A WORD FROM PASTOR ANDREW HOOK

9/17/2020

James 5:16

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Prayer has incredible power. There’s something about going into a centuries old cathedral where the very walls are saturated in the prayers that have been offered there. It just feels different. There’s something about a person or a church that prays regularly. They have a different way of looking at things. Prayer changes things.

Recently, our church began a care and prayer team. These ladies have been calling and checking in on our church, asking how we can be in prayer for our church. You have probably already been called by one of them. I’ve often joked that being psychic is not one of my spiritual gifts. These ladies have helped me learn about the health and the needs of our church in ways that I couldn’t do on my own. It has helped me know how to better pray for you, for our church. Prayer changes things. Already, I have heard more stories about the joys and concerns of this church. It has given me a better appreciation of how special this church really is. 

This group of ladies and myself, we meet by Zoom every Wednesday morning now. We share any updates and any new prayer concerns that they or I have been made aware of. And then we close our meeting by praying for you. And I ask them to pray for the concerns of this church each day till we meet again as we continue to reach out and check on you. So, if you have any prayer concerns, if there is anything in your life that is causing you anxiety, please reach out to me or to our care and prayer team. Let us pray for you.

Christ himself spent significant chunks of time in prayer. The night he was arrested, he was in the garden of Gethsemane praying. Our own Savior, the Word of God Incarnate, prayed often. And we, the followers of Christ, are commanded to pray for one another. Let’s be faithful in prayer for one another. 

Finally, don’t forget our church charge conference next Sunday. This annual meeting with our district superintendent is where we set the course for 2021. We approve our budget and leaders. And this year, we will have a proposal brought before us that, if approved, can help us focus more of our energy and resources on the mission that God calls us to. Due to the pandemic, it will be on Zoom this year instead of in person. Please look for that link next week in your email and join us to hear where we’ve been and where we’re headed. 

This Sunday, we continue our re:DEFINE worship series. This week we will look at exactly what does “grace” mean. We love that word, we sing about how amazing it is, we hear it preached, but what does that mean?

In peace,

Pastor Andrew