I'm new in this call. In my third month here at St. Stephen, Longwood, I can feel the stirrings of the immensity of the immanent movement of the Spirit. Things are stirring in the church...and they are stirring in me.
Recently I've been moved by the Spirit to walk daily. Oddly not for my health (though a look at my waistline will tell you it's time to engage a new exercise program)...but to walk and pray...for this neighborhood that I live in and for the Church I'm called to lead into a powerful new day...a fresh channel of the Spirit of the living God that blows from the doorway of the empty tomb.
I've been moved to pray big. The prayers that I am praying are these:
1. That God would double our worshipping community over the next 12 months.
2. That God would give us twice as many adult baptisms (expressions of conversion) as their are infant baptisms in our church.
3. That our presence in our community would matter...not for the sake of St. Stephen...but that because of our presence here and commitment to deploying the kingdom in our neighborhoods and the places we work...that the radical transformation of Jesus' Lordship would be overwhelming felt and lives changed -- all over the place!
It's a powerful thing to pray these sorts of prayer. I feel transformation in me as I pray them and also the conviction that to allow for these things to happen, the church and I will have to both undergo a radical new sense of mission. We will have to preach the unmitigated "go to the cross Love of Jesus"...and that the work of salvation has already been done for this broken world. And as this is communicated, give people a new opportunity to respond to the working of the Spirit...to step into discipleship consciously and with as much commitment as our sinful human containers will allow...trusting that the Spirit of the empty tomb will work through these steps and will take care of the rest.
I have to tell you this stuff scares me...I feel the power coursing. And at the same time...I know that God's living Spirit is ahead of me in all this. The miracle of Pentecost is already underway.
May the Spirit of the Living God fall afresh...on all of us...and may there be a baptism of the Holy Spirit like none ever experienced in my community ever before.
Amen
2 comments:
i walk and pray, too. i just find that i can't do the sitting in silence thing as well. i need to move with the spirit. i need a way to release that wonderful energy she brings to me. walking does the trick. perhaps we can start a club called the peripatetic pray-ers.
my walking prayer today will be for your visions to become reality.
Thank you Paul.
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