was more dialed down. This seemed to be conducive for a night of confession.

Opening the mics and asking people to come forward and confess sin.

Memorable moments & phrases:
To our youth: Take your place in this movement of God.

Global Prayer

2010-10-20T13:32:00.000-05:00

Each week at Monday Night Prayer there is an overarching theme. We have four key themes for our prayer times. First Mondays are vision prayer, second mondays are ministries focus, third mondays are missions focus and fourth mondays are for intimacy and revival. This week was week three and we focused on praying for missions.

We began in adoration. Our worship team did 3 songs. We then began sharing stories of answered prayer. We shared about a lady having God heal her ear last week at prayer. We shared about our weekend services, how many had committed their lives to Christ and some comments. We shared a prayer miracle that had happened in India recently with some of our missions partners there. We shared some comments off of Kale Yorks blog as he and a team from YWAM are in Thailand and India. Hearing how God is answering prayer encourages our faith as we continue to pray.

Then Coby Colley came up and shared with us what is happening in India with Asian Partners. We let everyone pray for three specific items related to their ministries. We prayed for Kale and his team and one other young man who was headed to YWAM.

We then asked people to come up to the mics and pray short prayers for missionaries they knew in many countries. We had 20 - 30 people come up and pray for missionaries. We ended our time with a prayer ministry time. We asked those who needed courage for something they were facing to stand and we had our people gather around them and pray for them.

What a privilege to support missions around the world in prayer. We desire to have a global awareness and be available for God to use us around the world in prayer or in obedience in any other way.
_____________________________________________________

Elements that worked tonight:
Having people greet one another at the very front end.

Memorable moments & phrases:
Courage is not the absence of fear, it is going forward even though their is fear.

We are responsible for our generation - Keith Green

Nothing Compares to His Embrace

2010-10-12T10:26:00.002-05:00

You are more, You are more
Than my words will ever say
You are Lord, You are Lord
All creation will proclaim
You are here, You are here
In Your presence I'm made whole
You are God, You are God
Of all else I'm letting go

Oh, I’m running to Your arms,
I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love
Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign

from Forever Reign by Hillsong Live

The force that makes Monday Nights so powerful at Experience Life is the real and tangible sense of Gods presence with us. I think all of us who have come to pray recognize this fact. When the Lord shows up in tangible ways we all leave the time changed. Sometimes the change is encouragement, sometimes inspiration, sometimes fulfillment, other times excitement that we have prayed according to His will and believe we will see Him work.

Monday night was one of those nights that seemed like His presence was a little more tangible than usual. When I walked in the rink to prepare I recognized that tangible presence. As our intercessors prayed before the time began, there was the reality of his presence, as the video played worship before we began there was the awareness that Jesus was there. Our 1 hour of prayer sailed by and even afterward encouragement from His presence. I got home around 8:45 and I just sat in my living room quiet or an hour because I still sensed God upon my heart. The conclusion I have about all of this is that God is among us and directing our paths.

We opened with a scripture reading from Psalms and a prayer. We went into 3 songs, one was "forever reign" by Hillsong. Our people really connected as we sang. We finished with "worthy of affection". We then moved into a prayer ministry time. We prayed for ears that weren't working and for knees. We moved to some thanksgiving. This is the time we share how God has answered prayer the previous week. We then moved into corporate prayer topics such as praying for obedience to be in our churches dna, we prayed for people who were lost, we prayed for our lifehouse leaders (having them stand and surrounding them in prayer circles) and we prayed for the many requests we get each weekend.

We concluded the time praying for anyone dealing with alot of fear recently. Clayton our lifehouse pastor came up and gave a final blessing and prayer. And people came to pray with our prayer teams up front at the end.

Elements that worked tonight:
Introduction of "forever reign" in worship.

Kneeling after worship for a time of confession and asking God to fill us and empower us in all we do.

Memorable moments & phrases:

Vague confession equals vague forgiveness. You aren't really sure you are forgiven if you haven't confessed specifically.

If we are not careful we judge the power of prayer on our past experience and not Gods word.

Show Me Your Heart, Show Me Your Way, Show Me Your Glory

2010-10-05T08:13:00.001-05:00

Show Me Your Heart, Show Me Your Way, Show Me Your Glory is a line from one of the worship songs we did last night at Monday Night Prayer. This is a cry in our hearts as we seek God. We understand that if God doesn't intervene in our lives, in the lives of people in our city and in our area, we can not find Him. We understand that if we don't connect to God in prayer and see His presence and power move among us we are in trouble. Then we're left to our own devices, our own power and that won't get anything eternal done in this life.

Last night the challenge was not to pray little prayers to a little God, but to pray Big prayers to our Big God. He is the king of the universe. He is the one who reigns over all things. In Him is supreme power. Along those lines we prayed for God to bring revival to our city and our nation. We asked God for a break out of salvations all over our city, not just in our church.

We took time and prayed for our elementary, jr. high, and high school students. We prayed big prayers that God would use them mightily. We had people gather around them, put a hand on their shoulder and prayed for them, then someone would follow praying on a mic for the whole group.

I read Deuteronomy 32:11. The scene is the mother eagle stirring up her nest and teaching her young ones to fly. She does that in two ways. First she takes the soft portions out of the nest so the young eagles will not stay in the comfort of the nest and will have to come to the top. Under the soft parts are glass, thorns, and other sharp objects. The affect is making they young uncomfortable there and have to come to the top of the nest. Then the mother will beat her wings knocking the young ones off the nest. It is time to fly or die. But the eagle doesn't let her young fall to their death, if they don't fly she will sweep under the young and catch them to bring them back for another try. The eagle doesn't let her young just rest in comfort because she knows these eagles must learn to fly and feed themselves. They need to mature. We prayed for people who are in uncomfortable places in life because God is wanting to mature them.

For three straight months we have averaged more than 500 at our prayer gatherings. God is calling people to pray. It is a great feeling to know that 500 people have gathered to change history by praying to their Great God.

______________________________________________________________
Elements that worked tonight:
Sharing the analogy of how a young eagle learns to fly from Deut 32:11 and then praying for people who sensed they are in a season of God taking them out of their comfort zone and challenging them with hard things.

Memorable moments & phrases:
We didn't come to pray little prayers to a little God tonight, we have come to pray Big prayers to a Big God.

There Can Be No Revival, No Awakening Without Prayer

2010-09-28T11:36:00.000-05:00

"There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer." A.T. Pierson

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.

World Changers

2010-09-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

Our hearts continue to be pointed towards heaven on Monday nights. One of the reasons we value having a worship set toward the front end of prayer is that it sets our minds on how big our God is and take our minds off how big our problems feel. We understand this is the true reality. God is bigger than any of our struggles and problems. As we adore Him through singing, our hearts are warmed to this reality.

Our leadership team decided to share our big news this week at the prayer gathering. So Chris, our lead pastor and Justin, our exec pastor took about 30 minutes sharing on how God had answered prayer about us expanding. We have purchased the bus station in downtown Lubbock. We are going to renovate it and it will become our first multisite campus. Experience Life will have a downtown presence now. Renovations will begin very soon. We hope to have this campus up and running sometime in 2011.

God continues to bless what He is doing at Experience Life.

We took time to pray over the bus station. We prayed for Gods favor in all the logistics, we prayed for all the needed resources to be provided and we prayed that God would bring all those needed to serve this location.

We ended with prayer ministry time. We prayed for relationships to be reconciled and prayed for people who needed strength to pursue reconciliation. We also prayed for any ordinary people who were willing to let God use them to be world changers. I think we probably had about 250 people stand for this time.

Chris Galanos, our lead pastor closed in prayer. Our prayer teams who are up front at the end of our time seem to be praying for more and more people.

Elements that worked tonight:
Because of time limitations with the big announcement, we started 5 minutes early so we could fit a full worship set in.

The announcement by Chris and Justin about the answer to prayer.

Memorable moments & phrases:
Peoples applause when we announced the bus station.

If your too big to serve, your too small to lead.

Transforming Generations

2010-09-14T10:28:00.000-05:00

One thing that has stood out to me lately is the wide range of generations involved in our Monday night prayer gathering. We have all kids 9 and up in the service. This makes our age range 9 - 90 with all in between.

It was so encouraging Monday night as we opened the mics for anyone to express a prayer of thanksgiving to God. We asked that it be brief. We had about 25 - 30 people respond. What a joy to see 9, 10, and 11 years olds come up and express prayers of thanks to God.

You can see this picture on the left that during one of the ministry times that we had people stand up and then someone around them pray for a particular need, a young girl prayed for a young boy. Even though I was on the stage I couldn't help catch this shot with my iphone. You know God is doing something when even these little ones have a heart for prayer.

Tonight we approached prayer with a heart of Thanksgiving. We just came from our a weekend where we celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We had 114 people stand to commit their lives to Christ this weekend which was awesome. Then 100's more stood to say they would take their next steps with God. One poignant moment in the service was when a young lady stood to commit her life to Christ, a friend sitting in another section saw her stand and ran over to embrace her friend and celebrate her life decision.

Tonight at prayer, we prayed for those who were experiencing spiritual warfare. We prayed for those who are unemployed. One young man caught me after the service and told me he stood because he was unemployed and got two job offers before he left prayer. At the end our prayer teams prayed for 15 minutes after we dismissed. They told me they had never been the last ones to leave but tonight were.

Elements that worked tonight:
Having the open mics and letting people come up and offer thanks to God.

Spending some time pointing people to our prayer teams at the end of the service.
Memorable moments & phrases:

True obedience many times takes sacrifice. Sacrifice is a step beyond convenience.

Short Term Trips & Short Leashes

2010-09-14T10:12:00.000-05:00

Monday night prayer this past week had a missions focus. We had a team that had been to Guatemala just a couple of weeks ago. We used what they learned on the trip to encourage prayer for other countries as well as our heart for the world.

Giving God adoration and praise was first at prayer last Monday. I love to see how our front rows and sides are filled with the young who aren't afraid to express themselves in worship.

We moved into a brief time of confession next. I shared a story I had heard from Keith Craft, a pastor in Frisco. Keith told of a friend who had a dog named Gwhiz. Gwhiz loved to jump over fences into the neighbors yard. The owners decided to fix this problem by putting Gwhiz on a leash. With the length of the leash, Gwhiz could make it over the fence but not make it to the ground in the next yard causing himself major difficulties. It didn't take long for Gwhiz to learn he had a new boundary and he couldn't just jump into the neighbors back yards. I also told a story of how it seemed anytime I tried to get away with something in high school like sneaking off campus during lunch I got caught. I think someones prayers had me on a short leash.

We asked God to put us on his short leash so that our own flesh nature couldn't take us far from Gods best for us.

Our Guatemala team then shared about our trip. We prayed for our missionaries Mike and Terri McCombs and the 31 Bible extensions they are over. We printed the names of the extensions on cards and handed them to people at the door. We also prayed for anyone who had a heart to go on a short terms trip this coming year.

We prayed for people in the education profession during our ministry time.

Postures of the Heart

2010-08-26T11:21:00.000-05:00

Prayer began this past week with sharing some answers to prayer that have happened recently. We then read Isaiah 53, the chapter that describes Jesus. We went into our worship set. As people were connecting to God in worship it seemed we should press into God. I asked everyone to take a posture of consecration. That could be kneeling where they were at or any other posture that helped them bow their heart to the living God. We spent time on our knees asking God for more of His presence in our lives and in our times of prayer.

I believe strongly in postures of prayer. Postures help point our heart. It is harder to be prideful when you are bowing your knee. It is a posture that is designed to point your heart to reliance on God.

We continued in our services and had our college director share about what is happening this semester and then we had college students stand and we prayed for them as they begin the semester. We prayed for all of the prayer requests from the previous weekend. We prayed for the lost in our city. Our ministry time at the end was used to pray for those who were experiencing spiritual warfare and were somehow discouraged. We prayed for people who were dealing with shame from past sins.

