FaithEngineer

A great use of a church website is for sharing prayer requests. PrayerEngine is a new web service that looks promising. It allows you to embed a prayer wall directly into your existing website. Anyone can submit a prayer request, which is then posted to your website as soon as it is approved. You can share those prayer requests through email, twitter, facebook, and RSS. People visiting your website can click on a counter that shows how many time each request is prayed for. This is such a great use of social media for the church. If you are interested, check out the demo on youtube. I think you will see more services like this in the future that embed directly into your existing website.

The service costs a one-time fee of $99. Since there is no monthly fee, it’s a great bargain. As an added bonus, you can head over to MediaSalt and pickup an additional 15% discount for today only!

The Prayer Engine – The Best Way to Share Prayer Requests Online

I am asking all of my blog readers to please pray for Matt Chandler and his family.  I first saw Matt Chandler preach live at the Catalyst Conference last year.  He is an incredible pastor from Texas that I greatly admire and respect.  Since that time, I have listened to Matt’s sermons almost every week. I have been encouraged and strengthened by the truth that he boldly preaches.  Matt is about the same age as me and he has three children, so I feel a certain connection to him, both theologically and as a pastor.

Right before Thanksgiving, Matt suffered a seizure and was taken to the hospital where a brain tumor was found.  He has undergone surgery and the church released the pathology results today.  The results were the words no one wants to hear.  It was a malignant tumor and the doctors were unable to remove all of it during surgery.  I ask that you read through the entire report from his church and then take the time to pray for Matt and his family and his church.  James 5:16 says that “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”  Let’s join together for our brother in Christ. Here is more information from The Village Church’s website.

Matt, who is being released from the hospital today, is meeting with a neuro-oncologist this week to outline the next steps of the recovery process. There is a range of treatment possibilities but the exact course of action has not yet been determined. He will continue outpatient rehab.

The Lord is calling Matt and Lauren and The Village Church body to endure this trial. It will be a challenging road for Matt, his family and our church body. The gospel is our hope and the Lord is our strength. Matt and Lauren continue to find solace and hope in Christ. They weep facing this trial, but not as those without hope and perspective. The gospel clarifies their suffering and promises more of Christ through it all.

The best way to serve the family is to continue to be faithful in prayer. Specifically, pray for the following:

• Wisdom for all the coming decisions
• Strength and peace to endure
• The kids’ (Audrey, Reid and Norah) hearts; pray the Lord is merciful as they process and that their little hearts do not grow embittered
• The Chandlers and The Village would suffer well because of the gospel and for the sake of Christ’s name

As you hurt and weep for the family, do not do it alone. Gather with your home group and with other believers in homes and pray together. This is a time to walk together with others and to endure this trial in community. If you wish, send cards and letters to Matt and Lauren at 2101 Justin Road, Flower Mound, TX 75028.

Holy Spirit Intro Video from Mike Morris on Vimeo.

We started our new series on the Holy Spirit this week at Cornerstone. I’m excited about our church learning together how the Holy Spirit moves and works in us and through us.  We ended the service with a powerful prayer by Francis Chan from his book Forgotten God.  This is our prayer as we start this series. Will you join us on this journey to discover the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives.  The sermon audio will be up on our sermon website later today.

Spirit, we know that we have done wrong by You. Please forgive us for grieving, resisting, and quenching You. We have resisted You through sin, through our rebellion, and through our hardness of heart. At times, we have been spiritually blind. At other times, we knew what You wanted us to do, but we chose to ignore Your promptings. Yet this is not how we want to live now.

We need you to change us. Only through You can we truly worship. Spirit of the Lord, You are the one who brings us to a place where we can worship. You are the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of Life. Thank You for the truth, the holiness, and the life You give us.

We need Your wisdom and understanding as we seek to live this life. Keep us from disbelief, from fear. We need Your strength to help us do what you are asking us to do and to live how You are asking us to live. Speak loudly and drown out the other voices calling us to conform to the patterns of this world.

You are the Spirit of self-control and love. Give us the self control needed to deny our flesh and follow you. Give us a love strong enough to motivate courageous action. Manifest Yourself through us that we may serve and love Your bride, the church, as You do.

Come, Holy Spirit come. We don’t know exactly what that means and looks like for each of us yet, in the particular places You’ve called us to inhabit. But, nonetheless, whatever it means, we ask for Your presence. Come, Holy Spirit, come.

I’m a typical guy, so I usually don’t ask for anything, but I would appreciate your prayers over the next couple of days.  Here are some things to pray for.

• Our community wide prayer service tonight at 7pm at Cornerstone for Praisin’ In the Park.  Pray that our local churches would come together and fulfill the prayer of Jesus in John 17 that we would be ONE.
• Pray that my sermon for Sunday will come together.  I’m be sharing that God is in Control.  It’s a pretty heavy topic when you talk about suffering and pain in the life of a Christian.
• Pray for the local bands that will playing Sunday night before the concert. Pray that God will use them to connect and reach out to the youth of our area.
• Pray for me as I speak before the concert.  God has put a burden on me to share a story about how much God longs for us to come to Him.  About his love and forgiveness.  Please pray that God will use it to soften hearts and allow people to respond to the gospel message.
• Pray for Decemberadio.  The guys will be traveling from New Mexico and they will be very tired.  Pray that God will use this concert to encourage them as they minister to us.  I have seen them play numerous times over the years.  I even remember them playing small youth rallies before they were even called Decemberadio.  The guys really have a heart and passion to share what Christ has done in their lives. Pray that lives will be changed.
• Pray for all the workers that will be doing everything from parking cars, selling concessions, helping with security, running sound and light, counseling students, and everything else that has to be done behind the scenes.  Prayer that God would use the efforts of everyone involved to make this a success.
• Pray for the weather.  It all looks good right now, but continue praying that the weather will be great for the outdoor concert.
• Pray for the weeklong community Bible School for students at Praisin’ In the Park. Pray again for all the workers and children who will be there throughout the week.
• And finally, pray for my wife, Jennifer.  She is one incredible lady, and she has been like a pinball bouncing around making sure the details fall into place for the concert.  Also pray for Diana and Robin as they plan the childrens event for Monday through Thursday.  We don’t know how many people to expect, but we pray that many lives will be touched and changed.

Thanks guys for your prayers.

Yesterday, we kicked off the One Prayer Series at Cornerstone.  We are excited to be part of this Global movement to fulfill the prayer of Jesus found in John 17, that we would be ONE.  We took part in this series last year, and it was a great experience. The theme this year is “God Is …..”

Just stop and think for a moment.  How would you feel in the blank?  How do you describe the character and nature of God in just one sentence?  The truth is that we could spend years just on this simple theme describing the Glory of God.

My sermon yesterday was God Is Enough and the audio will be up later today at our website and on iTunes.  God is enough for every circumstance, and we need to keep our eyes focused on following Christ through everything.  Through our success and our failure, through the good and the bad, we must continually seek Him.  I am excited about what we will learn together through this series. We will be continuing this series through the months of June and July.

I want to encourage you to visit the One Prayer website each day to find out how you can pray with other believers around the world.  You can also follow One Prayer on twitter,on facebook, and on YouTube.

One Prayer 2009: One Prayer began in 2008 with a simple idea: We pray to Jesus asking Him to answer our prayers – what if we became the answer to His? He prayed that we would be one, and One Prayer is an opportunity to see what can be accomplished when the Church works together.

Last June, thousands of churches formed unprecedented partnerships across cities, continents, denominations, and cultures. More than two million believers stood together to learn, pray, fast, and love others. This year, we’ll be joining forces once again as we go out into the world to share, serve and give during One Prayer 2009.