BETHEL'S WEEK OF PRAYER

BETHEL’S WEEK OF PRAYER

​ This past week we did something unique in our life as a church. We spent a full week, taking turns, filling hour after hour with prayer, night and day. I thought I would share some initial observations and highlights:

• It was fun to see people coming into the church one after another. Kids came. Adults came. Some people prayed alone, others shared their time slot with a spouse or a friend or a group. On one occasion there were at least 12 people in the church praying at the same time. 
  
• I invited two of our local schools to give us their prayer requests. I did not know how they would respond, but both schools sent a list of their needs and expressed gratitude. 
  
• There were moving stories: One man unexpectedly found himself praying in the middle of the night—with one particular couple’s need on his heart—for four hours. An 11 year old girl discovered her Heavenly Father’s love in a new way and posted to Instagram that her life was changed forever as a result of her hour in prayer. 
  
• There were fun stories like this one: A council member had determined that there was really only one time slot during which he could pray, and that was in the wee, wee hours of the morning on one a particular day. He put off signing up, and when I announced last Sunday that there were only two unfilled hours left on the prayer schedule, he regretted he hadn’t signed up earlier. He went online to check the prayer schedule. He discovered that the one hour he had available to pray was one of those two unfilled hours!
  

A familiar comment was that people’s time in prayer went by faster than they thought it would. The Managing Elders spoke positively about how meaningful their own hours of prayer were.

Did you participate in the week of prayer?We would love to hear about your experience. You can talk to one of the Prayer Planning Team members or email prayer@discoverbethel.com.

​ --Pastor Tom, for the Prayer Planning Team (Art Dubbeldam, Lorie Groth, Adrienne Kelsey, Melanie Reynders, and Joanne Rozendaal).

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