I find our hour goes by very fast for corporate prayer.

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Elements that worked tonight:

Reading the whole chapter of Isaiah 53 at the front end.

Asking people to kneel or find a posture of consecration.

Having everyones head bowed when praying for people dealing with Shame.
Memorable moments & phrases:

Telling part of the story of Tomas Guzaro: where at gunpoint and the threat of his life he told his assassins that to live was good and to die and be with Jesus was good also.

Prayer: The Heart of God

2010-08-12T12:55:00.000-05:00

Monday nights has been the place where God is meeting people. Our Monday night prayer gathering has grown tremendously this summer as we are averaging over 500 each Monday night. People are coming with a sense of expectation in what their God will do in this hour each week. People from other churches are coming to be a part. We welcome anybody to come and join in prayer for the city and for our region.

This past Monday night was a little more low key than many Monday nights. Brandon Gwinn our lead worship leader at Elife did a set that was more calming and intimate than usual. I had many comments about the peace of God present during worship. I took some time and communicated some basic vision about Monday night, why we do what we do.

Our goal: To connect with God, to hear His plans, and to be empowered to carry out those plans.
The key: Gods presence among us
Our method: Consistant Prayer

The break down of Monday nights is times of Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. We are also intentionally listening to Gods voice and trying to be directed by that voice.

Monday night we prayed for our team going to Guatemala this coming week, we prayed for our Pack the Pack outreach (giving away school supplies to more needy schools in Lubbock), we prayed for our current series: FAQ, we prayed for the lost to get saved in Lubbock Texas, and we prayed God would raise up prayer gatherings all across our city.

During our prayer ministry time we prayed for anyone about to make a change to a new place (students fit this as they begin the school year), we prayed for our lifehouse leaders and apprentices, and we prayed for those who had really hard things happen to them this year and needed courage to make it through.
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Elements that worked tonight:

The slower pace of worship created a more peaceful time for people.

Having our intercessors pray for our prayer gathering 15 minutes before hand seems to give the gathering much energy.

Having five separate sections of chairs rather than three.

Memorable moments & phrases:

The largest amount of children we have ever had. We had to recruit staff to help with kids.

Visitors coming up to me at the end and commenting how moved they were by Gods presence.

"You don't have to change your place when going through a hard time, God can change your perspective and awareness"

"Corporate Prayer is on Gods heart for the earth" Mk 11

Abandonment in All Things

2010-08-05T10:19:00.001-05:00

I am so thankful that God has surrounded me with a solid core of lay leaders at our Monday Night Prayer time. From time to time I ask them to give me some thoughts they have about prayer. These come from Dina Pender our Greeters team coordinator on Monday nights.

I believe something is “building” at Monday Night Prayer. I have really been impressed over the last few weeks that as we reach up and out to God – He is responding and encouraging us that not only is He aware of us, but He desperately wants us to know that He loves us just like we are when we come to Him at that exact moment, with everything all out of whack and messed up! He is delighted in our desire to pull closer to Him and He welcomes us readily and eagerly. He literally loves that we are willing to come to Him even though we didn’t get-it-together before hand. He is showing His love in this way, it is not what we have or haven’t done that causes Him to love us…He just does because He chooses too.

On a recent Monday, I received a very clear word that God is sovereign and as we deepen our relationship with Him, He is calling us to trust Him in all things with abandonment. We should not be deceived into believing that by what we “see” He has not answered our prayers or is indifferent in any way to our requests or heart-cries. He wants us to walk as mature Christians and trusting children that He is in control, even when we don’t receive the answer we were hoping for.

“It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet and what is sand.” Madeleine L’Engle

Radical Generosity

2010-08-03T09:38:00.001-05:00

Last night was a powerful time of Gods people seeking God and listening to God to bless others. I don't know that I can describe the evening well. So I think I'll let your comments about the night tell the story"

It was my first Monday night to attend. I was blown away with Gods presence! Amazing!
I am so grateful for the opportunity to contribute to God's blessing on those people tonight. I love you Jesus and thank you.
It was amazing, I felt so much joy to be able to help two of them. It was amazing to watch God work. It was amazing to pray over a single father weeping and overwhelmed by the love. Amazing.
I was there. That was the most incredible thing I was ever able to participate in. Let's change this city for God!!
that was the most amazing this ive ever seen sooo powerful.
It was amazing to see their faces when people were handing them money and then praying for them. Thanks for the opportunity to give!!
I want y'all to know that my mom was one who stood up and y'all blessed hr so much.on Sunday when we got home from churched we walked in our house had been broken into a wii two tvs,two dvd players, and other stuff were stolen from our home.. are behind a few house payments and we were blessed to get a little over half way caught up... thank you elifers for your giving hearts and my God bless you in so many ways...again a million thank yous...
Well I am not able to attend Monday night prayer because I have class, mon- thur. night, but my son attends and he was truly touched tonight. He comes from a single parent home and he knows the struggles we go through,but he also knows how many times God has blessed us through our Elife family. He was sharing with me about the service, he told me mom I had the $6 in my wallet that you told me to keep, but I gave it to a man that stood up. It made me have chills and tear up.I am so glad he listened to God telling him to give. God is doing amazing things in the lives of the people who attend E-life, and even more so in the lives of our youth!!!
POWERFUL prayer night! Our GOD is awwwesome... -J
How incredible it is to see people from all walks of life (esp youth) really "getting it"! Tonight was one of the most overwhelming God moments that I have felt! Brought my friend for the first time and she even though elife is radically diff from what she's used to said that she was moved and felt God's presence.
Tonight was such an amazing blessing to bless others and then to watch how God didn't do just a little bit. He poured out abundant blessings above all we could imagine on our single parents tonight!!!!! There is something radical happening at E-Life and it excites me to see God work in tangible ways to change our city -- one life at a time.
I was overwhelmed tonight as I watched our youth stand in line to give and be used by God to bless others tonight! They gave of their own money and also prayed BOLDLY for our single parents. It blessed my heart to see our young people put their faith in action and change the lives of people much older than they are.
It was so Amazing to be apart of Prayer Service last night. I still get chills thinking about the Experience.
monday night prayer was BY FAR the coolest prayer meeting yet! giving is ABSOLUTELY better than receiving...
Monday Night Prayer ALWAYS brings me to my knees and God tells me exactly what I need to hear. Love Elife for having prayer be a priority!
WOW...tonight was awesome!! It never gets old to see God do such amazing things in the lives of His people!! Love how He continues to go above and beyond even our highest expectations! :)
The Holy Spirit was in the house tonight. P.S- whoever prayed for me last week, I saw a marked difference in that area. Thank you.
this was my first Monday Prayer Meeting and i must say i could feel the love in the room. such an amazing feeling
AWESOME Prayer night this evening! The Lord was very present and man did he show His love to me this evening. Thank you ELife! Praise be to God!

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Elements that worked tonight:

Began the night with centering in on Christ using three verses with three themes: Passion, purity, and perseverance. We took a moment to read a verse on each topic, share a brief explanation and then have people repent and ask God for help.

Creating some space in the front for people to come and worship or kneel or sit. Our youth have moved into that area.

Memorable moments:

Having single parents who had a financial need stand. As we sang another chorus we asked people to give sacrificially to our single parents. It was an incredibly moving scene to see lines of people waiting to bless each single parent that stood as everyone else worshiped.

A Common Theme

2010-07-28T11:08:00.003-05:00

I love it when God brings about a common theme at our Monday Night Prayer gathering. This past Monday it was the idea of selfish ambition versus Godly ambition. It came up in prayer, in the songs chosen, and in bible verses read.

This week we began prayer by being thankful. We had 21 first time commitments to Christ the previous weekend and we read stories of how people were being affected by our services each week. Our adoration time we mixed with a confession time. Before each song we read a related verse from the bible and let the person who read pray the theme of that verse. For example our second song was "I love your presence" (on the last Bethel Cd). Someone read Psalm 27:4 and prayed and then we went into the song. It was a more acoustic intimate set and people at the gathering received it well. After the last song (step by step) we read Phillipians 3 and opened the mics up to people who were willing to confess sins of selfish ambition for themselves or for us corporately. I invited everyone where they were at to to confess any selfish ambition versus having Godly ambitions in their lives.

We then prayed corporately for salvations, for the services this coming weekend, for a missions team in China. We then moved on to a prayer ministry time where we had people stand who were weary, feeling like they needed hope and strength. Those around them gathered around and prayed over them.

We closed with having our prayer teams up front available to pray for people.

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Elements that worked tonight:

Having the verses read and people praying before each song of the worship set.

Having a slower more intimate set. We try and do that the last week of each month as our focus that night is intimacy and revival.

Beginning the night with thanksgiving as opposed to how we begin sometimes with singing.

A memorable moment:

As people had stood that were weary and wanting prayer, I told them "Smart people stand for prayer" Anyone who asks God to bring his super into their natural situation is smart"

One of our visitors tonight commenting to me after prayer "Pappa was there tonight"

A man who came to prayer and was not a believer telling me he had never been in a place like this. There was a sense of awe as he took in being around the presence of God.

Lucy's Story

2010-07-21T16:13:00.003-05:00

A God Story: In our day and in our time, God is moving . . .

Hey Berry,
I just wanted to shoot you an email about something that happened to me during prayer last night. Towards the end, you made a side note about our God being a God who restores and makes us whole again. The comment came out of no where, but I really needed to hear it. I have been struggling with being spiritually attacked in that area specifically. I was seeing a young man for the last year, and he recently left to do missionary work overseas. It had gotten to the point where I thought he was the one and that I would spend the rest of my life with him, so you can imagine the rude awakening we both had when he felt called to leave to serve God elsewhere and I felt called to end the relationship.  He left a few weeks ago, and I have been having a hard time with it. I gave much of my heart to this guy and recently I have felt like a sheet of shattered glass, broken into many pieces and have found myself asking God, "How do you restore broken glass? Even if you put all the pieces back together, it will still be fractured and scared in so many places."

So last night when you made that comment about God being able to restore us, it hit me so hard. I started weeping, because I still felt like there was no logical way God could restore that sheet of shattered glass that was my heart. Then, God blew my mind. As I was sitting there crying, I was hit with an image of the most beautiful stained glass window. It was more beautiful than just a plain sheet of glass by far. Even though it was made out of broken pieces of glass, it was whole because of what was holding it together. Its colors were brilliant and the sun was shining through it. The image reminded me that restoration doesn't always mean going back to where we were before, but that God puts all the pain, confusion and sufferings of our hearts together in a new way that brings Him more glory and us more beauty.

Monday Nights

2010-07-21T11:01:00.003-05:00

I would have to say one of the most powerful prayer experiences in Monday night prayer was when the Lord began pricking my heart that he had so much more for me than just attending the services. I was beginning praying out loud. My heart was inside of my chest, I knew that the Lord was calling me to go deeper in prayer, but the idea of prayer out loud scared me. Once I did it, my prayer life flourished, it was not the fact that I prayed out loud, and it was the fact that I was obedient. God has given me so many gifts and allowed me to do so many things this past semester and I believe it is simply the fact that is trying to be obedient.

Here lately Monday Night prayer has brought out freedom in people that I have not seen in a while. The young and the old have worshipped and made petitions to the Father. It just seems that the Lord has met us every time in a real way. The power is so evident when you come, and we have the ability to pray for people. When I intercede for others, it tends to make my problems or my day melt away. The reality of we are Gods bridegroom and we are created to worship him is something that God teaches me every time I walk into pray. He delights in us, he accepts us and he LONGS for us to sit in his presence, because he is ravished by us.

written by one of our prayer team members: Erin Mullins

Way Too Many Coincidences Not To Be God

2010-07-21T10:26:00.004-05:00

Listening to God is such a subjective thing. I have found there is such a balance of being sure you yourself are ingesting a good amount of the word of God, keeping a consistant contact with God through all the avenues prayer has, listening to Godly men and women around you, as well as discerning circumstances you meet with every day. Even with a balanced disciplined lifestyle listening to God is still subjective.
This is one of the reasons I believe we have the whole concept of confirmation. We read it in Gods word, we sense the peace of God in going forward, Godly men and women affirm what God is saying gives us more confidence in our next step. I think this is why the body of Christ is so important to our walk with God. When we walk in community their is opportunity for confirmation of Gods will in our lives and many times opportunity for us to see when we are off base.

