The story is told of a group of visitors to Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. They wanted to meet the great English preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and see the sanctuary, his office, and the education rooms. Spurgeon himself guided their tour, but they were surprised when he said, “Let me show you the boiler room.”

They followed him to that lowly space and were even more astonished to find 50 people there, on their knees. The assembly was praying for the church’s ministry, the staff, their community, and the world.

Why choose such an inauspicious place for prayer? As the power-center for heating the entire building, the boiler room symbolized for them the source of power in ministry—prayer! A major component of that church’s impact was the effectual and fervent prayer of humble people meeting in a shabby, out-of-the-way room.

last night we kicked off our first ‘event’ of 2009 @ calvary hanford. we’re calling it Even 1. you can find a fuller description on the website, but here are the basics…

when Jesus went to the garden of gethsemene to pray on the evening before His crucifixion, He asked His disciples to pray for Him, for themselves, for what was going to happen in the future.

we know the story. they fell asleep.

a bunch of times.

Jesus found them and said this to Peter:

could you not watch with Me one hour?
Matthew 26:40

hours before His horrific crucifixion, the Lord showed grace to His disciples, suggesting that just one ‘hour’ of prayer would have been immensely helpful to Him and to Peter.

the Lord put that verse on our heart a few months ago and we started thinking about what it could mean for our church.

then we realized that when you look in the Bible you find that it’s not just about one ‘hour’ of prayer…you find something very precious.

in Nehemiah, one man praying opened the door for God’s people to return from captivity. in fact, just one quick prayer was enough for Nehemiah to lead that venture with boldness and confidence.

in Daniel, one man praying led to the sharing of the Gospel with Darius, the pagan king.

one group of Christians praying led to the release of Peter from prison.

one city praying stayed God’s judgement on Nineveh and began a revival.

the more we thought about prayer the more we wanted to make more time to do it! we have a weekly prayer meeting on saturday nights, but as we start a new year we want to begin with more prayer. lots more.

Even 1 is a week-long set of prayer meetings, just 1 hour at a time. we’ve been collecting hundreds of prayer requests and we’ll be praying for lots of other things.

we want to pray for you. if you have a request, a report, or anything you’d like us to pray for, here’s what you can do:

- email me: gene@genepensiero.com

- leave a comment on this post with your request

- send me an @ message or direct message on twitter (twitter.com/genepensiero)

- call it in: 559-582-5532

it doesn’t matter if we know you or not. we still want to pray for you.

prayer does amazing things. it works. it is necessary. it is wonderful.

last night’s meeting was fantastic and we’re quite excited to go to the Lord again tonight and throughout the week.

confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
James 5:16

maranatha

 

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bibling, ministry, prayer | January 5th, 2009