Posts tagged ‘prayer’
Honor your leaders – Part 2
Yesterday, in Honor your leaders – Part 1, we read through 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 to see the Biblical reason for honoring our leaders. And I wanted to emphasize that this week because we all at some point get frustrated with our leaders, don’t we? I know I do.
In the pursuit to becoming a multicultural Church I’ve come across lots of great ideas. And I’ve conveyed a lot of those ideas to my pastor at my last church and my current one.
Was I able to implement all those ideas? NO!
Have I try to fight tooth and nail, at times, to get those ideas implemented? Yes.
Was that the right thing to do? NO!
We have to remember that leadership is not easy, in fact at times it get be really difficult, so we need to remember to do a few things. God has put our leaders in place for a reason. We are to serve them.
Are they always right? Not necessarily, but they are certainly held accountable for those decisions by God. That’s why we need to pray for our leaders, especially as they lead us through the process of answering the call on the Church to become a multicultural one.
They need wisdom, they need encouragement, they need people who are willing to listen to their direction because God has put them there.
So, I have to ask…
- Do you recognize the spiritual authority that the people in your church have?
- In what ways have you made their vocation more difficult?
- In what ways can you honor them?
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Building Community through Prayer
Prayer and Scripture
In the past year I had been praying a lot about how to build community with my worship team at Aldrich Presbyterian. We never seemed to have a good time to do it.
We had been spending so much time in the Scriptures before doing anything musical we didn’t have much time for anything else. At the same time I had been praying about trying to figure a way to incorporate more prayer into our worship rehearsal. Again, time was a factor.
Then one day God gave me some insight. I felt like God was suggesting that we focus on the Scriptures one week and the next week we could focus on prayer. That was a phenomenal idea.
This would give us one full hour focused on one thing before taking time to work on the service.
On August 16th, 2011
This night was the first time we would spend a full hour talking about prayer, sharing our prayer needs, and spending time in prayer.
One of worship team members actually asked me if we could simply do our prayer time in silence. I replied with a quick no. Why?
First, I didn’t want us to be distracted by our phones or text messages. Secondly, I wanted us to pray out loud so that we could encourage one another. And that’s exactly what happened.
I heard prayers from our worship team members that I hadn’t heard before. People were vulnerable, affirming one another, and encouraging one another in prayer. It was great.
And it seemed like after our prayer time like we had a greater sense of team, of community, and fellowship.
Questions for you
How can you incorporate more prayer with your worship team? How can you encourage your team to pray out loud more? What is the value of praying out loud? How can you encourage your team to pray in their heart language during this time?
How have you seen God build community through prayer in your church?
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Could your church be called a…
Could your church be called a HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS? Why or why not?
6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him,
to love the name of the LORD,
and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”8 The Sovereign LORD declares—
he who gathers the exiles of Israel:
“I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered.”
***I want to encourage you to meditate on the following passage in Isaiah 56:6-8 and respond to the question above by commenting on this blog post.
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.