Road to the Theater: Prayer Guide Day 1

Hello everyone. Happy Monday to ya. Each day this week, you will find a prayer guide posted here, taken directly from Michael's blog. It's prayer requests from the staff of Oak Leaf, as we prepare to move back to the theater and overall prayer for this ministry. Check out Monday's below. Thanks for praying!
-Jonathan

As I talked about on Sunday, I’m calling on everyone connected to Oak Leaf Church to pray for us as we get ready to move to the movie theater. Each day on this blog (and on the blogs of all our other staffers), I’ll talk a little bit about what we’re doing and give you three big prayer requests. If you know Christians in other churches, please ask them to pray. If you’re a church leader or Christian from another city, we covet your prayers. In addition to praying some specific prayers this week, I’m asking everyone to fast on Thursday. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.

This morning, I want to ask you to pray for what happens on Sunday. Sunday is the time when most people will experience Oak Leaf Church for the first time. So, we spend a lot of time throughout the week getting ready for Sunday, preparing for the guests that will come over to the house.

We don’t want Sunday morning to just be a church service. We don’t want it to be just another sermon or just some more songs. No…we want God to show up and speak to someone. We want somebody’s life to be radically changed with the power of the Gospel. We want to offer hope and encouragement.

And we don’t just want to family to come through the front door…we want to invite guests. In fact, we’re expecting them. When our volunteers are setting up lights and stages and kids equipment at the theater, they do so knowing that today will be the day that a “one” shows up.

Maybe it’s a mom who has been praying for her prodigal son for two years and he’s finally agreed to come to church. Maybe it’s the single mom who hasn’t been to church in years because the last time she went, she felt guilty for being a single mom. Maybe someone has been praying for one person for so long and today is the day they are coming to church. If that was your somebody, you would have wanted us to go all out to present the message in the most creative, relevant, and inspirational way possible. That’s why we work so hard on Sunday. Because somebody is coming to church that day.

Today, focus on praying for what happens on Sundays at Oak Leaf Church.

1. Pray for the new series that starts this week…”SuperNatural.” We’re talking about angels, demons and spiritual warfare. As I study this stuff, pray that God would speak through me.

2. For the hundreds of “ones” who we want to see come to Oak Leaf Church and meet Jesus. We didn’t start this church to give religious people a God-fix…we came here to see Jesus transform the lives of thousands of people.

3. For people to “come and see.” We believe the movie theater gives people a great opportunity to invite their friends, neighbors and co-workers. Pray for people to come check out church at the movies.