Dear First Pres,

   What a fantastic day we had Sunday! I’m so grateful for the Men’s Leadership Board and their work to host our Block Party in the parking lot. The food was great. The bounce house was epic. And the connection was just really, really good. Thanks to the many others who stepped in to help, as well.

   One quick story: one of the women who helped to drop off the bounce house was so impressed with what was happening, and so taken by the hospitality of our crew who welcomed her team, that she ended up sticking around for the party. And, she even signed up to help us pray for our city. How cool is that? Praise God. I’m praying we see her again.

   Today is the National Day of Prayer. No matter what our political views might be, as Christ followers we recognize the need to pray for our country. Of course, we pray for all the nations of the world, but today is a day set aside to pray, in particular, for the United States of America. We pray for God to bring Christ-centered revival in all the local churches that will overflow with joy into our neighborhoods, parishes and cities. We pray for Christ-centered repentance that will draw thousands and thousands to faith in Christ. We pray for Christ-centered wisdom to be good stewards of our many riches for the purpose of the common good. We pray for Christ-centered humility in all our leaders to serve as Christ would serve. We pray that God would deliver us from the evil one. We pray against all forms of violence, injustice, greed, deception, racism and dehumanization. We pray, as Christ directed us, for God’s name to be glorified, God’s will to be done, and God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. Beloved, I encourage you today to spend some time praying for our country. We desperately need the Lord.

   One expression of that is our church’s commitment to participate in the Fresno/Clovis 24/7 prayer initiative. The goal is to have at least one of God’s people praying specifically for our city all the time. So, churches have signed up to take certain days of the month and then worked with their congregations to cover all 24 hours of that particular day. We, along with Bethany Inner-City Church, have agreed to take ownership of the 5th of every month. So, yesterday, starting at midnight, we had folks praying throughout the day. However, we still haven’t covered every half-hour slot.  Would you be willing to join this effort? Our Deacons in leadership of prayer ministries (Chester Goodale and Paula Harabedian) send out a monthly prayer guide to help. Our goal is to have every minute covered by June 5. Can you help? Click HERE to see what spots need to be covered.

   As we talked about on Sunday, one of the things the Bible clearly teaches is that prayer matters. It matters first for what God wants to do in us, to lead us into an increasingly surrendered life to Christ Jesus. But it also matters for what God wants to do in others. When Paul and Silas and Timothy knew that the Thessalonians were going through it, and that they couldn’t just go and fix it themselves, what did they do? They prayed. As I said on Sunday, they prayed because they believed that their living God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) heard their prayers and answered them. May it be true of us.

   Remember, Beloved, God is able to do immeasurably more than we could possibly ask or even imagine (Ephesians 3:20).

   So, let’s pray.

Blessings, 

Jeremy Vaccaro