I have noticed this concept happening many times in our prayer gatherings recently. A great example was Monday night. 15 minutes before corporate prayer each Monday night, our prayer intern, Matt Martin gathers a group around for intercessory prayer. This group of intercessors prays for me as I lead. Monday night one of our intercessors began to pray that God would touch brokeness in people. You could tell it wasn't just a passing thought but something she had keyed in on and seemed to be strongly passionate about this night. As she prayed, God got my attention that brokeness was an important aspect to pray for this night. Well by "coincidence" I had a young lady sharing at the end of prayer about how God given her a picture during prayer last week that helped her navigate some recent brokeness. (Look for another post this week with Lucys story). After she shared, we prayed people who had experienced some kind of brokeness and needed hope. We had probably 60 people stand who wanted to be prayed for.

The next day I read a faebook post that said "WOW!!! GOD REALLY DOES ANSWER PRAYER!!!! I was reviewing over my journal tonight from earlier today and I was completely amazed at how exactly God answered the following prayer… () inserted after

Forget myself tonight. May it be ALL ABOUT YOU. Don’t let the fires started in those 3100 people burn out. (I believe some fires were most certainly rekindled tonight!!!)MOVE IN THE MEETING PLACE TONIGHT. DRAW YOUR PEOPLE TO YOU AND MAY THEY GIVE YOU THEIR BURDENS AND BROKENESS. (HELLO!!! Main topic of what Lucy talked about!!!! God thing!!) Let EVERY SPEAKER speak YOUR WORDS with FLUENCY, BOLDNESS, COURAGE, AND CLARITY.(I do not recall anyone stuttering or speaking anything that didn’t mean something to someone) Thank you for the wonderful relationships you have established in front of me. (Simply by the youth laying hands on a fellow member literally in front of me) For those that are BUSILY PREPARING A TESTIMONY STOP THEM. GIVE THEM ASSURANCE THAT YOUR WORDS WILL COME IN YOUR TIMING. (I totally encountered someone that was doing this but then stopped!!! And with messages like those spoken who else could have said them? No man that’s for sure!)

At Monday night prayer there continue to be so many that are encountering Gods presence in amazing ways.

This week we celebrated 273 people who were baptized this weekend, 28 first time commitments to Christ, and one young man healed of cancer. Our God is making His name known in our day and in our time.
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Elements that worked tonight

Having Johnny Perez share about how God healed him of cancer in the middle of the worship set, stirred peoples hearts to give thanks and praise.
Beginning the evening with stories of what God did for baptism. We invited people to come to a mic and speak briefly about what God had done.
Having people share what God had done for them toward the end, asking anyone to stand who was going through the same thing, and having that person pray over the whole group.

Where the Fountains Never Run Dry

2010-07-13T14:57:00.002-05:00

Jeremiah speaks of people digging cisterns for themselves that will no hold water. A cistern is just a reservoir that held water, most of the time carved out in rock. When the rains came a cistern would hold the water and a cover would be put on them to keep debris out so that when drought came there was extra water.

We try and fill ourselves from many worldly cisterns. We try to get filled from power, popularity, or finding love in the wrong ways. These all are cisterns that don't hold water. They can not be depended on. They don't have anything in them that nourishes us.

Jeremiah goes on to say that God is the fountain of living water. He is a cistern that will never run dry. We can continually go to Him and find what we need.

Monday Night Prayer is becoming known as a cistern. It is a place where living water is found and filling peoples hearts. People are coming on Monday nights hungry and anticipating what God will do and how He will meet us and fill us. They are leaving with more than they came with.

We read out of Acts 4:31 to begin prayer this week. We prayed we would be filled with Gods Spirit so that we might preach the word of God with boldness. Worship kicked off with "You Won't Relent" a powerful anthem written by Misty Edwards and redone recently by Jesus Culture.
The song goes: Come be the fire inside of me Come be the flame upon my heart Come be the fire inside of me Until You and I are one and that became our prayer last night.

We celebrated what God is doing as He answers many of our prayers. In our weekend services around 200 people signed up for our baptism celebration this coming week. We shared stories of people praying to commit their lives to Christ this weekend as they came to the baptism interview and realized they had never asked Christ into their lives. Another young women prayed that prayer and went back and got a friend. The friend signed up to be baptized. Another lady was watching the service online. She was challenged by the message and came up to the building and signed up to be baptized. Another family was on their way home from the service and were convicted. They turned around and signed up to be baptized next week. As we interviewed those who signed up many had tears in their eyes as they shared how they had committed their lives to Christ and desired to be baptized as Gods word says they should.

We let a new missionary friend from Moldova share. Vova told us about teaming up with SportQuest in Moldova and how they reach out to the kids in his country. I think the highlight of the evening may have been when he prayed a blessing over us in Russian.

We prayed for teams going to China, our team on the ground in Chiapas Mexico and for Vova and his ministry.

We then went on and prayed for our upcoming baptism celebration. We are praying for many friends and family who will come to hear the gospel clearly and make a commitment to Christ themselves. We also prayed for God to show up powerfully as many people take their next step of obedience with the Lord and are baptized.

We ended our time praying for our lifehouse leaders and life transformation group leaders. We had them stand and had people gather around them and pray. We prayed for the marketplace tonight. We prayed for all those in the housing industry or that serviced houses.

We had our prayer teams come up and be available for prayer from anyone needing that.

Chris Galanos, our lead pastor, closed the meeting as he prayed over all of us.

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Elements that worked:

Opening with the reading of a verse and praying is working well. I like the band already playing in the background when that happens.

Having a prayer team coordinator present during our prayer teams ministry works well. These coordinators can help see who is done praying and can take someone else, help let people who are in line.

Creating more free space up front (no chairs, carpets out on floor) for the youth and others to come up and stand, kneel and sit during worship.

When Heaven Comes Down

2010-07-06T08:58:00.001-05:00

We know God is with us when we pray. He says when two or three are gathered in my name there I am among them. But there are times when Gods presence is magnified. There is an awareness in us that is heightened. It's like being the only one at work and the internet is much, much faster. Your connectedness isn't competing with many other people.

Last night was one of those times for us at Monday Night Prayer. It was a night Heaven came down and God was all around. I could sense it before prayer began. As our intercessory people prayed over me for the service prior to 7:15 I could sense the presence and power of God in a heightened way. People were responding strongly to God in worship as some kneeled, others cried, some shouted. The longing in peoples souls for God was evident all around.

I could hear God clearly as He was advising me how to do the ministry time after our worship. I heard clearly as God gave me a passage from His word to share with our youth. It was Isaiah 61:1-3. I heard the thoughts in my mind and heart very clearly, tell them "they are chosen ones". Tell them they have the capacity to lead. Tell them I will use them to bring revival.

Last night was also a night where our youth came to prayer as a group. We had over 100 jr high and high schoolers joining us at prayer. They aren't bored with prayer, that are excited about God and what He's doing. We also prayed for upcoming events at Experience Life. We are praying for our summer baptism celebration that will take place at the swimming pool at the Sportsplex. Last year we had 100 baptized at this event. We are praying for double or triple that this year. We prayed for our next series "No Perfect People Allowed" and that God would bring people who don't know Him. We prayed for our missions team that is headed to Chiapas Mexico next week.

We closed our time of prayer in worship. It seemed no one wanted to leave. All sensed the presence of God and even after we officially closed the service there were pockets of people continuing to pray for one another. There is something about a place when God is showing up, people don't want to leave. They like lingering in that place.

It seems obvious God is pleased with our seeking Him on Monday nights and we love it when heaven comes down.

Our hearts cry is: Let it come, Let your kingdom come and let your will be done in us God ! More God, more of you !
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Elements that worked:

Going into a prayer ministry time right after worship worked last night. We prayed for youth who wanted to be sold out to God, then we let youth pray for adults who wanted "more" in their lives.

Having our lead pastor Chris Galanos close with a blessing over people in prayer was powerful.

Being willing to change the format because of the Holy Spirits leading worked well last night. We did have to postpone a student who was going to share about what God had been doing in her.

Our intercessors who prayed for me before the service actually gave me some insight into what God wanted for our time. As they prayed I picked up two key ideas that influenced how I changed the format for the night.

Our worship leader and his sensitivity to what God was doing. Reading from Gods word as part of worship.

Closing with a song of commitment to God.

You Can Tell How Popular Jesus Is by Who Comes to Pray !

2010-07-01T10:20:00.001-05:00

"You can tell how popular a church is by who comes on Sunday morning. You can tell how popular the pastor or evangelist is by who comes on Sunday night. But you can tell how popular Jesus is by who comes to the prayer meeting." (Jim Cymbala).

It seems Jesus popularity is growing. This month we have averaged about 430 people at our Monday night prayer gathering. People come expectant of God showing up and being present as we seek Him in prayer. It seems our expectancy is met with Gods faithfulness.

This past Monday our logistics people were scrambling as we added a ton of chairs in the rink to make room for all who came. The back story to all this is that at the end of last year and the first of this year we had an attendance at prayer of about 140 people. We sensed God was leading us to pray that by the end of 2010 we would have 300 in attendance at our corporate prayer gathering on Monday nights. We are about 1/2 way through the year and God has done abundantly more than we could ask or think. Attendance is not our goal. Seeing Gods kingdom extended on the earth is our goal and we know that the more people are involved in prayer, the more we are inviting Gods influence into our existence and He will lead us to extending His kingdom.

One of my favorite times each week is getting to adore God. It is an aspect of prayer that is easy to miss. Too often we think of prayer as asking God for things. The basis of prayer is being connected with God. Now asking Him for things is part of that connectedness but only one aspect. There is something about singing songs to God that connects our hearts with His. I remember reading a book by Jack Hayford on worship. He says that worship invites and invokes the presence of God. I believe this is true. Something about worship connects our hearts with Gods presence and opens our humanity up to the realities of God. Adoration this past week was sweet. You could sense Gods presence being a part of the praises of His people.

We prayed for two groups of people this past week. The first group was people who someone in their past speak some type of discouragement to them. "Your stupid", "You'll never amount to anything", "Loser", words that are far from Gods truth for us and have been planted in our minds and hearts can plague people and keep them discouraged for a lifetime. The challenge was for people to be able to accept the truths of Gods word like "you are children", "God loves you", "you are the apple of His eye". People who struggled with this stood as others prayed for Gods truth to be strengthened in their minds and hearts.

The second group of people we prayed for were those whose past was influencing their future. There was something in the past they were having a hard time letting go of and it was hindering them pursuing Gods best for their future. We gathered around those as they stood and prayed for God to help them move on.

I then shared some definitions of revival such as:

Revival is when the Spirit pours out to those in the church and then it runs over to people in community getting saved.

True revival is that divine moment when God bursts upon the scene and displays His glory.

We cannot organize revival, but we can set our sails to catch the wind from Heaven when God chooses to blow upon His people once again.

I also shared on story of Duncan Campbell and the revival at Bernaray.

We then let people come to the mics and pray paragraph prayers asking God to send revival to us.

We all prayed together over some various corporate prayer issues. And we ended the night by gathering around the rink (we meet in a skating rink). There were enough people for three circles around the area. I kept thinking "Our circle or prayer" is growing. Our lead pastor Chris Galanos prayed over everyone to finish the evening.

