I’ve been on the road the past few weeks – traveling first to the East Coast for vacation followed by a conference in Washington DC. Then I crossed the country to attend a Church Planters Retreat in Oregon with our Northwest partners. I flew back home, then Kathy & I hopped in the car and headed to Dallas for our nephew’s wedding. On the way home Sunday we stopped in the Woodlands for a dinner gathering with the Houston Church Planters Network (HCPN). Overall it was a very refreshing, inspiring and impactful two plus weeks.
Of all those encouraging and challenging experiences the one that made the most impact on me was the International Justice Mission’s (IJM) Global Prayer Gathering in DC. I’ve wanted to attend for years and it was worth the wait. The greatest takeaway was the emphasis on the need to pray for breakthrough on difficult challenges. IJM is on the front lines of the global fight against modern day slavery. Only God can break through the forces of evil that keep the poor and helpless in oppression. Since that weekend I’ve received several email updates from IJM reporting direct answers to the prayers 1700 of us offered in faith. God answers the earnest prayers of His children.
Nearly 1700 of us gather each week at BPF to worship Jesus Christ and look to see what our next steps will be. I believe we need to greatly intensify our prayer efforts as a church to meet the challenges before us. So beginning today I want to challenge you to begin praying for breakthrough in the following areas:
- For several months we have been searching for a Next Gen Pastor – God’s man to lead our Children and Student Ministry teams. Pray for God to clearly lead us to that man before the summer is out.
- Once he is on our team we will begin the search for our next Student Minister. Pray we bring him on board by this fall or the end of the year at the latest.
- We are in Expand mode as we add space to our Children’s building and parking lot. Our costs will likely exceed the resources on hand and pledged. Ask God to make our resources match the needs and get us in that new space by Christmas.
- We have been praying about expanding to multiple campuses for 16 months. Pray for a breakthrough on when and where to expand and the people to lead it. Pray we can launch a new BPF campus in early 2017.
These goals all have one overarching purpose – to position us to reach the unchurched in our community with the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, and guide them to take their next steps with God. That is our mission. We need breakthrough answers in prayer to accomplish it. Pray for breakthrough!
Live bold, Pray bold,
Greg
