A Worshipful Heart

Prayer Calendar for Rwanda

Thank you so much for praying for me as I go to Rwanda. Many of you have enjoyed a daily calendar so you'd know exactly how to pray. I've listed that below and included some scriptures to aid you as you pray from our e3 prayer calendar. I appreciate your faithfulness to work with me as you pray! I am struggling with cold or allergy symptoms and I really need to feel well. Pray for me to be symptom free SOON!

Wednesday, March 16th - Ephesians 6:11b-12 -Leave for Rwanda! I travel to Washington D.C. for the night. Pray for peace as I tell my family good-bye and pray for Phil as he does get lonely when he is here alone. Pray for my kids to be safe and cared for and protected as I'm gone. The enemy loves to distract!  

Thursday, March 17th - Philippians 1:12; Romans 8:14; Acts 16:7-10; 2 Corinthians 6:4-6 - The entire team will meet in Washington D.C. and fly to Africa! (via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia!) Pray for this long flight to pass without incident and pray that I can sleep for many hours during it so that I will be rested. As we fly, pray that God will continue to give clarity to what I'm teaching while in Rwanda - both in the village and in the worship conference.

Friday, March 18th -  Philippians 1:12 -We arrive in Rwanda, spending the night in Kigali which is the capital city. Pray for safety and rest and continued good health. Pray for our team to bond and encourage one another!

Saturday, March 19th -Romans 15:5; John 17:23b - Day to rest and shop and get acclimated.  In the afternoon we'll travel to Gisenyi which is where we'll stay for the week on the shore of Lake Kivu. We'll be working an hour or so from that town. Pray for safe and uneventful travel and rest, rest, rest. Pray that we'll bond with our ministry partners and get to know our teammates.

Sunday, March 20th -  Titus 3:5; John 3:6-7 -We will divide into teams and worship with the Mother Churches that we are working with this week. (always a JOY!) In the afternoon we'll go to the villages where we will be working and train church members to evangelize and disciple new believers.  We will spend much of the afternoon in worship and prayer and will conduct a Prayer Walk through the village. Pray with us that many will come to know Jesus as their Savior!

Monday, March 21st - 1 John 5:18- We start the day with worship and prayer and training, then divide up and go into homes to share the gospel. We end the day with a church service and discipleship. Pray that we will be led by the Spirit as we share and meet people. Pray against any strongholds of witchcraft and alcoholism, hatred, and prostitution we may encounter. Pray that our worship and prayers would be mighty to stand against the enemy! Pray that many people will come into a love relationship with Jesus Christ and that the enemy will no longer prevail in their lives. Continue to pray for health, strength, my family and good rest at night. 

Tuesday, March 22nd - Matthew 6:6- We start the day with worship and prayer and training, then divide up and go into homes to share the gospel. We end the day with a church service and discipleship. Pray that we will be led by the Spirit as we share and meet people. Pray against any strongholds of witchcraft and alcoholism, hatred, and prostitution we may encounter. Pray that our worship and prayers would be mighty to stand against the enemy! Pray that many people will come into a love relationship with Jesus Christ and that the enemy will no longer prevail in their lives. Continue to pray for health, strength, my family and good rest at night. 

Wednesday, March 23rd - Psalm 100, Psalm 67 - THIS DAY IS DIFFERENT FOR ME! WORSHIP CONFERENCE DAY! While everyone else is still working in their village, I will leave early that morning and travel to meet with 200 pastors and church leaders for "A Worshipful Life" worship discipleship conference. I will be teaching ALL DAY and I am the only teacher. Please pray for my words to be directed by the Holy Spirit and for me to have great insight as I direct them through learning activities during the day. Pray that I will teach with boldness, courage and minsiter in the power of the Spirit. Pray that Anna (e3 leader in Rwanda) and I will sense the work and leading of the Spirit as we work together. Pray for clarity as I will teach through a translator. More than anything else, please pray for the presence of God to move among us and rain down as we worship together. Pray that this would be a work of God, not a work of man. We pray that we will be amazed at all God does among us!

Thursday, March 24th  - Philippians 1:12 -We start the day with worship and prayer and training, then divide up and go into homes to share the gospel. We end the day with a church service and discipleship. Pray that we will be led by the Spirit as we share and meet people. Pray against any strongholds of witchcraft and alcoholism, hatred, and prostitution we may encounter. Pray that our worship and prayers would be mighty to stand against the enemy! Pray that many people will come into a love relationship with Jesus Christ and that the enemy will no longer prevail in their lives. Continue to pray for health, strength, my family and good rest at night. 