At the end, as we always do, prayer teams were around the edge of the front to pray specifically for people.

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Elements that worked for the evening:

Having someone read a verse to begin prayer with and then pray for our time.

Ministry time went really well as probably 75 people stood for prayer.

I ask that noone who often prays on the mic come forward tonight and that new people would pray. we had 10 people who don't often come to the mic pray.

Having two of our prayer team members stand at the open mics to help people be organized and be there if anyone starts to pray way too long.

Keeping lights low during the devotional prayer time that proceeds the actual prayer service.

The Process of Monday Nights: Trying to Let God Lead

2010-06-22T12:18:00.001-05:00

I always get questions about Monday Night Prayer at Experience Life. Here is a common one "is Monday Night Prayer led by God or do you plan it ? My answer would be yes and yes. I have found both planning and flexibility on the evening to be valuable in hearing God and allowing this prayer time to be led by God.

About every six months I develop a prayer template to use for Monday nights. I pray and ask God to lead me in developing that template. I also am attentive to what God is saying to our lead pastor, other pastors and staff, and key prayer leaders within the church.

Currently, we have a general topic of focus for each of the four weeks of the month that we pray for. If a month has a fifth week I use that week to be creative. Week one the focus is on vision, week two on specific ministries of the church, week three missions and the city, and week four is for revival and intimacy with God.

Beyond this focus, I have four key areas to focus on each of these nights. I use the ACTS prayer model for these. For the A (adoration) we have a musical set with some variation. We may read a passage of the Bible to begin prayer with and then sing three songs.

After worship we try and listen. We take a moment to hear what God is saying to us as we have connected with Him in our worship. Part of this process is I have a core of people with a heart for prayer that help put Monday night together. These 10 people are listening to God and when I have us wait on God, these guys know they can approach me with a direction for prayer or an inclination they have of something that needs to be said. Many times during this time we try and have a time of C(confession). I will initiate people asking God if their is anything that they need to confess and ask for forgiveness about. A bulk of this would be initiated by a certain passage of Gods word.

Our next step is T (thanksgiving). We share how many people committed their lives to Christ the previous week and some answers to prayer. We try and capture both individual answers and corporate answers to prayer the previous weeks. Many Mondays we will have someone share a story of how God has impacted them.

After thanksgiving we move to S (supplication). This is a time we are corporately praying for various prayer topics. We might have people who have been asked to come up and pray beforehand over specific things. There are nights we will have an open mic, where people are invited to pray paragraph prayers about topics such as missions, revival, or people getting saved in our city.

We follow supplication with ministry prayer. We will have specific needs stand for prayer. We might pray for a certain segment of the marketplace. After fathers day we might pray for all the fathers. At other times we pray for various ministries of our church and the people there that night who represent those ministries.

Having said all of the above, there are nights when some topic will be strongly on my mind during worship or one of our prayer team will come up and tell me something God is speaking to them. At this point we may change a little of the night up or a lot.

I really like something Jim Cymbala says in Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire "The format of a prayer meeting is not nearly important as it's essence ------ touching the Almighty, crying out with ones whole being. ... The atmosphere of the meeting may vary, what matters most is that we encounter the God of the universe not each other."

Newly added in June
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We have added a small intercessory time each week 15 minutes before prayer. A group of our Monday night leadership team people gather at the front of the building by the stage and join hands and pray over the service each Monday night. They will also pray for me or anyone else leading that night. This time of prayer is led by our prayer intern: Matt Martin.

Prayer: Part of our Identity

2010-06-10T15:33:00.000-05:00

I was reading through Galatians 5 this last week and it dawned on me, prayer is a core part of the dna of our identity in Christ. Galatians 5 is about the battle of the old sinful nature and the new reborn nature we have when we commit our lives to Christ. God has given us some catalysts to walk in this new nature.

The three core catalyst I think of that help us live in this new nature is being in Gods word, spending time with Him in prayer, and worshiping Him. These catalyst of the new life promote our awareness of God. These three illumine our minds to ways that are not our natural bent. They also awaken our hearts to what is on Gods heart and they strengthen our resolve to pursue God.

With that in mind I realize even more how powerful corporate prayer is. Chris Galanos, our lead pastor, says "closet prayer changes individuals while corporate prayer changes cities". It dawned on me that if individual prayer is a catalyst that illumines our minds to Gods ways, awakens our hearts to what is on Gods heart and strengthens our resolve to follow Jesus, then corporate prayer illumines a communities mind to Gods ways, it awakens a communities heart to whats on Gods heart and strengthens a communities resolve to follow Jesus. Prayer is catalytic to the community and the community becomes a movement. They are a people on mission empowered by God.

There it is. The reason so many people are coming to our prayer gatherings is that there is a movement of God that is empowered by coming into Gods presence each Monday night and realizing that this empowering by God is the key to the wondrous way God is moving at Experience Life.

Monday night we reached another threshold, as our attendance was around 475 people in the rink and that doesn't count children that we are teaching about prayer in classes.

We prayed portions of Galatians 5, especially about walking by the Spirit and not walking by our sinful nature.

We had the privilege of having Andy Hurst and some of his family join us. Andy is the new pastor at St. Lukes Methodist church in town. We spent time praying over Andy and his family.

We spent time praying for our lifehouse leaders and life transformation group leaders. We had people who were ending something in their lives stand and we prayed for their transitions. We had people stand who were beginning something and prayed for Gods favor in that beginning.

We ended the night praying for anyone who wanted to hear God in a clearer way, so basically we prayed for the whole crowd. And then we had people available up front in our prayer teams to pray for any other needs at the end of prayer.
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Some things that worked well for us tonight:

Many more people are coming up to our prayer teams at the end of the service. I thinking it is becoming an accepted part of our prayer culture on Monday night.
Using the Jesus Culture DVD "Where you go, I'll go" during our pre-prayer time seem to get people ready to worship and pray.
Having three leaders come up and pray over people who were beginning, ending, and wanting to hear God more clearly worked well. We had two mics and just passed them to those praying over the crowd.
Having Band begin to play, but also having someone encourage people to prepare their hearts for God tonight before worship kicked off worked well.

A Move of God Only Comes Through Prayer

2010-05-25T10:25:00.000-05:00

The last Monday night of each month, we are trying to take more time for intimacy with God and spend time asking Him to send the power of His Spirit that we can fulfill his purposes. We recognized this monday night was right in the middle of the Pentecost season. Pentecost was when 120 ordinary people were encountered by the power of the Holy Spirit and were used by God to launch the church age.

These 120 again were just ordinary people who had gathered together for prayer. The answer came as God equipped them and gave them a mission. The first fruits of that mission happened then and there, 3000 were saved in one day.

With Acts 2 in mind we began to pray. For us prayer begins with adoration. We had a four song worship set. One great song in that set was "Dance with Me". This song quotes many verses from the Song of Solomon which is said to be the greatest love song ever. Sometimes it is called the Song of Songs. It is obvious, the people at Monday night prayer love to worship. One of these nights we are going to have a night of worship for all of prayer. It's funny because every once in while someone will say to me "Why do we sing on Monday nights, doesn't that take away our prayer time ?" I get the opportunity to share with them how much worship through singing is prayer. Prayer at its deepest core is relationship with God. What better way to be in relationship with Him than to let Him speak words of love and adoration to Him. I have found that this is the avenue that takes us to the place of His heart and He lets us know then what is on His heart to pray.

We opened mics tonight and let anyone with a prayer for revival or asking God to fill us come up and pray. We spent about 15 - 20 minutes here. I was so encouraged that many in their teens and college years were the ones praying for God to move in our city.

Prayer that stayed in my mind for the night: A prayer for another great awakening like the second great awakening, a prayer that we would seek revival not just for one hour a week at prayer but that we would have lifestyles of revival and another prayer for God to bring His light in dark places within us and our city.

Parker Foster shared about being a college senior and how he got sick and was out of the loop for over a year. He talked about how he was broken in a good way. God dealt with pride in his life. He told of how he began to have a real relationship with God and not just a hobby of God.

The hour went much to quickly. We had our prayer teams come up and saw people waiting to be prayed for.

We do understand that a move of God can't be generated by us, but that we can call out to God and ask Him to move mightily among us.
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12 people committed their lives to Christ this past week. That is why were here. Sharing these numbers never gets old.

Pray and Never Give Up

2010-05-18T11:39:00.000-05:00

Luke 18:1 says "One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up."

This was the theme for Monday Night Prayer this week. Pray and never give up.

Just coming to pray encourages us. There is something that happens every week at our corporate prayer times. People come up to me afterward and say something like "I came in tonight feeling blaaa and now I am pumped up again, or I was feeling so discouraged and now I have hope or I was dealing with this "thing" and now I know God is going to take care of it." There is an element about people coming together with expectation and meeting with the King of the Universe that changes us.

We pray for others, we pray for our services, we pray for missions in other countries, we pray for our own families and in the midst of all of this God changes us. For me it is like coming to the well and getting a drink and being refreshed. Connecting with Jesus in prayer and taking part in this divine relationship does something in us as well as through us. Another picture I have of prayer is that it connects us with the river of God. We begin to know what He is interested in and how he wants to handle various situations. We are not relying on our own solutions. We are encouraged to find God solutions to our lives.

Disciples should always pray and not give up. There are hopeless situations we find ourselves in or our friends in. Jesus encourages us to always pray. When things don't immediately change we can have a tendency to give up. We say often, prayer puts Gods super into our natural. Sometimes that takes time and at other times exact timing is involved.

After a moving worship set by the Elife Band, we moved on to pray. We prayed for Keith Beasley who was in an accident last year and has been in a coma since then. His wife and son are left to carry on without Keith with them. An impossible situation but God can use in great ways.

We also prayed for marriages last night. Gods grace is not just for some marriages. God will give his grace in any marriage situation. We prayed that God would put His super into every specific natural situation of marriages.

We prayed for those who had walls up and could not sense the Fathers love. Those that struggled with self hate. We prayed God would break down any of those walls.

We also took time to pray for various missionaries on the mikes tonight. We had about 10 - 12 people come up and do that.

We believe we are changing history one prayer at a time.
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17 first time commitments this past weekend. God continue to bring people into your kingdom.

Adoration: Giving Prayer the Right Focus

2010-05-12T09:38:00.002-05:00

On Monday nights we try to set up an environment that is conducive for prayer, but even more than that we try and set up an environment that is conducive for the human heart to encounter God in prayer.

Worship is at the front end of prayer. About a year and a half ago we added worship time to the front end of prayer. For us this usually means 3 or 4 songs that lean more toward intimacy. There were a few comments when this happened that we were cutting down on our prayer time, but actually we were creating a time where the human heart could connect with God in Adoration and get in tune with who he is.

Many times prayer is begun from the vantage point of what we need, when in actuality the proper place to begin prayer is with a focus on who God is. Recently I hear one of our missionaries say "Don't tell God how big your problem is, tell your problem how big your God is." The premise of this is depending on God and putting our focus on how big he is. We have found that at Monday Night Prayer, when we begin in worship we put our minds on how Big our God is and it brings the correct perspective to all else.

Another facet of starting prayer with Adoration is that adoration is a catalyst to connecting with God in real and tangible ways. It is hard to fake telling God you love him. An amazing thing happens as we begin to get vulnerable and intimate with our God, we begin to encounter His amazing love for us. This is a place where people are truly changed. They encounter a real love, not one told in stories, or one memorized. It isn't a head knowledge of Gods love. It isn't a belief that happens because of an intellectual assent to facts. It is a true relationship, a true encounter with God. This kind of encounter transforms us.

Another thing we have found helpful in preparing peoples hearts to focus in prayer is playing more intimate worship music before and after the actual prayer time. The music creates an atmosphere of encounter that people pick up on as soon as they enter the building. Again most of this music is adoration. We have people who will come early and just sit and listen and connect with God before anything formal ever begins.

