prayer
God's people have always surrounded everything they do in prayer. The middle of our Bibles contains a 150 chapter book of prayer. The Older Covenant law, histories and prophecies are littered with snapshots of prayer. Jesus' sinless life and glorious ministry were fueled by prayer. The early church got together and prayed.
Yeah, we want our Seven Mile Road to be marked by prayer as well. We pray for our church and our city and our children and our marriages. We pray for grace, pardon, healing, hope, strength, wisdom, and salvation. We pray for other churches. We pray for every single thing that is happening among us. We pray the words of Scripture. We pray our own words, informed by Scripture. We pray.
And through it all we participate in the redemptive work of God. How about that! God accomplishes all He intends, and He intends to accomplish it in answer to the prayers of His people. And you thought it was just some naive religious people wasting time. Nope. Destinies change. The world changes. Our souls change. We pray.
Prayer Environments. Here are all the places we are praying together
Big on Sunday mornings - our liturgy is jam-packed with prayer
Smaller in soulcare - prayer is a central element to our lives together in smaller community
Even smaller in groups of 2 or 3 or 4 - we are hoping to multiply small, weekly, 45 minute prayer gatherings in homes, coffe shops, workplaces throughout just north of Boston
Even smaller on our own - every Seven Miler should be pursuing the Father in prayer as a normal pace of life
Quarterly church planting gatherings - we are participating in these and lead each gathering with some focused, intense prayer
Praying the Psalms.
Every Sunday, church-wide, we are encouraging everyone of these environments to include praying through the Psalms as a part of their prayer. We move from one Psalm to the next weekly. Prayer team members are posting helpful summaries of that week's Psalm each week. The idea is that by the time we read that Psalm to begin a service, we have all prayed it vigorously in several different environments that week.
