Thursday, March 21, 2019

A church revitalized by prayer

As many of you know, about eighteen months ago our family moved to Ventura to be a part of Coastline Bible Church. Coastline has been in the community of Ventura for almost nintey-seven years now.

Our church had a rich history of being a lighthouse in this community for Jesus.
Our church has a rich history of planting churches, sending missionaries, baptizing and leading people to a relationship with Jesus.
Our church had a rich history of investing in kids, students, and families.

When we arrived we realized that God was getting ready to do something new here. We had a vision of what that would be, but needed more clarity.

One thing we did was restate our Core Values. For months I crafted what I felt like God was leading us to. I worked with staff and elders to make sure we were heading in the right direction. To finalize them we had a big gathering of staff and elders to make sure the language was correct. I love how one of our elders put it. He said something like, "We just put them in modern language." It was the perfect statement.

One of our Core values is:
We Pray Bold Prayers
We know that God is awesome and capable, so we make “the big ask” of God in our prayer life. We come to God with a bold list of prayers and take time to actively listen to Him on a regular basis.
1 Samuel 3, Mark 1:35, Acts 12:5, James 5:16

You might be wondering where I'm going with this, but stay with me.
About a year ago we created a new gift to give our guests.
We wanted something they would use and not throw away.
We wanted something that wasn't cheap.
We wanted something that would be valuable to them.
We landed on Coastline mugs (because who doesn't love coffee).

After the mug was created I began taking them with me to speaking engagements, conferences, small gatherings, vacation, and more. I began giving them to all our friends who were praying for us and supporting us. I gave them to friends in different cities, counties, and states.
The one similarity was that I would ask them to pray for Coastline every time they used the mug.

Some friends would send texts, others would send pictures. They were always encouraging.
In the last three weeks these came in. Some had text messages and others I just knew what the pic meant.



















Praying! This mug is the best gift you’ve ever given me...I think I pray for you more than anyone else....





















Prayed for you and the grand re-opening this morning. Love you guys.




Been drinking coffee out of my Coastline mug last couple mornings and praying for you guys.






















All of this got me thinking about how God longs to converse with us in prayer. Then I got to thinking, "What would it look like to invite more people into your life to pray for you and what God is doing?"

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