Praying Scripture

We all know that 2020 has been a wild year. From fires, to the pandemic, to racial reconciliation, to an election year in America, and I'm sure I could write another paragraph about what has happened this year. As a pastor of a local church I've found it very difficult to lead with such turmoil around every corner. At one point this year we only made decisions for about 8 hours at a time. We then moved that to making decisions for two months. I'm not actually sure where we are in the time length for making decisions now. 

When the pandemic started I thought that churches wouldn't gather for three weeks max (WOW, was I wrong). What I thought would be a 5k run turned into a marathon that turned into an IronMan that I hadn't trained for. 

Last week I had this idea to study Scripture with our staff. You might think that is normally what is in a church staff meeting and there is a component of that. This week we took the majority of the meeting to read God's words, ask some questions, and then pray. The whole morning went really well so I thought I'd share it with you here. 

Our staff gathered and read the following passages. Then we asked these guiding questions (and some more). Finally we prayed. 

Jesus will build His church (Read Matthew 16:13-20)
Who will build the church? 
What is our role in building the church? 

Pray for Jesus to rebuild Coastline in the wake of the pandemic 

Go and make disciples (Read Matthew 28:18-20)
What is our command in these verses? 
Are we doing more event planning or disciple making?
Pray for Jesus to show us how to disciple people. 

Open the flood gates of giving (read Malachi 3:6-12)
How have we cheated God?
Are we teaching our people to trust God with their finances? 
Pray for God to open the flood gates of giving this year. 

Ask the Lord of the Harvest (Matthew 9:35-38)
Where do you need four more volunteers right now?
How will you build up these volunteers?
Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send workers. 

Care for the people (John 21:15-19)
How are we doing at caring for people?
How are we intentionally caring for people? 
Pray for God to shepherd His people