Focus and Guidance in Prayer

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

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

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.
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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

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.
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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

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

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.

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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

"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

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.