PRAYVANCOUVER.CA 2016-07-24

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!  Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near.  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7 NASB

 

REPORTS FROM THE CITY…(watch for updates daily on @plantvancouver) 

Westlynn’s Grand Forks Trip.   The trip went well. We were blessed to lead First Baptist Church in their service playing music and having Hamish preach. We then did a Sport Camp for the week. There were 18 kids, most of whom were church kids, though 4 or 5 weren’t. Though no one committed their life to Christ they heard the gospel and some expressed interest in knowing more about Jesus. We trust that the children were impacted and that God would use this event to continue to draw the kids to Himself.

ORIGIN –Origin Church at UBC thanks God for a special week (Fusion 2016) with friends from Riverbend Baptist Church and North Phoenix Baptist Church. We walked with Jesus, worshiped together, blessed our campus community and planted our lives and the Gospel in the city!

The Point –We were running a soccer camp. Thanks for new relationships there and got to share this week with some folks who had never heard about Jesus and his forgiveness. Our interns are meeting them this coming week for coffee and would appreciate prayer for that.

Zendeh Church –We are praying this weekend for the Church Camp being held in Langley in partnership with FBC Dusloge. Pray for a growth in fellowship and a deepening in their relationship with Jesus that will lead to evangelism and discipleship in the city.

 Towers Baptist Church and Richmond Chinese Baptist Church We want to pray for the service on Sunday as we expect many unchurched families to attend our Summer Camp Celebration/Worship Service. We are thankful for an average of almost 140 kids per day at Summer Camp. This week please pray for the team of 4 from TBC going to West Kelowna to partner with Wayne Campbell and Potter’s House Community Church and FBC Tupelo, Mississippi to lead basketball camps and help with community outreach. We are very thankful for the $750 offering given at the Summer camp this week to help mission leaders in other cities.

Canvas Church – Amazing week of soccer camp. It was the largest camp Canvas has ever had with more than 250 campers and volunteers. The volunteers from Canvas, Broadmoor, and Trinity were outstanding. The best part is the amazing steps of faith so many of these campers are taking toward Jesus! Praying for Jesus to raise up a generation of children in Victoria who know and worship the Savior. Pray for the church tomorrow as they will be celebrating the baptism of four more friends.

TRANSFORMATION CITY – Celebrating new relationships with 2 families due to our BBQs in the park every week. Also started our Bless Olympic Village initiative with our missions teams – delivering gift boxes to every business in the neighbourhood. An overwhelmingly positive and grateful response. Five days later and it’s already opened doors to community event partnerships. Will do our second round this coming week with at least 10 more deliveries. Praying specifically for:

– Continued dependence on the Spirit to work thru our weakness

– Our marriage to be firmly rooted in the gospel to withstand spiritual warfare

-God to call out more workers for sowing and harvesting

-12 to 15 people to join us for Alpha in September

– Continued favour and gospel conversations for Lindsey at the bakery

-Continued wisdom to develop a Spirit-driven, Jesus-exalting, church planting strategy

We are thankful for the partnership teams of North Metro this past week and we are praying for Summit Church who will be join us in prayerwalking the community and serving the community by working in the local community gardens

River Community –They are celebrating God’s blessings this summer as we have seen

• Block party at Steves Elementary School (~300 attended).
• Block party at Dockside Village (~150 attended).
• Salmon Fest … Served at Community Centre and sponsored a bounce house at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery. A lot of good conversations and camp registrations. Met a couple of volunteers that want to get together. One came to last Community Group.
• Community Group at Dockside: 20+ watched War Room. Will have more discussion about the movie this week at Community Group.
• CrossTraining Camp #1: over 100 kids over the course of the week
• CrossTraining Camp #2: over 60 kids over the course of the week
• Great conversations with parents. Kids soaking up the Bible lessons, wanted Bibles etc.

Prayer Needs for this week:

• CrossTraining Camp #3: expecting ~100 kids for soccer clinic, guitar clinic, or an art/craft clinic.
• Pray for Sunny (high school exchange student just finished going through Alpha with interns, in China now but wants to talk more when she gets back).
• Pray for many from various religious backgrounds who have had a lot of questions (at Community Group, dinners etc).

Movement Church – The Manires are burdened to the point of tears, for the thousands upon thousands of young adults in the Fraser Valley and Greater Vancouver who are looking everywhere under the sun for answers that only Jesus can provide.  We’ve met far too many people who seem to have given up on the LORD and His Bride, the church, or never known Him to begin with. Pray with us that the lost might be found in Jesus. And pray specifically that the LORD would guide us to a team of people who share our passion to reach the younger generations for Christ. Pray also prayer the LORD would direct our steps in forming an awesome team to build and establish Movement Church.

PRAY FOR THESE ADDITIONAL THINGS THIS WEEK..

Our GenSend Students will be wrapping up a quick summer project this week and presenting their strategies for future work in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island.. Pray for the students as they seek to finish well that they may see how God has been at work in their lives and used them to engage the communities. Pray for encouragement to put into practice that which they have learned as they return home. Pray also for the confirmation of the Spirit of God as to their next steps to join the Father in his work.

Pray for a time of great fellowship and family building as the WBA Picnic is held on August 1st.  Pray that many of our church families would join us for this annual gather and we would experience the unity and encouragement of the Spirit.  Pray that new relationships would be started.  Pray God would be honoured by our growing cooperation on mission together.

We are in the final days of preparation for Summer Youth Celebration at Gordom Lake. Pray for the spiritual and physical preparation of the Camp. This week pray for the leadership team as they work through the final planning details. Pray for the speakers, Tim Corbin and Josh Arrington, as they spend time in God’s Word preparing for each session. Pray for those specific students that have not yet registered that need the experience of this camp to draw them forward to their next step on mission.

Pray for the Prayer Network for Vancouver and Vancouver Island

As you join us in praying if there is a need or a praise you would like to share with our network please simple send a brief email to raywoodard@gmail.com. In busiest times of engaging our city with the gospel, there are three ways you can personally be involved and you can involve your church or networks.

1. Several years ago we began weekly publishing the items we are celebrating as well as the needs of our churches and leaders. We seek to make this available every Sunday morning through our website, Facebook and twitter so it can be shared for the coming week with prayer warriors across the country. It can be seen at prayvancouver.ca .

2. We began several months ago encouraging individuals and churches to be involved in an effort to stop and pray for Vancouver/Vancouver Island twice daily at 10:02 am/pm. This time was taken from Luke 10:2 to simply ‘Pray earnestly to the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into His harvest”. God has been answering this simple prayer offered by those who will discipline themselves to stop and pray.

3. A growing group of our men are fasting and praying now starting Monday or Tuesday evening after dinner at 6:00PM.  Some of our team will fast until Wednesday at 6:00PM and the rest of us will continue our fast until Thursday at 6:00PM.  We will be praying as follows:

• Spiritual awakening of our churches, locally and nationally, that are called by His holy name (both in and outside our association)
• Christian men to have a renewed relationship with Jesusand a passion in sharing their testimonies concerning their experiences and walk with the Lord.
• Our Canadian leaders in government at all levels, to govern according to Godly principles.
• Our country that it would return to the Lord and be healed.
• Gods protection for our churches and church families.
• Our church leaders (pastors, elders, deacons, lay leaders)
• Spiritual and numerical growth of our churches and small groups
• Pray for the Harvest

What would happen if all men called by Christ name committed to this time? What if we all humbled ourselves before our Lord? Would you join us in praying the Psalms and petitioning the Lord from His mighty word? Will you join with us until we hear from the Lord?

Thank you for your steadfastness in fasting and praying!