50 Days of Prayer - Update

50 Days of Prayer Introduction

Vacation Bible School, 50 Days of Prayer, and Losing Your Baggage

Sunday's column...today.

It’s Sunday, July 21st. Today is a big day at The Water’s Edge! A really big day!

Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf welcomes me. –Mark 9:37 

Tonight is the beginning of three days of fun, friends, family, and faith. It’s Vacation Bible School! At press time on Wednesday afternoon, we had over 160 kids registered. We expect lots more registrations. As long as the child is between the ages 4 and middle school – he or she is welcome. We can always use volunteers as too! You can register on Sunday morning at Millard West or on Sunday evening at Russell Middle School. Vacation Bible School runs from 6:15 to 8:30 Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings.

Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. –Colossians 4:2 

Today also marks the beginning of our 50 Days of Prayer campaign. We mailed the booklets in the middle of the week and will be passing them out in worship this morning and at Vacation Bible School tonight. And you will also have access to it wherever you are - online. 

We will have individual time with God. We’ll pray for our church. And we’ll pray for our city and world. Couples and friends and families will be encouraged to pray together. You will read a short Scripture and have a thought or two to ponder each day. I believe this is one of the most important things we will do as a church in 2013. I also believe these 50 days can be a real spiritual breakthrough for individuals and will help families begin praying together and talking about some of life’s most important and essential issues. 

I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. –Philippians 3:13

One of the things I’ve been praying a lot about is our worship experiences this morning. We continue our sermon series Summer Vacation. The message is Losing Your Baggage. As people we unnecessary hold on to life’s baggage and are burdened with our past. My prayer is that, this morning, we lose the baggage that is holding us back and get past our past. God wants us to trade our baggage in for something else. 

• Our failures and our fears will become faith, forgiveness, and freedom. 
• Our brokenness and our boredom will become belief, blessings, and bravery. 

Serving and loving kids, praying and depending on God, and putting our past in the past…I really do believe the best is yet to come… 

Craig

Vlog: 50 Days of Prayer, Losing Your Baggage, and Vacation Bible School

Fifty Days of Prayer

The Water’s Edge is entering into a season of prayer beginning on Sunday, July 21st and ending on Sunday, September 8th. We will devote 50 days to praying, learning, and growing. WE will pray as individuals, families, friends, and as a church.

Fifty days is significant. Pentēkostē is the Greek word for Pentecost which means fiftieth day. In the church calendar, Pentecost occurs fifty days, or seven weeks, after Easter. It is specifically the day the Church was given the Holy Spirit. 

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. -Acts 2:1-4 

We will pray that God fills us with the Holy Spirit and gives us the ability to do things we have never done before, to accomplished goals we have never completed, and to dream new dreams. 

The Hebrew Scriptures talk about the significance of fifty days as well—bringing their best offering to God after fifty days. 

Keep counting until the day after the seventh Sabbath, fifty days later. Then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. –Leviticus 23:16 

Although only a few people at The Water’s Edge are farmers (I know of two!) who can actually bring grain, we all have an offering we can bring God. For some it may be time, for others it may be energy, for others it may be a skill, and for others it may be a new level of commitment to discipleship. 

The fifty days begins on one of the most important days of year for The Water’s Edge—the first day of Vacation Bible School. The fifty days ends on one of the most important days of the year for The Water’s Edge—the launching of our new Sunday evening worship experience. Each day will be different. Some will focus on the church. Others will be deeply personal. Some will be comforting and pastoral. Others will be challenging and prophetic. 

My prayer is that after these fifty days, WE will have a much deeper understanding of prayer and a much richer experience of prayer. My prayer is also that God will use this understanding and experience to fuel our ministry this fall and for years and decades to come. 

I am blessed to be taking this journey of prayer with you, 

Craig