Good morning, Crossroads Family !
I’m really excited about what’s ahead for us the rest of this month and on into 2025 ! In this email, I want to share a few notes from last Sunday’s elders meeting and also some encouragement and helps for our Day of Prayer coming up on January 20.
Several in our church are either fighting winter illnesses or are dealing with other physical issues right now; thanks for praying for each other !
Elders Meeting Notes
- We opened our meeting with some discussion about how we can make this new Elder Board a good one. What are our expectations, how can we hold each other accountable, and what are some goals for the church for this year ?
- We discussed upcoming activities, including the new men’s fellowship & study group (which was named “Recharge”).
- We discussed needs of ministry teams in the church and how we can support them.
- We discussed some of the regular Sunday morning routines like counting the offering and closing the building up each week.
- Some facility-related discussion : We will purchase some solar-powered lighting for the church sign. We will attempt each Sunday to leave open the door leading to the break room and outdoors in order to have a safer and more easily-accessed emergency exit if needed. We discussed the limited amount of space we have for storing things.
- We closed our meeting by sharing some prayer requests and by praying for those needs. The elders will meet again on Sunday, February 16.
Day of Prayer & Fasting, January 20
We want to commit to praying together on January 20, as your time and schedule permit. I’ll have some broad categories of prayer requests in this coming Sunday’s bulletin, but let me give some other helps and encouragements here, too. In addition to your own personal praying during the day, the church building will be open at noon and at 6 pm for some group praying. Feel free to come join a few others at those times !
If you’re able and would like to include fasting with your praying, that would be wonderful. Please contact Catherine Moss if you would like some help in that area. Catherine has written a short outline of reasons and helps for fasting and would be happy to make that available to you.
Fasting brings humility ; fasting eradicates unbelief and increases faith ; fasting brings direction for ministry ; fasting can bring physical, emotional, and spiritual breakthroughs as we pray. Fasts in the Old Testament were often in response to crises ; we see this in the lives of Esther (Esther 4:16-17), David (2 Samuel 12:16-24), Daniel (Daniel 1:8), and others. In the New Testament, Anna the prophetess (Luke 2:22-38), Jesus (Matthew 4:1-11), and the believers at Antioch (Acts 13:2) all fasted.
If you choose to fast on the 20th, it could be an all-day fast or a partial-day fast. Or you could fast during a single meal while committing that time to prayer and communion with God. Some of us graze on food so often during the day, we could simply take an hour away from food and other distractions that normally crowd out God’s presence from our lives.
Some helps for spending all or part of a day in prayer :
- Be sure to use your Bible. Letting God have the first word in prayer is always the best idea. What we read in the Bible gives us knowledge of things we ought to pray for and how to pray for them. Be sure to include praise, thanksgiving, and confession of sin. Some of you are familiar with the idea of ACTS : Adoration (Praise), Confession, Thanks, Supplication (Requests). That simple acronym can give us an order / plan for praying, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
- Read through some of the psalms. Sometimes you can substitute your own name, or someone else’s name, in the place of “I” and “me” found in the psalms and turn those psalms into very personal prayers.
- Use lyrics to songs to help you pray. Two hymns that helped me recently in my praying are “We Come, O Christ, to Thee” and “Higher Ground.” If you’re unsure how to pray, make the words of songs your prayer. You could even pray those words out loud to the Lord ! (The lyrics to just about any hymn can be found at http://www.hymnary.org.).
- Use prayers that are found in the Bible.
- We read two of Paul’s prayers this past Sunday morning — Ephesians 1:15-23 (a prayer for enlightenment), and Ephesians 3:14-21 (a prayer for enablement).
- Use Jacob’s prayer, spoken at a time of great fear in his life, in Genesis 32.
- Remember the times Jesus asked people, “What do you want me to do for you ?” (found twice in Mark 10, for example). Your prayer could simply be to answer that question in a thoughtful and honest way. He’s inviting you to pray !
- 1 Corinthians 9:24 and 1 Corinthians 15:58 can be prayed for anyone you know, or for yourself !.
- Psalm 139:23-24 is a help for confessing sin.
- Don’t forget, after confessing sin, to pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:15-21).
What an exciting day this could be ! I love the thought that on the 20th there would be a continuous prayer being offered up to God by the Crossroads family ! Thanks for being willing to take part in whatever way you are able ! If you have a specific prayer request that others could pray for you on that day, please send me a text or an email about it ! Thank you !
Coming Up
- Breakfast & Bible Study for women, 8:00-9:15am on Saturday, at the church.
- Worship, Sunday morning at 10:00. We’ll continue in Ephesians and discuss predestination and free will.
- Men’s Recharge, Thursday, January 23, 6:30-8:00pm at the church. Fellowship, food, and some recharging ! All men are invited !
- A new, second Children’s Church class is beginning Sunday, January 26, led by Emily Lewis during the sermon time. It’s for any 8-13-year-old interested in learning more about the Bible on their level. This group will meet every fourth Sunday of the month in the conference room just outside our worship area, near the restrooms.
I hope you have a great rest of the week !
— Tom
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