Yes.

I've been sharing with people a lot lately about the reality that inviting people into a relationship with Jesus, inviting people to Community Group, inviting people to dinner often ends with a very familiar word... "no." That sound pretty discouraging and honestly it is. As a Christ-follower I am passionate about sharing my faith in Jesus with people but constant rejection can be hard to overcome. You get tired of being told "no," even if you understand the reality that they are not rejecting you, they are rejecting Jesus.

Thankfully, God knows the amount of "no's" we can handle. Honestly, I've been discouraged lately and wondering if I would ever hear that beautiful 3 letter word in response to any invitation again. Kelli and I have been reevaluating our Community Group as it seeks to find an identity. We decided to add dinner to our group this past Sunday and see what happened. We still opened the word and prayed for each other, but we invited people to share a meal as well. As we called & invited people that have been a part of our Community Group we were amazed at the number of "yeses" we heard on the other end of the phone.

In all we had 6 yeses in addition to the two of us not to mention the 10 kids that would come with those yeses! When Sunday night finally arrived we had 2 "yeses" turn to "no's" (reality & the testing of our faith), but God brought the right people. We ended up with 7 total people at our group (1 new face & 2 that we haven't seen in a long time) and 8 kids! We dug into God's word, and were all stretched and challenged. We took a big step forward in becoming a "community" of believers. The group that was there will probably never be "best friends" but we can live in biblical community together. All it took was the willingness of people to say "yes."

Thank you Jesus for the "yeses."

Prayer

Jesus prayed a lot. We should too.

I know that sounds obvious enough but too often my prayer times are rushed by other obligations. Too often I ask and ask and ask God for things but I seldom listen to what he wants from me. Prayer "meetings" often become a time of gossip or simply heart felt sharing instead of Spirit led, two-way communication with God. Whatever the problems are with my approach to prayer I learned last week (more accurately it was confirmed to me last week) that God has surrounded me with a leadership team that understands the NEED for humble, worshipful and extended times of prayer.

As many tangible things as God did in the first 6 months of our ministry here in Tacoma it seems things have slowed down that much in the last 6 months. My family, our team and our church have been spiritually attacked from all angles and we have realized that we are nothing without the leading of the Holy Spirit and the confidence that being in his will is enough... results are up to him. With that in mind I felt compelled to have a guided time of prayer at the beginning of our leadership team meeting last Thursday. When I told everyone we would be spending more time in prayer than the usual "opening" and "closing" of the meeting, there was an excitement and a bit of relief that filled the air. Everyone knew we needed to spend some time together with Jesus... completely submitted to him.

I've shared with a couple of people since that night that I have been guilty in the past of determining whether or not I would pray allowed in a prayer meeting based on the time, other things on the agenda and how many others were praying for a particular thing. My leadership team does not share that struggle. We prayed through multiple areas and topics from repentance to revival and it seemed that every topic led to multiple prayers being voiced by each individual with no regard to time or schedule.

I don't say this with pride but with humility because I did not lead out in this. The leaders were God's people, our team, burdened to speak to God and hear from God because we have no where else to turn. I share this because it was powerful, peaceful and beautiful. As we prayed, minutes turned into hours and the agenda went out the window. We never did get to the "meeting," but for once we did not miss prayer, communication with and worship of our God.

When was the last time you truly prayed with no pre-determined end? I'm convinced that is where revival is birthed and awakening begins. All glory to God through his son Jesus!