Hearing Answers to Prayer

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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

When You Don't Want to Leave

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

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!