Feel the Power!

This article appears in the November 2014 issue of the Wheatland Parish Newsletter.

We had our annual Charge Conference on October 12.  This is a meeting we have once a year with our District Superintendent.  People from all three churches of our parish come to it.  We talk about where we are as a parish and where we’re going into the future.

One of the things, Randy Cross, our District Superintendent, talked about this year was the power of prayer.  I know that’s something many of us believe in--I hope all of us do.  So, I want to ask you to pray specifically for the churches of this parish.  I suspect many of you have already been doing that for some time.  But I’d like to ask you to include some specific things in your prayers.

For one thing, please pray for God’s help in reaching the unchurched children of our parish.  As you know, that’s been a prayer emphasis of this parish for several months now.  And we are making progress in that area.  But there is much more that we can do.  There is much more that we need to do.  There are many more unchurched children out there.  Please pray that God will help us reach them.  Please pray that God will guide us and direct us and inspire us and put the desire in all of our hearts to reach those children.  And please pray that God will touch the hearts of those children, too.

Please pray that God will help us reach out in mission, both to the community and around the world.  Sometimes people look at those things as an either-or, but they don’t have to be.  We have a responsibility to help with local projects, but we also have a responsibility to do what we can do on projects that go far beyond this parish.  We are already doing that, of course, but we should never be satisfied with what we’re doing and decide that we’re doing enough.  There is always more we can do.  Please pray that God will touch our hearts in this area, too.

Please pray that God will help us put the addition to the Gettysburg church to good use.  Yes, that’s a Gettysburg project, but it will also house the parish offices, so in a way, it’s a parish project, too.  Please pray that God will help us use that addition wisely, so that we can use it to do God’s work throughout the parish.  After all, there’s nothing inherently sacred about a building.  A building is just a building.  It’s just metal and wood and sheetrock and whatever else goes into a building.  What makes a building sacred is what we do there.  Please pray that God will lead us to use that addition in ways that will serve God and will help us bring people to God.

Please don’t think this is an exclusive list.  There are many, many other things you could pray for in regard to this parish.  Please feel free to include those things in your prayers, too.  In fact, I’d like to specifically ask you to do so.  If you feel God nudging you to pray for something, please do it.  And while you don’t have to, you are also free to let me know about what it is that God has nudged you to pray for.  It may be that God is trying to tell the entire parish something.  It may be something that the entire parish needs to pray for.  In fact, it may be something that the entire parish needs to do something about.

           Thanks for all your prayers.  They are incredibly important to the future of this parish.  When we pray for the chance to serve God, God will always answer that prayer and will give us the chance to serve in unexpected and exciting ways.