Friday, March 25th -  Philippians 2:4 -Final day in the field! At the end of the day we will have a Victory Celebration with pastors and mission point leaders. This is always such a touching time together. Pray for the leaders and new Christians we will be leaving behind to be strong and courageous and to be able to stand firm in their faith and to multiply rapidly! 

Saturday, March 26th - Romans 15:5 - Travel back to Kigali / Genocide Museum / Shopping - Pray for safe travel, moments to decompress, and rest as we go.

Saturday-Sunday, March 26—27th - John 3:16 - Travel back to North America … praising God for His goodness and glory!!! Continue to pray for those left behind and for us to arrive home safely and reunite with our families. Pray that our bodies adjust back to U.S. time easily and quickly.

While I'm away I will be texting one or two updates a day to facebook and twitter. I will not, however, be able to see responses. I will enjoy reading them when I return home and have internet once again. I will, however, be able to receive texts free of charge to you! If you are so inclined I'd love to hear from you while I'm there. You can text me a prayer, a scripture or just an encouraging word at 256-348-5174.

Thank you!

Covered In Prayer?

That is the question I ask every time I head out to minister. Am I truly covered in prayer? Is the Body of Christ actually praying for me, interceding for those I will meet, fervently seeking the Lord on my behalf? 

The mission field can be a very lonely place. I constantly work with new people, I cannot speak the language, and I miss my family. Often I am also tired due to jetlag! Most certainly I am being stretched outside my comfort zone and often we see Satan attack as he does not want us to succeed.

So your prayers are very important. Not just to me, but to the people I will share Jesus with, the  two hundred pastors and leaders who will attend our "A Worshipful Life" discipleship conference, my teammates, and my family. 

I know many of you just finished praying for me, but now I am most humbly asking again - 

Will you pray for and with me as I go to Rwanda next week?

You can sign up right here, choose more than one day, and even leave me a scripture you'll be praying and a note I can print and carry with me to read on the day you'll be praying.  (I LOVE those notes, friends!) 

I will post a more detailed prayer calendar later but here is a quick breakdown:

Tuesday, March 15 - Preparing to travel, saying good-byes

Wednesday, March 16- Friday, March 18 - Traveling to Rwanda

Saturday, March 19 - Rest and Preparation, Travel in country to our mission site

Sunday - Tuesday, March 20 - 22 - Evangelism, Training local church members, Planting new churches

Wednesday, March 23 - 200 Pastors and Church Leaders Gather for "A Worshipful Life" Conference. This time I am the ONLY teacher! Pray for the Holy Spirit to move among us and have his way - to be the main teacher in our time together. 

Thursday - Friday, March 24-25 - Evangelism, Training local church members, Planting new churches

Saturday - Sunday, March 26-27 - We travel home!

Monday, March 28 - Pray for rest and recovery and for the new churches and new leaders!

Thank you for caring for me this way. It is a precious gift. And as a friend in India mentioned to me this week, "Worship is nothing more than prayer. And prayer brings victory!" So pray for God to bring the victory, my friends! 

 

We Prayed, God Answered

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have struggled to know how to give you a final update on our ministry trip to India. To be honest, I am truly at a loss for words. Oh, I could give you the numbers or share with you some of the comments off of our evaluations. I could show you dozens and dozens of pictures. I could tell you what we studied each day. But none of this would come close to describing to you what we experienced while worshiping our Savior together with these sweet sisters in the Lord. It would be like trying to take a picture of traffic in India to communicate what the experience of riding in a car is like there. It only gives you a very limited view and never gives you a true idea of the full experience.

So if I had to reduce our time with the women there to mere words, I would have to simply say this: "We prayed for the Holy Spirit to rain down. We prayed most of all for the gift and working of His presence. And God answered that prayer. He poured out his Spirit freely and abundantly. He touched our hearts deeply. None of us will ever be the same."

