Hello Monochurch prayer team!
This is the first official prayer letter for the Monochurch church plant. If you’re receiving this, it’s either because you asked me to be on our prayer team OR I put you on the team anyway against your will. Ha.
I truly believe this: the thing this church plant needs the most RIGHT NOW is just 2 things:
- The miraculous power of God.
- Your prayers.
Acts 4 tells an amazing story of the life of the early church. The church is blowing up! It has just grown by 5000 people. But those early believers are worried. Why? Well, in Acts 4:23-24, Peter and John come to a group of early believers and report to them the recent events of the past few days. Verse 24 refers to this group as their “friends.”
I imagine that this small group of people is kind of like one of the “core teams” of the early church. They are people who have been working closely with the Apostles and seeing the miraculous growth of the church.
But the report they receive from the Apostles that day is just downright anxiety-inducing. Peter and John tell the story: They have just been preaching the resurrection of Jesus and thousands have heard and believed, but the Jewish authorities are not happy. When the leaders heard Peter’s sermon, they put Peter and John in jail overnight. And though they released them, they threatened them that there would be more trouble if they keep preaching like this.
Let’s imagine this for a minute. The Jewish leaders making these threats are no joke. These people are the highest authority of the Jewish people: the Sanhedrin. Even the High Priest is there! These Jewish leaders are people that this little core team of new believers grew up following and respecting.
So what do these early believers do? They pray. In the face of opposition and persecution, they fall to their knees.
So what do early believers do in the face of opposition and persecution? They pray. Click To TweetHere is my favorite part of this passage.
“And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken…” Acts 4:31
Wow. Read that again.
THE PLACE WHERE THEY WERE GATHERED WAS SHAKEN!!!(Pause on that.)
Here is what Monochurch needs right now:
We need God to show up and make the ground shake.
Yes, we need money and people and partnerships and a lot of other things. But what we need most is: for God to show up do miracles.
That is why Monochurch is going to begin with what we see in Acts 4 — with prayer. The church won’t begin with our own strength. It will begin in prayer. If we start with our own strength, we’ll see the results that are produced by human strength. Those results might be great but that’s not what we’re after. If we start in prayer, we’ll see the ground shake. We’ll see miracles. I want us all to look back and remember the day that we prayed this prayer from Acts 4. And then we’ll also remember the day that God answered the prayer and the ground shook under our feet.
It’s going to be awesome.