Rick Aldrich 's Prayer Requests

Today we hear from one of our Elder's, Rick Aldrich.

These are the things he desires us to pray for, and his vision, for himself, his family, and his church.

Please pray that we as a church would continue to grow in living out our mission statement of glorifying God by delighting in Him and making Him know through the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For me personally, this means living as one who has been changed by God through the gospel, so that my family and all with whom I worship and serve would see me as an example worthy of emulation, and those apart from Christ would see a life that reinforces the gospel message I am proclaiming.

Pray that our church will grow as disciple-makers at all steps of this endeavor; from preaching the gospel to those who have not believed, to instructing the new believers, to encouraging the mature to persevere to the end.

Pray for our families that they will be diligent to nurture their marriages so as to portray Christ to the world and that they will train their children to be the gospel messengers after us.

Pray that we all may grow in love for one another and that by this the world may know that we are children of the one true God, who sent his Son to die for sinners. Pray that we would be diligent to call all to repentance so that may be made worshippers of their Creator and Savior. And pray that in all things God's glory would be sought and not our own.

Dave Crocker

Today we hear from Dave Crocker, our deacon over education. He has listed several verses that we can pray through as we lift him and his ministry to the Lord. This is an excellent example of how we can be praying in a God-honoring and extremely worthwhile way. He said that the lines which are bold and italicized are the specific prayer requests.

Dave also asked that we keep his wife in prayer, as she is not a believer.


Heb 13:15 - 25 (NASB)

¹⁵Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.

¹⁶And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

¹⁷Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

¹⁸Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things.

¹⁹And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner.

²⁰Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord,

²¹equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

²²But I urge you, brethren, bear with this word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.

Matt 9:36 - 38 (NASB)

³⁶Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

³⁷Then He said^* to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

³⁸“Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

According to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 1:20-21

Book Review - A Praying Life

I hate doing book reviews. I'm not very good at them. My friend Laura would tell me that this is because I am a "details" person rather than a "big picture" person - I want to spend far too much time on the specific points, observations, and chapters in a book rather than being content to give the general idea.

That being said, this is a book review for Paul Miller's A Praying Life. The book was so good that I put aside all of my reservations and fears of writing reviews in order to tell you how good it is. I have been begging the elder's wives to do it as a book study and I am confident that I am slowly wearing them down!

A Praying Life is (obviously) about prayer. It discusses every aspect of prayer that you could think of, from how to pray to when to pray to reasons to pray to real-life stories of answers to prayer. Miller includes a wide range of ideas for prayer journals and other prayer tracking methods.

This book really dives in and looks at the question of what a life of prayer really looks like. Miller discusses how even an "average Christian" can have a praying life and offers many amazing stories of how God has answered prayer and worked through prayer in the lives of many ordinary people.

In short, this is the best book on prayer that I have ever read. Miller doesn't mess around. He speaks bluntly about the Christian's responsibility to pray. He speaks openly about the difficulty of prayer and then goes straight into a myriad of solutions. He shares story after story of how God blessed prayer in his life and in the lives of others.

This is not a book you read quickly. This is a book that you read slowly, considering every page. This is a book that you can't wait to put into action. This is a book that encourages you to press on. If I had to suggest the one Christian book that you would read in 2010, this would be it! That is how strongly I feel about A Praying Life.

Prayer is a crucial part of a believer's life that is often overlooked. I pray that each of you will read this book, be encouraged and convicted, and come out of it a strong woman of prayer. A daughter who is not afraid to go to her Father for anything. A daughter who can joyfully recount answer after answer to prayer. A daughter who is fully reliant on her Father in every area of her life.

Judy Love for the Women's Ministry of Missio Dei

Today we have prayer requests for the Women's Ministry of Missio Dei sent to us by Judy Love. Many women are involved in this ministry and it has been of service to all of you many times. Please join me in keeping this important ministry in prayer throughout 2010.

The Mission statement for the Women’s Ministry is to ignite in the women of Missio Dei a passion to live out God's design for women and thus adorn the gospel with their lives so they may impact their world as they make disciples of Jesus Christ.

As such, our prayers go hand in hand with the statement:

Pray that we would be able to foster a passion for God in the lives of the women at Missio Dei.

Pray that we would keep the gospel at the forefront and recognize our purpose to honor the Lord in all things.

Pray that we would help women to accomplish their God-given roles in a God-centered, mission minded way.

Pray that we would seek to honor the Lord in all that we do.

Pray that many women would join us in reading and growing through our book discussions.

Pray that the events planned for this year would accomplish the goal of providing fellowship, a place to bring friends and family that don’t know the Lord and would be in keeping with the above mentioned goals.

Pray for the older women and the younger women as we work to bring alive the Titus 2 model for women mentoring women.