Become one of the 1,000,000 people praying for 1,000,000 Americans to find Christ
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At the heart of the Christian faith is a prayer that still echoes across generations: “That they may all be one.” (John 17:21) On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus did not pray for comfort or ease for His disciples—He prayed for unity. Not uniformity, but a...
There’s a quiet assumption many of us carry: that if we don’t grow in prayer, nothing really changes. Life keeps moving. Responsibilities get handled. The world spins on. But that assumption isn’t true. There is a cost to not growing in prayer, one that often goes...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART What We Need Today What we need and what this Roman church needed – was only found in a relationship with God, only “in Christ,” and that we know, is a metaphor for unceasing prayer. It is the desire of God to produce...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART Paul’s Strategic Purpose in Writing the Book of Romans The backdrop of the book of Romans is wrath. Full stop. Wrath. This should jolt our sensibilities. The wrath of God is being restrained, but only momentarily. We...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART At the Altar The prayer of Paul, his benediction, stands at the end of the book of Romans. The book of Romans itself is an overview of the book of Leviticus – at least, it is built on the concepts of the five...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART Sorting through the Relevant Key Words of Romans in Light of God’s Coming Wrath The dominant word in Romans apart from incidental articles is “God,” appearing 153 times. Whatever you have been told about the content...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART A Parody Imagine that you live in a little valley town. It’s a sweet place with lush meadows and a quiet stream that meanders through the village. There are legends, now treated as rumors, as fairy tales, that the city...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART When Paul wrote to the Romans, it was and had been for centuries, the center of global power. As a result, the nations had come to Rome. Some of the elite sneered at the diverse and foreign population that represented...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART The book of Romans is unique. It is a letter to the church that lives at the center of global power. And for that reason, its content needs to be examined against that background. Paul begins with a bold dual...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART Attending a prayer meeting is not enough, unless we are taking from it, prayer-fire, and we are learning to be people of prayer. Here we give sound to our prayer thoughts, words to our hearts, we organize random...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART Spurgeon noted, “We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.” There are seven things that should be featured in...
By P. Douglas SmallPresident, PRAYER AT THE HEART There are five markers for intimacy with God in the Song of Solomon: An Intoxicating Passion — 1:1-2. A Place of Prayer — 1:4. A Daily Appointment/Rendezvous With God — 1:7. Time at the Table — 1:12. Unhurried Seasons...
Believers across America now mourn the debility of the church; its vitality is faltering, its impact fading, its mission neglected, and its devotion to God being undercut by love for this world. Right now we are enduring the largest and fastest religious shift in American history. Its scope is greater than every previous spiritual awakening in our history combined, only in the opposite direction. Christians are being confronted by “spiritual forces of evil” (Eph. 6:12) operating from the heavenly realms that boldly infiltrate every aspect of society, even the church. These dark powers aim to 1) frustrate God’s purpose to bless all peoples on earth through Christ with countless benefits, including righteousness, peace, joy, and justice, and 2)
inflict endless varieties of misery on everyone. When spiritual decline and cultural decay prevail, God’s people rise up to seek the Lord in prayer as the fountain of every blessing, asking him to fill the earth with his glory, pour out His Holy Spirit, inspire his church, and deliver people and cultures from innumerable troubles. Now is the time to pray with desperation for spiritual and cultural renewal, for divine intervention, for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for his church and his creation in Northeast Ohio.
Christian leaders, especially pastors, have a heightened responsibility to press into God with prayer for the church. Biblical precedent shows that gathering church leaders together to engage in heartfelt prayer for the welfare of their community often initiates widespread spiritual and social renewal both in church and society (2 Chron. 7:13-14; 15:8-10; 34:29-32). New Testament accounts show that when Christian leaders unite in prayer, often in response to social and/or spiritual crises, spiritual awakening and gospel advance follow (Acts 1:13-14; 2:1-4; 4:23-31; 13:1-3).
Jesus himself instills expectation of an outpouring of God’s Spirit in response to prayer with this promise: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Our Father in heaven is especially ready to pour out upon us the blessing we most need and long for, the very Spirit of God who imparts divine life, wisdom, and virtue.
With all this in mind, now is the time for Christian leaders across Northeast Ohio to come together to seek the Lord with biblically grounded, Christ-directed, wholehearted prayer for a God-given spiritual awakening. The trumpet of God is blaring! He is calling us to pray! Join Christian leaders from across our region to humble ourselves, seek the Lord’s face, and be willing to respond through His intervening grace to any changes He calls us to make! (Psalm 110:3)
The Gathering is an extension of the nationwide PATH (Prayer at the Heart) initiative piloted recently in Northeast Ohio. Put The Gathering on your calendar: Sunday, September 24, 6 pm, Calvary Chapel of Cleveland, 709 Brook Park Road, Brooklyn Heights, OH.