PLC’s prayer blog (week of July 8, 2013)

“We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity, but we accomplish little; many services but few conversions; much machinery but few results.” — R. A. Torrey

• 1-Minute Devotional Thought:

Jesus teaches us to pray to the Father, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Which is to say, our intercessory prayers to God are an appeal to Him to exert His sovereign will more and more fully in our life, family, community and church.

What will “heavenly worship” look like? If we are praying for “heaven to come to earth” in our worship, what will that look like? To some degree, we can only imagine this picture. But God has also given us some snapshots of heavenly worship.

Here’s one:

And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9-10)

From these two verses we see a multi-ethnic congregation focused on celebrating their redemption gifted to them by the merit of the bloody death and resurrection life of Christ.

Lots of people from every tribe, tongue, people and nation will worship Christ and sing of His worth.

Let’s pray for God’s heaven to come down to earth — and let this coming begin when we gather for worship.

Prayers for the week…

• As neighbors: Pray for all the families affected by the wildfires throughout our nation. In particular, pray for the families of the 19 Arizona firemen who lost their lives protecting their community. Continue to pray for tornado victims in Oklahoma and for victims of flooding after torrential rains in the Southeast this past weekend.

• Pray for pro-life ministry around the world. See if there is a ministry or some other means for lending a hand to families with loved ones in a condition of terminal illness. Though you may be strangers at first, what a wonderful way to show the love of Christ to them by easing the emotional and physical burden they face.

• Pray for the Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) ministry taking place at North Carolina State University (Raleigh) — led by Chuck Askew:

Chuck Askew is the campus minister for Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) at North Carolina State University. Chuck is originally from Atlanta, Ga., but became involved with RUF in his time at the University of Florida and spent two years as an intern with RUF at Mississippi State. After those two years, Chuck went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson to get a Masters of Divinity. While there, he met his lovely wife Lauren, originally from Syracuse, N.Y., who was in the Marriage and Family Therapy program of RTS. After graduating in 2005, Chuck and Lauren moved to Conway, S.C., to start the RUF at Coastal Carolina University. Since then, God has blessed them with their sons, Charlie and Samuel, and their daughter, Norah. After four years at Coastal Carolina University, Chuck was called to serve as the RUF campus minister at North Carolina State University. Chuck feels intimidated to be the campus minster at N.C. State, in large part due to following two campus ministers with great hair.

• Using the new 2013 “watchlist” produced by Open Doors, we pray for the persecuted Christians of a different country each week.

Teachers/parents, consider this a great way to introduce geography into the weekly lessons. Show students where the nation is, then pray for Christians in that place.

This week we pray for the Christians of Egypt, which ranks No. 25 on the watchlist.

The 2011 revolution that ousted President Mubarak initially brought Muslims and Christians together, but improved relations were short-lived. The Muslim Brotherhood won parliamentary elections in November 2011 and a new Islamist-backed constitution was signed into law in December 2012. Support for both the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Islam is growing. The government has been unable to impose necessary law and order, to the detriment of the protection of Christians. Persecution is on the rise and massive emigration of Christians is a concern. But the church continues to grow.

Pray:

 For an end to the violent unrest and for true freedom to be established

That the new Coptic Pope, Tawadros II, will continue to unite the denominations in Egypt so that the church is united in sharing the gospel

For Open Doors partners working with local churches to provide training and Christian community development opportunities.

• Prayer for the nation – focusing this week on the state of Minnesota.

• In 2013, we will pray together by name for Christians in 50 nations, Christians in all 50 states and all the presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and the emerging new Reformed body, ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. You are encouraged to add specific pastors, lay leaders, congregations, missionaries, new church developments and other ministries to the list by posting a comment to the blog. (Please do not publicly post the names of missionaries serving in contexts where exposing their identity would cause them harm or bring harm to those they serve in Christ’s name.) Let us kneel before the Father and ask His will be done.

• Prayers for the PCUSA: Pray for the presbyteries of the Synod of the Alaska-Northwest: Alaska, Central Washington, Inland Northwest, North Puget Sound, Olympia, Seattle, Yukon.

• Prayers for Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC): Mid-America Presbytery (Dexter Kuhlman, stated clerk).

• Prayers for the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA): the churches of the Western Canada Presbytery.

• Prayers for ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.

• Prayers for The Fellowship of Presbyterians.