Hearing Answers to Prayer

2010-04-29T10:17:00.001-05:00

Our Prayer time a week ago focused on a trip to India that some Experience Life people had gone on earlier this year. We had our usual time of worship, went into some prayer topics for people to pray where they were.

The India team shared about the warfare that happened at the beginning of their trip, how God honors true obedience and how God is stirring in them a heart for peoples of the world.

As time has moved on at Experience Life we are getting to see answers to prayer we prayed in times past come to fruition now. We have prayed that God would use us in reaching nations. And going on two and a half years of age as a church, we have seen people go to China twice, India twice and Southern Mexico. This year we have more trips planned to Mexico and Guatemala. We pray that we can serve the gospel in other countries as well as our own city.

Another area that we see prayer making a difference is the number of first time commitments to Christ. Since before Christmas the number of people that are taking that step in their lives has almost doubled from the norm before that. It encourages us to continue to pray. Individual prayer changes us and corporate prayer changes our cities, regions and even nations.

Our prayer target this year for Monday Night Prayer was to have over 300 in attendance. The two previous weeks we did that. We aren't focused on numbers, but we get excited that people are hungry to pray and seek God. Great revivals always begin with prayer.

Awakened Hearts

2010-04-19T15:11:00.000-05:00

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

Thanks: A Right Heart in Prayer

2010-04-12T14:19:00.000-05:00

Psalms 95 pretty much sums up what our Monday Night Prayer looked like this past week.

¹ Come, let us sing to the Lord!
      Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
² Let us come to him with thanksgiving.
      Let us sing psalms of praise to him.
³ For the Lord is a great God,
      a great King above all gods.

We came into the evening with thankful hearts. We prayed, we prepared and God moved greatly upon us for an off the chain Easter. We had over 4500 people with 124 first time commitments that we know of. So many people were moved as we shared the story of "the" ultimate fighter, Jesus Christ.He also enabled us to go into our community and serve the with over 3200 man hours this past week.

So we celebrated by spending 20 minutes in worship and then we allowed people to share God stories about Easter and Servolution. We had about 10 - 15 people come to the mike and share with us. We spent some time appreciating the many volunteers that gave so graciously of their time this past week.

Thanksgiving is a prayer that is often overlooked as prayer. It puts our hearts in the right place before God. Thanksgiving recognizes it is all about Him. With thanksgiving we are reminded how God is the giver of life and grace and peace.

Prayer From the Tower

2010-04-12T14:00:00.000-05:00

In the short life of Experience Life we realize that Easter weekend is a key time in the life of our church. Our mission is for people to experience life by experiencing Jesus, community and service. Each Easter more people visit churches than any other time of the year. Because we are trying to reach the unchurched our Easter is enormous. We have seen many make first time commitments to Christ and alongside that we have seen a whole lot of spiritual warfare, therefore the need for extra prayer during this season.

So on good Friday we had an extra prayer time with two objectives in mind. Pray for Experience Life and pray for the city as Easter is upon us.

The NTS Tower is a strategic place in the city of Lubbock. It is the highest building in Lubbock and has windows around 3 sides so it overlooks the city. You get to see the city as you pray. We had 73 people come and pray. We prayed for those involved in our services and then each person was given a list of the churches in the city and we looked out upon the city and prayed over these churches.

We continue to be convinced that personal prayer changes individuals but corporate prayer changes cities, regions and even nations.

A Movement of Prayer

2010-03-23T09:31:00.002-05:00

This month we have seen God bring many new people to our Monday Night Prayer Gathering at Experience Life. We moved out into the rink the first week in March and our attendance has been above 200 since. Numbers for numbers sake isn't our goal, but developing an army of people who are calling out to God is.

It is obvious to myself and our leadership at Experience Life that this is not something we have put together. I have been around the block a few times and you don't get over 200 people coming weekly to pray by sending out fliers or making announcements. Something amazing is taking place. God is showing up on Monday nights in a skating rink as people are humbling themselves and seeking Him.

We continue to see many first time commitments to Christ in our weekend services, we believe prayer is the catalyst that is behind what is happening. We continue to see and hear story after story of life change in people each week. Again as hard working and dedicated as our staff is, as incredible as our people are in serving each week, we just can't make those things happen. Life change happens as God steps into our lives and puts His super into our natural.

Each week God gives us guidance on specific groups to pray for. We try and pray for people in the marketplace because we believe this is a key place God can touch people. We pray for specific ministries within our church, and we pray for felt needs in people. In past weeks we prayed for those in the health care industry, we have prayed over our kids, we've prayed for those who have lost trust due to broken relationships in their past, we have prayed for those on the mission field. These are a few examples of prayer items God has directed us to.

And each week we continue to hear answers to prayers we have been praying. We continue to pray that in our day and in our time Gods name would be great among us and that He would show up in our lives with His works.

Answers to prayer and comments from past few weeks
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37 first time commitments to Christ

I always feel very blessed & happy when I'm here. I can feel the Lord here always!!

Very encouraging! Thank you for all that you do. Way to listen and serve.

Awesome! This service hit just what I was going through.

Extending Our Reach

2010-03-02T11:15:00.000-06:00

For months now the room we have been using for prayer has been full. We cram chairs close together with little room between them just so we can more people in. There is usually a sense of expectation in the room as corporate prayer takes off each night.

Last night we took the next step of seeing God grow our prayer gathering. We moved out into the Skating rink which is where we hold our weekend services. As with many things we have done at Experience Life, it seems that when we move to reach more people more people come. Last night was no different as 208 people came to spend an hour in prayer.

I shared at the beginning of the night that prayer invites Gods power and presence into the life situations of men and women with the result being many peoples history gets changed. We believe our corporate prayer gathering is actually changing history.

We had a panel of people share why prayer was significant for them and some of their personal experience with Monday Night Prayer. We heard how prayers had been answered and how people had encountered God personally during this time.

Chris Galanos, our lead pastor, then got up and shared about the vision of prayer that was part of the planting of Experience Life. From day one they prayed at Chris home. As they went public in the Skating Rink they began with a handfull of people meeting weekly to pray. That handfull has now grown to over 200.

Chris reminded us that "closet prayer changes lives, but corporate prayer changes cities and even nations." Our goal is to see 300 people praying weekly by year end and by 2018 to fill Jones Stadium with Lubbock believers calling out to God for renewal and revival in our region.

We then prayed for many things. We have added worship videos 15 minutes before prayer begins as a devotional prayer time and worship video 15 minutes after for extended prayer for people.

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What we are thankful for this past week:

32 first time commitments to Christ.

Comments:

I love it here! I'm hooked for life now!
Great Message!
Awesome! The presence of the Lord was really strong!
Set up was awesome! There is nothing more encouraging than seeing God's family working together!

When You Don't Want to Leave

2010-02-27T15:05:00.000-06:00

This past Monday night there was a winter storm warning out and we wondered if we should cancel Monday night prayer. It wasn't icey on the roads yet so we decided to go ahead and have prayer. I expected it to be down a little in numbers. But no, people are hungry for Gods presence. At prayer on Monday nights we continue to experience a strong presence of God in our gathering.

The past two weeks as I have sat down to pray during our devotional prayer time that precedes corporate prayer I quickly recognize God is there in a tangible way. There are times when I would rather not facilitate prayer because I just want to be still and soak it all in.

This night we had extended worship. On the last Monday of each month the focus is intimacy with God so we spend more time in adoration and waiting on His presence and a little less on supplication. It is a night we focus on praying for revival for West Texas. Our team has been using a new song from Shane and Shane called "Worthy of Affection". This is a song that people at prayer really connect with.
At the end of our worship time we spent some time being quiet in His presence.

Then there were three people that read a portion of the bible and then prayed over that portion and we opened mikes for others to pray into those verses. The first was Psalm 19 which speaks of the law of the Lord, The second was from Psalm 25 and the third from Isaiah 64 where Isaiah is asking God to open the heavens and come down. We had many who followed this, praying for God to move upon us.

It was one of those nights where you don't want to leave. I didn't want to close prayer. I knew it was snowing outside and we needed to let people go home but God was so in the place. Many people caught me later and voiced the same: "I don't want to leave tonight." There is something amazing that happens when the tangible presence of God touches our lives, we don't want to leave.

Jesus we love it when you love us and we love loving you back.

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Thanksgiving:
12 salvations this week and 20 last week.

comments:
•Today in church my thoughts about God changed and now I want to believe in HIM!!
•This church has made my husband want to come!!
•Awesome! Eye opening! REAL!
•Thank you for making me feel like I belong.

Is anybody laughing at you ? MNP Reflections

2010-02-04T14:45:00.000-06:00

Reflections from Monday night prayer this week. . .

Celebrating over 70 first time commitments to Christ in the last three week. This never gets old !

Experience Life had another record breaking attendance weekend, 2950. Numbers aren't our goal, life change in Christ is.

Victor John, one of our missionary partners from India was with us.

· If nobody is laughing at your vision, it's probably not from God.: V.J.

· One pastor/evangelist had his chickens stolen one day. He prayed about the situation. Late the next night the thieves brought back the chickens. Their explanation was that since they stole the chickens they had gotten diarrhea. V.J.

· Prayer target for their ministries in India: By 2018, 30 million people coming to Christ.

Fear will try and keep us from Gods vision for us. Confront those fears and be made whole.

A man visited our prayer gathering. He went back to his church in Seattle and began a weekly prayer gathering there. The results: For the first time in years some people committed their lives to Christ. A son and father were reconciled. A financial need was met for the church.

Prayer focus:

· Praying for people to be healed from physical problems.

· Praying for God to continue to do what He is doing and bring even more.

· Praying for God to continue the work of people being reconciled to others.

· Praying for the courage to forgive those who have wronged us.

Comments from the weekend:

I forgave my Dad today. (this college student also committed their life to Christ for the first time)
We need tissues ! Everyone's crying ! :)
Breathless!
Unforgettable!

Seeking His Face, Not His Hands

2010-01-26T11:38:00.000-06:00

Being part of quickly growing church has its challenges. There is much to do, many people have questions, many have needs. Prayer is a key component of seeing God enable people supernaturally to meet these challenges.

There is a temptation that every Monday night becomes a time to pray over the list of needs we have. This is the reason we needed a Monday night like this past one. Our focus was "seeking Gods face, not His hands. This is a theme the Lord dropped in my heart this week and it resonated with our Monday night crowd. We had our usual time of worship. People sang with fervor as we concluded worship with "Glory to God". We followed with time waiting in His presence. This was a targeted waiting as people were telling God of their hunger and thirst for Him.

We moved on by reading a couple of stories of how God moved powerfully in times past. One story was of Evan Roberts, a key leader in the Wales revival in the early 19th century, whom God visit him in the night for three to four months straight. Gods love would come so powerfully he didn't know if he could stand any more. We read of Charles Finney. His account was of a time where he felt waves of liquid love flow through his body as he came face to face with Jesus.

After reading these accounts we opened the microphones for anyone to come up and pray that God would encounter us in revival. 15 - 20 people came forward and prayed. Prayers like "God, in our day and in our time, would you show yourself", "God, let this be the last one, let there be no need for another revival because this one just keeps going", "Lord would you move in West Texas in way that is historical, let us be the ones whom you visit", "Lord we ask for you to use us in saving souls". There were others who repented of sin. This lasted for about 30 minutes.

Andrea Morey then shared her story about how God had used the prayers of people to help her in her battle with anorexia. She had forgotten what Gods love was like and had recently experienced again the love of God. Through prayer God opened a door for 18,000 of medical expenses to be given to her also.

We closed with people praying for others with prayer needs. It was really refreshing not to be praying through our list of needs and seeking His face this night.

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First Time Decisions: 23

Comments:

Amazing! Pastor Chris spoke to my heart with specific examples of questions I've been facing!!

