A Real Prayer Challenge - for Us!!!

I knew it!  I knew it!  This prayer challenge will be a big challenge not for our church member but for us who have conceptualize this series of prayer meeting.  Now, I remembered why I have not done this kind of activity for the last two years.  It has been a taxing and I am always physically exhausted when I launch this kind of activity.  The only confidence I have is that God is victorious through Christ's victory on the cross, so Satan can't do anything but to accept defeat.

The prayer challenge is shaking the gates of hell.  And after launching this a week ago, heavy spiritual battle took place in my life as well as Pastor Wiljo's.  It seems this prayer meeting is crucial for our church since we are now experiencing many challenges in these past few days that is preventing us from working effectively in our ministries and preparing for this prayer meetings.

Pastor Wiljo and I has been down and sick since last week after launching this prayer meeting. It seems our sickness is a little bit strange; both of us are having sleepless nights. Wiljo has fever and chilling for several days. I have stuffy nose but no mucus, sore throat but has not lost my voice and cough entered only after four days; everyday I have headache, dizziness, and lacks physical stamina, and last Sunday I black out in our bathroom. Weird but it is true, the whole week has prevented us from doing our task in church, such as preparing messages, meeting with my small groups, and monitoring and implementing the details of our preparation for our prayer meeting. Lastly, so far, the aircon of the lower chapel suddenly bogged down yesterday.   And TODAY, we are experiencing heavy rains, which I suppose to continue until tomorrow to prevent people from coming to our prayer meeting.

Every time these spiritual activities are highlighted, I would always go through such spiritual warfare - at least these time no demons involve, only physical afflictions through sickness. This is not to scare anyone but it seems the turn of events tells us that we are doing something right that is why Satan is also actively discouraging us and preventing us from fully doing our task. And all of these afflictions we are suffering for our church will be useless, if members of UECP family would not heed to our call to join the prayer meeting.

Pastors needs prayer from its flock.... everyday! I like the Koreans, they have a sequence in the regular prayer time. Their country, their pastor and the spiritual renewal of the church. The pastor is always highlighted and rank second in all of their prayer time. I think we can learn something from them.

I hope our people will not think this as another church activity but instead a time for personal spiritual renewal with our relationship with God.  Our church needs people who takes prayer seriously. In doing so, it would put our church in order and our worship on Sunday will become more meaningful as a church family.