How to pray for revitalization? Part 2

Our church is in the midst of a prayer emphasis called 40 Strong. This has been a follow-up to a prayer emphasis that led up to Easter called 40 Days of Prayer (pretty original title...don't you think). My desire is that we are known as a church that calls out to God because we know there is no other source that will invigorate our ministry with spiritual power from the Holy Spirit. In fact, this weekend many from our church will experience a Prayer Retreat led by Sandy Skinner (Prayer Coordinator).

I am deeply convicted revitalization can't occur apart from spiritual renewal. Revitalization isn't just about an adjustment to our worship or preaching style. Revitalization isn't just about a "cool" mission or vision. Revitalization isn't just about a church "style." Revitalization is about God doing something sovereign and supernatural. Genuine revitalization must have prayer and spiritual renewal as its foundation. Previously, I wrote about the first three of our seven areas of purposed prayer.


Today will address two more areas within our prayer emphasis.

4. Worship:

There are five specific areas of worship we are praying for...

• God to be glorified - this is the paramount issue in worship. The desire of our hearts should be to corporately proclaim the goodness of God by glorifying Him in worship. We desire to glorify the Father, Son, and Spirit in worship. As part of this area of prayer we pray for Mark Green, our Pastor of Worship, for our musicians (Dr. Tim and Sheila), and our choir. 
• Sermon - I desire for our church to pray for me. My want to preach as one "filled with the Spirit." My goal is to deliver a sermon that helps people understand the text while striving to be relevant and applicable. I seek to accomplish this while moving people closer to the cross and further away from sin. 
• Growth in worship attendance

• We are specifically praying that God brings growth in our Sunday morning worship numbers. I know we are Baptist and Baptists love to count "nickels and noses." Our desire isn't to focus on numbers, but to allow numbers to demonstrate we are being effective at inviting and more importantly that God is answering our prayers be allowing us to see more people in worship every Sunday. 
• Visitors - God bring visitors! 
• We have experienced numerous visitors that have found us through our website. www.afbc.com 
• We have a prominent location on a busy road in the ATL area. So, we pray that something about our location sparks people towards attendance.
• We pray that during the week our member are constantly inviting people to our worship service.
• We pray that God cultivates and works to harvest our community connections.
• Responses to God's call during the worship service
• I am confident that God's Word isn't going to return void, but is going to accomplish ALL that God desires. Therefore, I believe that God is changing hearts, minds, and lives through preaching and the worship experience. Before you ask -- yes, we still have a "invitation." But, our prayer isn't simply about that portion of the worship service. We are praying that God continues to use the worship encounter throughout the week. In other words, someone might make a response on Tuesday morning in the elevator on the way to their office because they have been considering the worship experience from Sunday. 

5. Specific Prospects by name:

We have talked a lot about engaging our neighbors, friends, co-workers, and family members. We have talked a lot about inviting these people to church and ultimately inviting them to follow Jesus. We want to be people that pray specifically because God is the God of specifics. We are attempting to pray for specific prospects. These are the names of friends, neighbors, and the unchurched. We believe that if we pray for these individuals God will move in their hearts and lives. We believe that we will one day have a tremendous testimony of how God brought these specific prospects into the Kingdom of God and into our faith family.

I invite you to pray along with us as God does something that only God can do!