A lady that has been filling out prayer requests each week wrote: "Husband did not go through with our divorce! He recommitted his life to Christ Tuesday morning! Thank you for the prayers!"

Nourishing!

30 Days to Live

2010-01-23T15:23:00.000-06:00

The series Chris is doing on the weekends is called "30 Days to Live". What if you had 30 days to live ? Would you learn to pray ? Would you pray more ? Prayer changes history so the more we do it, the more people are impacted with what God has for their lives. This is a great reason to come to Monday Night Prayer.

Monday night again was a full house of Experience Life people who come to pray.
The band has been doing a new song by Shane and Shane called "Worthy of Affection". One of the lines says "Let adoration fill this place". This described the atmosphere or worship Monday night as adoration filled the place. At the end of that time, I encouraged people to let their voices fill the place with adoration. There are many nights that you don't want to leave the place of worship and on focusing on Gods presence. Some nights we will sing another song and on others we want to move on to prayer and pray for the many requests we have.

Our focus on prayer was on families in our church who are going through trying seasons. Especially finding out about children who have lifelong diseases, so we spent time praying for those families. We prayed again for Gods favor on the vision we feel He has given us in 2010. We prayed for many specific nations of the world as third Mondays have a missions focus. We also prayed for Mike and Terri McCombs a couple we support in Guatemala.

In our ministry time we focused on people in the marketplace who were in retail sales. We prayed for anyone with a sense that God has called them to missions. We prayed for all of the college students in attendance and then for anyone who wanted prayer.

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Jan 16, 17th

First Time Commitments: 28
Baptisms 8

Comments:
What a blessing to watch people baptized on a regular basis! Wow!!

Great message! Praise God! The message brought me close to tears. It really spoke to my Spirit.

Nourishing. The enthusiasm of living with Christ is a nourishing fill each week!

Overwhelming! Life Changing!

I am PUMPED and can't wait for my family to get involved!

I really enjoyed this experience and it was needed. My spirits have been lifted!

If ...

2010-01-21T09:30:00.000-06:00

2 Chronicles 7:14 begins with a little word, if. Yet it is such a large word. The movement of God hinges on this word "if". This verse goes on to say

"If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land."

At Experience Life we are believing God for a big vision this year. We are asking that we could be part of 1000 people coming to know Christ for the first time. We are believing God for many to be touched in 2010. This vision for 2010 hinges on "If".

Monday nights is a big part of that if. We are attempting to humble ourselves, pray, seek Gods face and turn from our wicked ways. We are seeing that as we seek Him, He is found. We spend time on Monday nights in worship and prayer and are impacted by a real presence of God that meets us in that place. Our second Monday of the month was standing room only in our prayer room. We are beginning to ask God what next. Where do we put these people who have come to pray and seek Your face ? What a great challenge to have.

We got to hear a little from Greg Lavo tonight as he shared about answered prayer and opportunities he had to share the gospel on his trip to China recently.

We spent dedicated time with people leading us in praying for our Vision 2010 which Chris shared the previous weekend. One specific prayer caught my attention as we were praying for God to encounter His people with His power. We prayed for new commitments, new members, baptisms, our prayer gathering, new lifehouses (small groups) and new life transformation groups.

During our prayer ministry time we prayed for one of our hight school groups and for anyone who had a need that night.

It seems we are pursuing the "If" of 2 Chronicles 7:14. God continue to grow us in pursuing you. We understand that pride increases as prayer decreases because prayer makes us aware of our need of You.

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Jan 10 Service

First Time Commitments 4

Unique Comments

a visitor from Alabama that visits here about every 3 months to see her grandkids wrote this...
"Very blessed to hear your Vision! I am telling my prayer group in Alabama to agree with you!"

It has taken me 5 years to find a church home outside of my home town. Because of the love God has shown me at Experience Life, I haven't missed in 2 months! I can't wait to see all the blessings in 2010. Thank you for this!

Last Sunday, I had someone from your prayer group pray with me. It was for a new life without guilt and fear. For the last year I had been abused mentally and physically by a man. On Nov. 12, 2009 he got sentenced to 20 years. ** Ever since last Sunday, I feel so relieved and feel like nothing can weigh me down!**

2010, Here We Come

2010-01-05T10:38:00.000-06:00

What a great way to start 2010 Monday Night Prayer. We had a full house. The prayer room was packed. Gods presence was evident. The last song in worship was "Fire fall down". We lingered in His presence at the end of the worship time. John 15:16 came to mind as we soaked in Gods presence. "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and appointed you that you would bear much fruit and that your fruit would remain". Even in our brokenness God has chosen us and will use us. He wants us to produce eternal fruit which only comes from spending time with Him.

We walked through the Lord Prayer in Matt 7, topic by topic. We spent time reading comments from this weeks service and had a couple of stories of what God had done recently. We then had people pray on the mikes that God would grow us in His word, prayer, and in community. We prayed for next weekend where Chris will share the vision of Experience Life for 2010. We prayed for revival in us (intimacy) and revival to us (God showing up in our geographic area).

The time ended as we had people stand who were sick and those who were believing for something specific for God to do in 2010. We had all those around them gather and pray for them.

I am more convinced than ever that prayer is vital to what God wants to do. I am praying we get stronger and more efficient in prayer in 2010.

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Christmas Eve Service

First Time commitments to Christ 25
Baptisms 2

What a blessing! You guys are all amazing and so talented. Thank you for all you do! May unending blessings be poured out on all of you! Merry Christmas!

A life experience and eye opening! (this FTG committed their life to Christ)

"Have had trouble finding a church I connect with but want to find one badly...Awesome band and sermon!" This was a 23 yr old FTG who committed to Christ, wants to volunteer with children, and marked Prayer Gathering interest ~ I think she found a church :)

The first time I visited this church I wrote on the connection card ♫ I still haven't found what I'm looking for ♫ I have now found what I was missing! (He committed his life to Christ!)

Jan. 2 and 3rd service

First Time commitments to Christ 5
Baptisms 8

Comments:

Awesome! I feel God's love! Even in a skating rink!!

It was awesome! I felt at home!

It was awesome :) I have never been so excited to wake up and come to church!

It was a very, very spiritual experience.

I like experiencing life differently! :)

Prayer Celebration 2009

2009-12-21T17:29:00.000-06:00

As a staff we are reading through the Bible in 90 days. As I was going through the Psalms I noticed how they were always encouraged to celebrate Gods goodness. Many of the Psalms were written to be used in corporate worship. It struck me that we should celebrate Gods goodness in all of the amazing ways He answered prayer this past year.

So our newly born Monday Night Leadership Team began to brainstorm about what that would look like and "The Prayer Celebration" was born. The Prayer Celebration began with us decorating the room. We put up some huge posters with the names of God on them and artistically done by one of our artist. We began by sharing with people some of the things God did among us at Experience Life this year: Over 550 first time commitments to Christ, over 250 baptisms, we shared some individual stories of answered prayer. Then we had the full band rocking the house with thanksgiving to God. In between sets we would have individuals come up and share their most exciting time of the past year. One story was the powerful way God moved at two year anniversary at the end of all services as people came up and did cardboard testimonies and we sang "All I Need". Each service left people crying at Gods goodness.

Another was praying over the skating rink where we hold services one night and sensing Gods presence so strongly. It was the first time our people praying circled around the whole rink.

After worship and more sharing we went into a time of communion where people reflected on all God has done in 2009. Finally Chris, our lead pastor came up and shared from His heart about the year. He shared his appreciation to all the people of Experience Life and those who had been a part of corporate prayer this year.

We appreciated some of our volunteers and finally gave a rousing standing ovation for the one who had made it all possible: Jesus. We closed with one more song.

It has been an incredible year. God has been faithful through the good and the touch times. I am looking forward to seeing how we grow in prayer in 2010.

Prayer the Past Few Weeks

2009-12-10T11:26:00.000-06:00

The key constant of Monday Night Prayer this year has been the awareness we all have of the presence of God. It is a humbling thing to be in a place where everyone believes God is in the place and working in hearts and lives of the people there.

In the past few weeks we have been privileged to celebrate how God has graciously moved among us in 2009. At the first of the year, we prayed that God would give us 500 people who had committed their lives to Christ for the first time. Two weeks ago we surpassed that. We recognize that this is a God thing. It wasn't something we were smart enough to do on our own. It wasn't something we could have planned. We prayed a prayer we thought was a "Gods will" prayer and God amazingly brought the fruit. Sometimes in the last months we surpassed 200 baptisms. I tell people in prayer it is like moving from awe to awe. I can't seem to get a grasp on how God is moving on one thing and we see Him touching people again and we have to move on to that amazing thing.

We continue to grow with our prayer teams. At Monday night prayer we are now asking those people who have been through our initial prayer training to come to the front and side of the room and be available to pray for various people.

This past week (1st Monday in December) we prayed for people who felt like giving up in some area of their lives. We also prayed for those who were dry in their walk with God. This prayer time followed worship at the front end of Monday night. We had people raise their hands if this prayer request fit them and then had various people pray for them on the mike.

As 2009 is winding down, I find myself seeking God for what lies ahead in 2010. As prayer pastor I am excited. We are starting the year 2010 by bringing our prayer service to the first weekend. The services for the first weekend in 2010 will actually be a prayer service for our whole congregation. We will be doing this twice in 2010. Prayer is a priority for us.
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We are Thankful for:

Commitments to Christ 11
Interested in Baptism 1

Unique Comments:

Thank you for sharing His Crazy Love.
Super job - you guys rock!
This is a reminder of God's crazy true love for us!
Fulfilling!
Great! :) Great Reminder for Me!
All I can say is Thank You!
Very Uplifted!
Amazing! Got Holy Spirit goose bumps! :)

Getting to See the Results of Prayer: Monday Night Prayer November 09, 2009

2009-11-16T16:30:00.000-06:00

Each Monday we share highlights of the last week and comments from our services. This week we had some great stories of how God had answered some of our prayers. Kerri Ladd shared about their journey with their daughter Amanda. Amanda had a lung transplant that started giving her problems so ended up having to have another transplant and went through some very traumatic days. So traumatic in fact that the doctors said if things don't get better within two weeks it could be all over. At the end of two weeks things were still on the bubble. A nurse approached the Ladds and told them she felt God was telling her to encourage them not to give up, not to look at the appearance of things and trust in him. Soon after things began to look up.

We spent time praying for children and families that were going through some of these kinds of struggles.

Another story was of a mom named Tori. Here daughter Kimbree has had many struggles also and is in a halo.

Tori said that she had a dream a few nights ago that Kimbree (her daughter) had entered a drawing contest at Scottish Rites and she'd won 1st place in the drawing. Tori said that the drawing, in her dream, was of a horse. Tori said that it felt like the dream lasted all night. At 8:30 the next morning a lady from Scottish Rites called and asked if she was Kimbree's mom. Tori said that she was. The lady then said that Kimbree had entered a drawing contest for a Christmas card contest and that Kimbree had won first place! Tori had forgotten that Kimbree had even entered the contest which was back in the summer. Anyway, Kimbree's drawing of a rocking horse will be on the Christmas cards that Scottish Rites sells! Kimbree's caption that she wrote for the card says, "Have a rockin' Christmas!"

An amazing story of how God gave a mom a dream to encourage her.

We spent time praying for our services, specifically that God would bring in people who didn't know Him and that they would commit themselves to Jesus.

Our prayer teams prayed for people who were discouraged and for our lifehouse leaders.

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We are Thankful for:

First Time Decisions:

Commitments to Christ 25
Interested in Baptism 5

Unique Comments:
• Kelsey from the children's check in area was very helpful. :) (Just thought you ought to know this one!)
• Experience Life Guys, This church is such a blessing to me. I applaud what God is doing here. Great music, great answers, great God!
• FAQ today showed me that I was truly ready! Thank you E-Life!!
• I have a wonderful time here. It's my happiest day when I come to service.
• Wonderful and Eye Opening!
• Right on the mark! It's the message I needed. (this individual committed her life to Christ this weekend!)