Yes, we all learned alot about worship. We spent hours and hours worshiping God. We spent hours of time digging into the Word and learning what it has to say about the presence of God, how God has worked in the past when his people worshiped him. We journaled and wrote our own psalms and worship songs in our native languages, but the most amazing work of all was done by the Spirit of God and not anything I taught or led or directed. Nothing at all. As I mentioned in my last post, I simply stood back and watched the anointing of God's Spirit move throughout the group as we worshiped and prayed. And I don't say that lightly. In fact you will rarely, if ever, hear me use that term. But I will use it now because it was so true.

Our Heavenly Father had a special gift for us - the gift of his sweet, loving, convicting, life-giving presence. There is no greater gift.

One of the sweetest things about our time together is that I believe we all learned from one another. They learned some things from Sheila and I. They learned from one another. And I definitely learned something from them - they taught me many lessons about fervent prayer and focused worship. They taught me about courage and faith. They taught me about caring and tenderness. They taught me much about having an open heart towards God and waiting with expectancy for him to move and work. These women had such a simple and pure faith - it was beautiful to behold and was a gentle, soothing balm to some of the wounds my sometimes jaded and cynical heart has sustained in the past few years. 

The greatest work of all came not as I prepared, not as I taught, not as I sang, but as we bowed down on our faces in the presence of a Holy God and let him have his way.

There is no getting over that. And I would never want to.

So I continue to pray, "Come Holy Spirit, rain down. Have your way."

A Glimpse of the Holy

(This entry is posted belatedly - it was originally written last week when I was teaching in India and I posted it on facebook. However, Typepad, my blog host, is banned in India by the government so I could not access it and post it here. Enjoy.) 

 

Dear Friends, 

I find that I cannot go to bed tonight without at least attempting to get a little of what we've experienced down on paper, so to speak. As you have been so faithful to pray for us, I wanted to attempt to share some of my thoughts and observations with you of how we see God working during our time here.

 

What an amazing time we've had with these young women. Aged 18-28 or so, they are all involved in ministry training and church planting. Some are just beginning their lives in ministry while others have been serving with this mission organization for 8 years! One sister here has planted many churches in the villages and when they reach 25 in number, she hands them over to an official "pastor". And she has done this as a very young woman! These are the women we are ministering to this week.

 

And what a privilege it has been! If I had to choose a word that describes how I am feeling tonight it would be humbled. Whether I am standing and teaching or leading worship or simply walking down the road with a woman hearing her testimony, I am always first and foremost in awe that God would allow me to do this. Why me? Why in the world would God call ME to go to the nations and teach about worship? To be honest, from my own fleshly perspective, this sounds like about the silliest plan around if God truly wanted to accomplish anything! So I am always profoundly humbled to have this opportunity.

 

But what truly humbles me the most are the people and the presence of God. Let me explain....

 

 - When I worship with these women I sense a true desperation, a deep longing to know God - they are FERVENT worshipers. When they pray they truly beseech the Lord and believe He will move. And when we worship together I often wonder who is leading whom. I understand that I am the one standing on the platform. But honestly, they are - many times - leading me. Their sincere desire for God puts me to shame every single day. Their fervency in prayer makes me realize how incredibly faithless I truly am. And I realize that while I might be teaching them something, I am learning even more just by being in their presence.

 

 - I am also extraordinarily humbled as I sense the presence of God and the movement of the Holy Spirit. If I am to perfectly honest, I am not the most gifted teacher. On my best days I struggle to communicate in English. Throw in a translator or any sort of language barriers and I am often left wondering if anyone learned anything at all! I am also not the most gifted vocalist or the most incredible worship leader, although it is what God has called me to do and many days I must simply rest in that. So I have been very humbled to see the incredible power of the presence of the Holy Spirit at work this week. As we've worshiped, while the women are answering journaling questions and praying, even while I'm teaching with a decided southern accent - I've just stood back and watched in awe as God has moved. I'm reminded again that the work of God is not dependent on my abilities, or my efficiency, or my efforts or skills. The work of God is simply that - the work of GOD, and a wonderful grace is that it is not up to me at all. Sheila and I have fumbled our way through worship sets. I have felt totally inept while teaching, and yet I've rarely sensed a move of the Spirit more powerful than what we've experienced this week. Thank God it is not up to me. 

 

Many moments of this week I've felt most of all not like a trainer or teacher or leader, but a witness. A witness to God's glory, God's work, God's grace. And sometimes I wonder if that's why I am here.

 

To get a glimpse of the holy. To see God among my brothers and sisters in Christ.