A Request or two

For those of you out there who are Christ-followers and believe that there actually is a God who cares about such things, I have a couple of requests for prayer, and I would be deeply honored if you would join me in praying about some stuff.

First of all, my very good friend, Gayle, is going to be resigning from her church in Duluth, MN tomorrow morning. Gayle and her husband Jason started this church from scratch nine years ago, and it has been an incredible run. Gayle is a short, soft-spoken Korean pastoring a church in a transitioning neighborhood that is running over with homelessness, violence, and despair, and she has done AMAZING things wiht God's help. This move is not a "running away" but simply a move of obedience into the next phase of her life. She is not going to another church, but she and Jason will, in all likelihood, be moving soon to a new city. None of us knows the future God has for them, but I am confident it will be great!

Secondly, I am preaching a message tomorrow morning that may very well be the most significant message I have ever preached to my church. I have been here nearly eight years (as of May 4), and my best guess is that I have preached nearly 1500 times to this church during that time period. Tomorrow's message is different, though, because it is intensely personal. I am preaching on the subject of fasting and prayer, and I'm using Ezra 8:21-23 as my text. The call is going to be for us, as a church, to come together to fast and pray every Friday for, well, I don't know for how long. We're not coming together to ask God to prosper us or bless us. We are going to come together to confess and to beg God to make us as individuals and as a church truly holy so that he can use us as he really wants to use us. For many of the people who attend here this will be the first time they have ever heard such a call, and I am desperate in my prayers for the understanding that can only come with the help of the Spirit.

Why is this so significant? It's been interesting, but this message fought me on being written. Then, one morning, I woke up EARLY and was able to write the message in @45 minutes. As it was finished I knew I had something both significant and DANGEROUS sitting on my computer screen. I immediatley e-mailed the draft to several friends for their comments, and to a person every single person wrote back and said something along these lines: "You know, God woke me up last night and told me to get ready for something significant happening soon at church, and that if it was going to happen I needed to be prepared to fast and pray." (Insert goosebumps here)

And so, if you are inclined toward such things, would you please pray for me, for my church, and for this message. I still don't know where it's going, but that's okay--I don't need to!