Terribly Poetic

Sorry that I have been abit delayed (and even missed last weeks prayer) in posting on here lately. We have been very busy with planning for our California Breakaway trip. See past videos here. This year Dawn is working almost fulltime hours in the office which has made our lives extremely busy. Yesterday Dawn, Libby and myself, together with James Clifford, travelled down to Weyburn for a parents meeting. All went well down in Weyburn, but it added up to a 12 hour day, and one tired Libby.

Update on prayer: I am still urgently needing people to come join my prayer team for the California Trip. If you don’t live in Saskatoon you can still join, you will just miss out on the corporate prayer times. Just to let you know, the prayer team is only two people right now. Please email me daryl@yfcsask.com or phone the office to talk to me more about it. 242-7117.

On another note: About a week ago I injured my back quite badly playing Ultimate. I have been seeing the chiropractor regularly, but it seems to not be getting alot better. Please pray that God will heal my back, especially with all the busyness, it makes picking up and doing stuff for Libby quite difficult. Thanks

O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring us again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen †

I have been struck with a deep sense of conviction after reading the article about Daniel Nash. Read Here. Ever since I have read this article I feel that I must do something to beginning praying for ministries in a deeper way. Therefore, I am going to start by setting up a prayer team to pray for Youth For Christ’s annual California Breakaway trip. This is a trip during the spring break for High School students from all over Saskatchewan. The trip has quite a large portion of unchurched students and the trip features small group meetings through the 10days as well as a speaker during some large group meetings. Here is what I am looking for…

-Team Members who would commit to praying daily for the trip for 1 full hour.

-Within the prayer team praying for each student and staff member by name.

-Meeting corporately to pray at the same time as the large group meetings being held during the trip.

As a staff member for YFC I would seek to provide a link between the team and the trip to held obtain specific prayer requests as often as possible. I would also seek to have “what to pray for” sheets for each team member to pray for.

My purpose in setting up this prayer team is, “To fervently approach God for salvation to be rooted in the lives of each student through focused continual prayer.”

This is my call to action. If you are interested in being apart of this prayer team, please email me at “daryl AT yfcsask.com”

If you cannot commit to this prayer team, there is still ways in which you can get involved. One, you can join us for corporate prayer, which will be announced on this blog at a later time or Two, you can spend time praying through prayer requests either at home, or by visiting the prayer room. (email me and I can tell you where it is and how to get to it). I will post updates for pray either directly on this blog or I will post a link to where to view the prayer requests. Stay tuned for more info.

So it seems that the more I have read about Daniel Nash and other such prayer warriors the more I am being convicted. How many times do I or other ministries actually seek to pray for the lost souls of those we work for, and how often to we actually expect something as a result of praying for them? I am just as guilty as the next guy, but the time as got to come when we as a Church will begin to truly pray for the lost. Praying in such a manner that we are cut to the soul. Praying for the Holy Spirit to truly take control of a situation, to convict, to cut to the heart, and to give us as speakers, evangelists, missionaries, and fellow believers the words to say; how to say them, when to say them, and how to say them. I feel so guilty that whenever I run a program/event/or otherwise, that we are not truly humbling ourselves to pray. I mean really, what do we do, have a staff meeting/training or otherwise prior to whatever it is we are doing and we talk about things and discuss the people we are going to minister to, and then, just when time is running out, we tack on some prayer. How ridiculous does this not sound! It’s the same problem the disciples had in the garden isn’t it? They are trying to pray, but what do they do, fall asleep.

We have been given a great task, to point others to this mystery of following Jesus, but we have also been told that whatever we ask and pray for we will receive. We must begin to pray like we mean it, prayer that is continual, prayer that is focused and relentlessly crying out for God to save a dying world.

I commented on my last post that I felt convicted, and I hope you do too. Know I must act upon this conviction. Two quotes from Brian McLaren’s book, “Faith that counts, is not the absence of doubt; it’s the presence of action”, and “…a leap of faith isn’t a leap into faith, it’s the leap you take because you’re already in faith and want to put it into loving action.” I have had these two quotes in my mind for awhile, however, until recently I didn’t understand why. Now I know. I must take action to pray more for the lost. For starters you can visit the 24-7prayer room that I mentioned in my last post. And if anyone feels passionate about this the way I do, please feel free to give me ideas on how we can make a difference.

Have you ever noticed the catchy way in which we as Christian tend to copy others ideas to use instead of using our own God given creativity? Let me explain alittle… The first thing I can pick on (which many people would hopefully agree with me) are things such as the witnessing tools I recently found online that had clever sayings printed onto poker chips to give to your friends, or the Testa-Mint candy that I’ve seen for sale in Christian Bookstores, or even the EvangaCube. (ask me about that later if you don’t know what that is) While maybe people would laugh at these and write them off as cheesy, wh hat about these examples…Making a series of talks with a theme around the TV show “24″, or having a cool t-shirt for your church youth group that is based off a popular brand name like American Eagle or Old Navy and just changing it enough. Or how about making a logo design for a ministry that looks very similar to a larger corporation. What about stealing Bible study material, sermon outlines, illustrations, or other Christian material for use in your own ministry. Many would say that graphic design, such as t-shirts and advertising are different than using others material for ministry. As I deal in both of these words being a youth worker for YFC, as well as graphic design that I do as apart of my job. I have always tried very hard to not steal other graphic designers work and to use my God given creativity in each of my designs, however, I feel that I am abnormal in this respect when it comes to many other Christian graphic arts I see. I know that if I saw my design being copied without permission I would be upset. Why do so many Christian’s copy others and see no problem with it? How is graphic design any different than ministry materials? We pay for devotional books, and teaching curriculum so why do we steal others great ideas without permission. Do we lack creativity? This is something that people I am around hold different beliefs and thoughts on. I even feel that within the organization I work for we have different opinions. As a Christian, that is seeking out truth and trying to live out his faith in everything that he does, this is an area I would love to hear what others think. Is it okay to borrow others ideas for ministry, whether it’s graphics, logos, or Bible studies or is there a difference between the two ideas?

Sabbath Rest

Sabbath in the Bible, Darryl reminds us, is “gracious permission, a blessed and humane gift, the liberty of rest” (67). So, he creates a few new beatitudes: 1. Happy are those who serve the world by abandoning it for a little while…

Some great thoughts on what Sabbath rest is all about and how we’ve distorted it. Give it a read.