Give Thanks: Monday Night Prayer November 2nd

2009-11-16T16:19:00.000-06:00

We began with a different opening than usual this week. Instead of our opening worship set, we began giving people a chance to think of reasons they were thankful. There were four pieces of black board around the room. We also left 2 different color post its in every chair. Everyone was invited to write three of life's small things that they were thankful for and post it on the board. Responses like Hagen Daz ice cream, or sunsets in West Texas, iphone apps, or Starbucks mocha popped up. On the other post it we asked people to write two things they appreciated about God.

I explained that Thanksgiving is appreciating what God has done and Adoration is appreciating who God is. We let some encouraging music run in the background as we did this.

We celebrated all who had committed their lives to Christ for the first time this week and then went into our worship set.

we spent some time praying over some corporate prayer requests and then prayed for the individual requests that we give to people as they come in the door each night.

Our prayer teams prayed for those involved in childrens ministry and anyone who had a need.

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We are Thankful for:

First Time Decisions:

CC 6
Baptisms 5

Unique Comments:
• from 5th grader: "I have been reading my bible more since I have been here. I want to follow God for all my life!"
• Great! What a refreshing, REAL look at the word!
• Starting to question my faith...in GOOD ways!
• I got a full time job!!! Thanks for praying over the last few months.
• I wanted to share something with you. I interviewed 2 families today that said the reason they are joining the church is because of the children's ministry. Both families said their kids are learning so much and love coming each week and they have visited other churches that their kids didn't get much out of. They chose Elife because of our children's ministry.

A Little Crazyness - Monday Night Prayer 092609

2009-10-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

We arrived at the Sportsplex tonight only to find the electricity was off in that portion of the city. The Sportsplex which is a giant skating rink with some other rooms has very few windows. So we began the process of deciding how we could do prayer in a cold, dark sportsplex with no childcare.

We decided on having an abbreviated prayer time with candles and give parents a choice to head on out or keep their kids with them during this time.

There was something refreshing about having no microphones, no video projectors, and no heat. It brought everything back to the heart of the matter: PRAYER

Mark did pull out his guitar and led us in a couple of worship songs. We had our Large Group Prayer Team stand out to one side and pray for anyone who wanted prayer. We had everyone individually pray through some requests: pray for family, our services the next weekend and for people to come to Christ for the first time.

We had an abbreviated prayer time, but an encouraging one.

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We are Thankful for:

First Time Decisions:

CC 6
Baptisms 5

Unique Comments:

Praise Jesus! I know I need to pay a friend's mortgage now!

Something changed in me today! Thank you!

I am amazed by the growth and love that is pouring out of this church.

Awesome! I love your worship and freedom in this church!

Great job guys! Thanks for sharing. What a blessing you ALL are. May God continue to do amazing things in each of your lives and at ELife!

"Large Group Prayer Teams" go into action - Monday Night Prayer 101909

2009-10-27T10:04:00.000-05:00

I was really excited about this Monday night as we had our LGPT in action for the first time. LGPT is our "Large Group Prayer Team". We had a training time for those interested in being on this prayer team in September. I'll share more about that in another post. Monday night, instead of having everyone in the room pray for various needs. We asked that our staff and support staff stand and for anyone in major transition to stand. We then had our LGPTers go to them and spend time praying for them.

We continue to see the devotional prayer time before corporate prayer set the tone. There is something about people coming in early and preparing their hearts for prayer that helps corporate prayer take off quickly at 7:00 pm.

People were connected in worship tonight. Our worship team for Monday nights are our primary worship team from the weekend. They have varying musicians with them each night. One reason our prayer time works is because our lead pastor is strongly behind the this time and is our whole staff.

After three songs I shared about the story of Jacob going to the land of Goshen as Joseph had asked. He was uprooting from a familiar place and going to a new place. I encouraged people to be willing to let God lead them to new places. Interesting too that as Jacob headed to Goshen he stopped at an alter made years before. There are times when we move to a new thing that God wants us to remember the old things He has done. We remember His faithfulness, we remember His promises to us and we remember His love toward us. We prayed for a moment about this.

We had a testimony for one of our college students on how God led her to go home one summer from college and spend the summer praying for her family. She shared how God moved powerfully in that summer in their relationships. She had to give up going on a short term missions trip to do this.

Another of our monthly focuses in foreign missions. We let people come to microphones and pray for specific missionaries and countries. God has developed many in our body who have a heart for the nations. We usually have 10 or more who will come and pray for various countries or missions.

Another night of Gods faithfulness to us as we sought Him in prayer.

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Thanks given for:

18 first time commitments to Christ.
18 people wanting to be baptized.

Connection Card Responses:

Unique Comments:

I feel Christ is really speaking through our pastors!

Way to go staff and how awesome you are as examples as servants for us all.

I feel so welcome here!

A new experience...5 out of 5 stars! ;)

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Strong Presence of God - Monday Night prayer 101209

2009-10-13T10:20:00.000-05:00

We continue to see a strong presence of God among us as we come together to pray on Monday Nights. Last night was no exception. One of our key prayer people told me that when they entered the room at 6:30 they were immediately struck by an awareness of Gods presence.

Worship tonight was two slower songs. "I exalt thee" which is a vintage song and "the more I seek you" from Gateway worship. The lights were dimmed and there was a incredible peace for me indicating Gods presence. I could hear sobs to my right and God was moving in someones heart and then someone to the left sobbing also.

Our prayer intern, Matt, really felt led to encourage people that God was there in a powerful way and that He was breaking chains upon people. I got up and had people linger more in Gods presence. I had Mark and Brandon sing I exalt thee again.

As we consistently do we went into a time of thanksgiving where we hear answers to prayer. Everyone gave a great round of applause for at least 30 seconds when the announcement came that we had 28 salivations this past weekend. David Eppler, a local pastor from Cityview Fellowship came and shared about 10 minutes on what it is to be an intercessor. An intercessor is one who stands in the gap and helps bridge the gap from a persons reality now to what the reality of Gods will is.

Tim led us in prayer for a young girl who was wrestling with the option of abortion, we prayed for David Eppler and the leadership of Cityview, we prayed for the prayer movements in the city: Pray Lubbock, 24/7 prayer, Remnant and all prayer gatherings of people, we prayed for people to come to Christ this coming weekend, we prayed for our lead pastor.

During our prayer ministry time we prayed for all public servants: mail, govt., police, fire dept, utilities, we prayed for all those who had gone through intercessory training, and then for any need anyone had.

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Thanks given for:

28 first time commitments.
20 people interested in baptism

Comments for the weekend:

I enjoyed it greatly and felt like God was talking to me through Chris.

THANK YOU! Amazing, Uplifting, Encouraging, Just what I needed!

What awesome worship time! Brandon thanks for reading scripture over us!

Awesome! I loved the loving atmosphere!

Off the chain!!!

Celebrating What God is Doing - Monday Night Prayer 091409

2009-09-19T11:12:00.000-05:00

Before our corporate prayer time on Monday nights which meets from 7 - 8, we have been having a devotional prayer time from 6:30 to 6:55. This really helps set the tone for corporate prayer. We have 30 or 40 people who have come to linger with God before corporate prayer takes off at 7. We usually play more intimate worship music over the speakers during this time to set the tone. We encourage people to read their bibles, to worship or just to pray during that time.

Monday Night as most nights people were ready to worship. We had just come off our 2nd anniversary weekend where there were 2650 in attendance. God continues to move in so many people and we hear story after story of life change. With that background you could sense the excitement of people in what God is doing. As we sang "Mighty to Save", "Everything" and "Came to my rescue" people seemed to truly be connecting with God.

We had a huge announcement to make that had so much meaning for us. I wanted that moment to be more that just a "here is an answer to prayer, let's be thankful". I sensed it needed to be a true celebration of our hearts as we heard this announcement. So I spent about 10 minutes sharing about the ways people celebrated. I also wanted it to be light hearted so that people wouldn't feel pressed to celebrate but be released to do that. So I shared on three different levels of celebration: Entry level, mid level, and advanced techniques. Again, we did this in a light hearted way. I had some guys illustrate the chest bump and the tiger pump as advanced techniques of celebration. Then I shared that anyone could use advanced techniques in the next thing I would share if they wanted to. This was all to set up our "Big" announcement. We had taken a risk and prayed for the weekend that 100 people would commit their hearts to Jesus on our second anniversary weekend. I know as a pastor we had prayer meeting every day of the week except Wednesday. And I had everyone stand as we made the announcement. 105 people had made a commitment to Christ for the first time this past weekend. It was a great site to see over 130 of our serious praying people clap, and make noise as they rejoiced in what God had done.

I think all of us continue to be amazed at how our God continues to do amazing things in our church and in our city. This celebration was a highlight for us as we continue to see people make the best decision they will ever make, inviting Jesus Christ to forgive their sins and come be Lord of their lives.

We closed with a worship song tonight.

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Thanks given for:

CC 28
Baptisms 20

Comments:
One of the greatest spiritual experiences I have ever had!

So amazing! It's different-like a breath of fresh air!

Awesome things are happening!

It gets better every week. Thank you!

Very insightful. You are truly inspired by the Lord Yahweh!

A blessing to be here!

Best experience I've ever had! Awesome!

There are not words to describe the way today felt, but it was amazing!

I had a conversation Sat night with a 1st grader that I was working with that was soooo excited because she brought her friend with her for the first time and they were having soooo much fun! The regular attendee looked at her guest and said, "See, I told you it would be fun! Isn't this the most fun ever!" Her friend giggled and smiled and yelled, "YEAH!" (We were singing part of this time, so it was loud :)

Prayer is Growing in the City - Monday Night Prayer 090709

2009-09-19T10:52:00.000-05:00

We had 86 people come to pray on labor day weekend. How awesome is that ? Tonight after an encouraging time of worship we had a couple of people share about prayer times they have started. David Gray who teaches in a city lower school has begun a weekly prayer time with fellow teachers. He shared how prayer affects his school. Then Austin Wideman shared how he and a group of friends had started a prayer time for the high school students of the city. They were given a building to use by Frenship by a church plant. Their numbers jumped from 15 to 40 something the second week.

Cale York a college student shared about how God has called him to get involved in Youth with a Mission. He will be headed to the YWAM Missions base in Australia for training before he goes to serve an unreached people group in the world today.

Chris shared about our two year anniversary coming up the next weekend. We are moving to five services to be able to reach more people. We prayed specifically for 100 people to come to know Christ on that weekend as well as all the others aspects of the weekend.

We ended the night praying for anyone who needed prayer and praying specifically for single moms and stay at home moms.

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thanks given for
6 first time commitments
17 recommitments

Comments:
A breath of fresh air
Great, Pastor was amazing:)
Blew me away!
Wonderful series, great message
Needed to hear all of it. Thanks.

A Night of Intimacy and Prayer - Monday Night Prayer 083109

2009-09-01T10:46:00.000-05:00

Last night was a time where there was such a sense of Gods presence with us as we worshiped and spent time cleansing our hearts before God and then on to various prayer topics.

I was reminded last night of a time when I was about 27 years old. I had just broken up with a girl I was very serious with and was struggling knowing my next step in life. I was very discouraged and broken. During that season I was in church one night and the worship leader came back up to the platform after the service was over and continued to play and lead worship for anyone who wanted to stay. I stayed and soaked in the gracious presence of God that night. I thought to myself right before i left "God I don't want to go back out there to the real world and deal with what I am going through" and I heard in my mind "It's okay, I will be with you". I knew God was saying He would be there as I walked through this tough time. And that season passed and I made it to the other side. I sensed last night the Lord was encouraging some others who were going through hard times emotionally that He would be with them.

