{"id":2619,"date":"2017-07-06T11:01:07","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T14:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/?p=2619"},"modified":"2017-07-06T11:01:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-06T14:01:07","slug":"please-pray-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/2017\/07\/06\/please-pray-for-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Pray for Us &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section bb_built=&#8221;1&#8243;][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;3.0.60&#8243; background_layout=&#8221;light&#8221; text_orientation=&#8221;left&#8221; border_style=&#8221;solid&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Quotefancy-2248271-3840x2160.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-2620 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Quotefancy-2248271-3840x2160-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Quotefancy-2248271-3840x2160-1024x576.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Quotefancy-2248271-3840x2160-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Quotefancy-2248271-3840x2160-768x432.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Quotefancy-2248271-3840x2160-1080x608.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Morning Lifers &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s Thursday morning and I am enjoying a quiet space in my office. \u00a0It is a busy time for us as a family with relatives and friends coming and going. \u00a0I feel a responsibility to be available for people who come to visit and at the same time be accessible to our dear church family. \u00a0There are no adequate words really, to express what I feel re: CLC. \u00a0I am first and foremost, grateful to God for His goodness in leading us here and then for the incredible love that you all have shown.<\/p>\n<p>The reason for the post today is to ask you to pray for me and in the very same breath, to pray for our church. \u00a0I am feeling a flood tide of excitement about the prospects here, of opening our arms as wide as we possibly can to those hurting, broken and marginalized, within all of our reach. \u00a0I have this feeling that God would like to bless this ministry as He may never have done before. \u00a0I am not talking about the numbers game, finances or any of the other metrics that we are familiar with.<\/p>\n<p>I am referencing a movement of God.<\/p>\n<p>One of my oft-prayed prayers is that I could find myself in the middle of a movement of God that would be so much of Him that I would be unable and unwilling to make a church growth seminar out of it. \u00a0It would be simply sacred enough to bow our heads and say, &#8220;<em><strong>God did it all<\/strong><\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That means many things &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>It means that we seek the kind of growth that God does. \u00a0In the book of Acts I read &#8220;And the Lord added to the church , daily, those who were being saved.&#8221; \u00a0<em><strong>This is the sole numerical metric that God is interested in<\/strong><\/em>. \u00a0He is not interested in how many people gather for a given meeting. \u00a0I tend to be very interested in this and curiously enough, I get to thinking that I have something to do with it when the numbers are there. \u00a0That is pure, unadulterated pride and I am so weary of that.<\/p>\n<p>It means that we are involved in that somehow. \u00a0I feel that there is an incredible grace dynamic at work in our church. \u00a0Never &#8230; NEVER, in my prior pastoral life, have I experienced the free flow of God&#8217;s grace in a church family.<\/p>\n<p>I marvel at it every week.<\/p>\n<p>There is a deep stirring within my heart for what God is doing even now. \u00a0What we see of an iceberg is nothing compared to what lies beneath. \u00a0The same is true when it comes to God. \u00a0We observe very little until it breaks loose. \u00a0What are you willing to do, to be a part of this? \u00a0That&#8217;s what faith is &#8230; to be involved in what God is doing &#8230; all in.<\/p>\n<p>Bless you Lifers &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><div class=\"et_pb_row et_pb_row_0 et_pb_row_empty\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div> Morning Lifers &#8230; It&#8217;s Thursday morning and I am enjoying a quiet space in my office. \u00a0It is a busy time for us as a family with relatives and friends coming and going. \u00a0I feel a responsibility to be available for people who come to visit and at the same time be accessible to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,26,29,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-between-sundays","category-prayer","category-random-thoughts","category-weekly-bulletin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6IX45-Gf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2621,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2619\/revisions\/2621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikemediology.com\/clc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}