We prayed for revival in our midst and in our city last night. We prayed that our two year anniversary coming up would be an amazing time of being in Gods presence.

We prayed that God would make Himself known in our day and in our time.

We ended the time praying for those who struggle with anger.

Logistics that worked tonight:
Turned the lights down to create an atmosphere where people were not as conscientious.

Read through passages in 1 Peter and Ephesians 4 calling us to put away our former ways of life and spent time asking God to show us any ways we were not aligned with Him.

Had everyone envision other parts of the building and pray for the ministries invovlved there

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Thanks given for:
13 first time commitments this week
10 recommitments to Christ

Tim-I needed that laugh! Thanks a lot!

Greatest Experience of my life! (this was a person that committed his life to Christ!)

So very freeing. Grounding!

Very encouraged and pointed to Christ,

Save the Childrens!...Love it! I love how we can praise Jesus, and still have fun! :)

Started Praying for People in the Marketplace - Monday Night Prayer 072109

2009-07-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

Monday night prayer is my favorite time of the week. I guess that's good since I'm the prayer pastor. This Monday did not disappoint. We continue to have a good turnout of people wanting to spend time in devotional prayer from 6:30 - 6:55. There seems to be a calm sweet presence of God as people meditate and pray.

Our theme for tonight is that "nothing is impossible with God". In Luke 1:37 the angel speaks that to Mary after she is told she will have a baby and she is perplexed at this because she is still a virgin.

Worship, again, was a great time of adoring Jesus. We spent time remembering what we have been saved from and then what we have been saved to. We spent time rejoicing at 12 new commitments to Christ and 5 recommitments. We gave God a rousing handclap of praise because we are going to be baptizing over 100 people this coming weekend. How amazing are all the stories that are coming in of how Jesus has encountered peoples lives and they have come to know Him for the first time or they have come back to Him and refocused on following Him.

We prayed for two new ministries. On Monday Nights we will begin to teach all the kids prayer in their classes. We prayed over our childrens ministry as they prepare to do that. Then we prayed for our compassion ministries. Two of our ladies have taken up the point on ministering to people in need, whether a funeral, an ailment, singles moms, and an wide assortment of people who need something tangible. We want to be Gods hands to these.

We prayed for many requests. Our ministry time tonight was to those who are in sales in the marketplace. We also prayed for our youth group trip this week. We prayed for all of those who had been involved in a divorce, whether as a child or an adult. It was a striking site to see the whole room of 146 people engaged in praying for one another towards the end of our time. Something in my heart thought, this is how the body of Christ out to be, giving to one another in prayer.

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Thanks given for:
12 first time commitments
5 rededications

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Things that worked tonight:
Began a time praying for people in the marketplace. Tonight we focused on people in sales. We had people around them lay a hand on their shoulder and pray for encouragement and favor for them. We prayed that they would be a light in their workplace.

Worship at 110% - Monday Night Prayer 071509

2009-07-14T08:26:00.000-05:00

How encouraging to see people come and soak and pray during our devotional prayer time at 6:30 - 6:55. As usual corporate prayer kicked it with a room full of worshipers singing at 110% during our worship set. Connecting our hearts with God in worship has been key to our prayer times. As we sang "How Great is our God" last night I kept thinking that anything opposed to God must be vacating the building as we lifted our voices. And then at the end of our worship set people clapped, giving God a hand. I appreciated that this wasn't the "I'll be kind and give a little clap" type of praise. It was a "God is God and deserves a powerful affirmation" kind of clap.

Colby (one of our interns) sharing about going out on the streets the previous week and how they had a man pray to receive Christ. the man was so moved by this, he had his nephew call later and get wisdom and prayer from our team. We prayed for boldness for our people at prayer a couple of weeks ago and have been praying for people to come to know Christ in our city. This is an answer to those prayers.

We prayed for righteousness to be raised in our city and for wickedness to be uncovered and those involved to be encountered by Jesus and led to know Him.

We prayed for individual needs from prayer requests we received in the services.

We finished with ministry prayer for people at the gathering. We prayed for those who have been having nightmares, those involved in the public schools, and for anyone with a specific need.

It was a little warm last night, but when I asked if it was worth suffering a little heat to be able to change history through prayer we had a strong response that it was well worth it.

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Thanks given for:
5 new committments to Christ this past week and 6 recommittments.
quotes:

Connection Card Comments:

. I'm glad I found a church based on scripture!

. Thanks for making me feel welcome every time I am here.

. I love being here, it releases my stress and worries about everything.

. It was actually a very welcoming place. The first time guest area was a great way to learn more about the church and programs offered.

. Thank you for all that you have done for our family and all of your prayers. Without them, we would not have made it.

. I found employment and I begin tomorrow. Thanks for the prayers! God bless all prayer warriors.

. The Lord blesses those who wait on him and trust in him. The Lord has blessed me with a new job - - God is good all the time & all the time God is good!! Thank You for your prayers for our family.

More People Showing Up At Monday Night Prayer 070609

2009-07-07T08:42:00.000-05:00

We had a full house in the back room Monday night. Our final worship song in the worship set was Mighty to Save. How cool was it to hear and see 129 people all standing and singing at the top of their lungs "Jesus is mighty to save". That type of adoration to God sends chills down my spine. It seems like God reaches into the atmosphere as we engage in worship to Him.

Our devotional thought: When Jesus ran the money changers out of the temple and declared "my house will be called a house of prayer". The next thing he did was pray for the lame and the blind and they were healed. Jesus began by teaching and finished by Doin the stuff he taught about.

We prayed for our Elife interns, the new series Chris will begin next week called "Church on Fire", those who don't know Christ in our city. We opened the mikes for people to pray whatever God put on their hearts. Some prayers were for fathers and men to be strong leaders, for the breaking of addictions in people, confession of sins and our need for God to teach us how to pray, for God to show us how to reach out to the broken in our city.

We prayed over those who have been feeling disconnected with God and not experiencing his love and for those with financial needs and job needs.

We closed by asking anyone who wants more of Jesus to stand to be prayed for and not a soul was left sitting.

We continue to see 15 to 20 people show up for our devotional prayer time at 6:30 - 6:55.
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Thanks given for:
we had 4 first time commitments to Christ this week and 12 who recommitted their lives.

Amanda Ladds recovery from the lung transplant is going well.

Also we prayed for Talon Oechsner who had severe burns. The doctors are sending talon home today. He was supposed to be in the hospital two more weeks. doctors are baffled at his recovery. Were not baffled. We know God answers prayer.

Services: Inspiring, I loved it and will tell my friends! this service hit me like a freight train.

Here We Are Send Us - Monday Night Prayer 062209

2009-06-22T21:17:00.000-05:00

Tonight,

The people really engaged in worship. I continue to be amazed at Gods presence that is so strong during our prayer times. Colby shared about his trip to Rwanda and how God used prayer with their team. He told of several people coming to Christ and one woman who was physically healed of a chronic stomach problem.

We spent time praying for people who don't know Christ in our city to come to know him and that God would bring revival to His people in Lubbock, Texas.

Closing prayer was about people who are called to pray. We had everyone stand who had a call from God to pray for our city. We probably had about 20 people who stood. It is encouraging to see God moving in peoples hearts to pray. We also prayed for anyone with a need they wanted specific prayer about.

Like Isaiah in Isaiah 6 "God here we are send us !"

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Thanks given for:
6 new committments to Christ this past week and 2 recommittments.
quotes:
• Life Changing! (this individual committed his life to Christ, also)
• I visited your church on the recommendation of a friend and it was the best advice I've taken in a very long time!

Highlights this far

2009-06-15T21:08:00.000-05:00

Some of the prayer highlights of this year for us.

First two weeks of June we had 125 and 135 people join us for prayer.
Cruz Pierson was completely healed of cancer the first week of June.
The first night we prayed in the rink there was an incredible presence of the Lord with us.
Worship has been dynamic on Monday Nights and people engaged often.
We have sensed God's presence in our services.
We had 2800 people come to our Easter gathering.
We had 10,000 - 12,000 thousand people come to our Easter Egg drop.
We have had over 200 people find Jesus this year already.
We have people praying during our services on the weekends.

Prayer does make a difference.

The Prayer Key

2009-06-15T21:01:00.001-05:00

Tonight at Monday Night Prayer I shared from Matt 16. Jesus said he gives his people the keys to the kingdom. Prayer is one of those keys. It has the power to unlock (loose) or lock up (bind). Like a key to your car, it really is only useful when you put it in the ignition and turn on the power of the car. You can have a key and never use it.

Using the key of prayer puts the super of God into our natural giving us supernatural results. Why wouldn't we want to pray often. I know left to my own strength I don't have much confidence in how far I can go, but with God giving strength it is not wonder Paul could say "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Tonight we prayed for fathers, for Gods love to be in our services, and we prayed against the drug trafficking in the city of Lubbock. We prayed over prayer requests. We prayed as a group specifically for Amanda Ladd again. We prayed in the rink for Experience Life.

It was cool to see our circle of people praying stretch to the very edges of the rink all the way around. There was a very real sense of Gods tangible presence with us. Many were moved by God during our prayer time, some with encouragement, some with tears.

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2 gave their lifes to Christ
3 rededicated life
Quotes:
• Wonderful message of God's love.
• It was great - can't wait for next week.

My House shall be called a House of Prayer

2009-03-28T11:14:00.000-05:00

We began the evening praying for the individual prayer cards that we get each week in the services.

We showed a video of Jim Cymbala speaking on prayer tonight. It is a powerful video. Some statements he made were:

The church was born while people prayed.

The earmark of a true believer as seen in the Bible when Annanias was being convinced that Paul had become a believer. It was said that "he prays"
Paul told Timothy first of all prayers and supplications should be lifted up for all men.
How you do Gods work (through the power of the Spirit from prayer) is as important as doing Gods work.
The minute prayer ends in a church, the Spirit lifts.
Gods house should have the aroma of prayer about it.

The final portion of our time was spent as people called out to God to let Experience Life be a house of prayer. There was a real sense of Gods presence as we prayed.

Answers to Prayer
One testimony tonight came from a lady within our body who had been walking with a walker for the past three years who God touched and she is walking without her walker now. We had seven first time commitments to Christ this past week and 8 recommitments.

How Great is our God

2009-03-16T21:20:00.000-05:00

We had probably one of the biggest prayer gatherings we have had tonight. We added the mission trip group from Berg Community church who is in Lubbock this week on a service trip. We began prayer for our Easter outreaches and prayed for Easter services for churches all over the city of Lubbock.

I shared about five various forms of prayer which we include in our prayer service:
1. Worship
2. Thanksgiving
3. Intercession
4. Petition
5. Confession

A theme that set the tone for the evening was "How Great is our God". No matter what the situation we can pray and believe because our God is Great.

Answers to Prayer
We celebrated that a couple of hundred were saved this past week at the "Get Motivated" seminar at the United Spirit Arena. There was an intercessory prayer team from the city that prayed all day at the United Spirit Arena as the seminar was going on. We had five first time commitments to Christ this week and five recommitments.

Monday Night

2009-03-10T23:49:00.000-05:00

Monday night we prayed through Jeremiah 9:23,24

²³ This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
or the powerful boast in their power,
or the rich boast in their riches.
²⁴ But those who wish to boast
should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
who demonstrates unfailing love
and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
I, the Lord, have spoken!

It is easy for us to cry out for help in the areas we are weak in, but at times we can forget to ask God for help in those areas that are going well or that we are more efficient in doing. As a church that is having some success we don't want to begin to subtly think we are doing anything on our own merit or by our technique. We understand it is God who works all in all. So we asked for help in some of the parts of our church that we are doing okay in.

Prayer Blog

2009-03-10T23:44:00.001-05:00

The objective of this blog is to chronicle our journey in prayer at Experience Life. This would include topics God has led us to pray, answered prayers and memorable moments.