"I have so much business I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer." —Martin Luther
"Pray for us." This simple phrase appears throughout the Bible as God’s leaders ask their people to intercede on their behalf. We too would encourage you to pray for us. Specifically, we would appreciate prayers of repentance, praise, thanksgiving, commitment, and mission.
Prayers of Repentance
If there is any sin in your life, in prayer you can pull it up by the roots. This great gift is made possible by Jesus’ death in our place for our sins. As you pray, remember to pray for the many Christians who are living half-hearted, hypocritical lives and need to repent for God’s glory, their joy, and others’ good.
When we who are Christians live unrepentant lives, we become consumed with sin and self. We become greedy, negative, bitter, selfish, and waste the life that God has entrusted to our stewardship. The need is so great for the gospel to ring forth that each of God’s servants must repent of worshiping idols like comfort, satisfaction, greed, pride, and self because every Christian, every dollar, and every minute counts.
Prayers of Praise
We encourage you to thank God for who he is. God is sovereign and rules over everyone and everything! God is loving, gracious, merciful, compassionate, and good! God has forgiven sin through the cross of Jesus Christ! God has poured out the Holy Spirit to transform and empower our lives of worship! God has inspired the writing of Scripture to speak to us not just for information but transformation! God is holy and altogether without any sin! God is alive and will be forever!
If we simply spent every moment of every day from now through eternity praising God for who he is and what he’s done, we would never run out of reasons to praise him.
Prayers of Thanksgiving
We are thankful that Mars Hill Church enjoys so much of God’s continual grace. In a conversation with my friend
C.J. Mahaney, he said that we at Mars Hill have enjoyed more of God’s grace than many ministries experience in a lifetime.
We thank God that people are enjoying new birth, repenting of sin, overcoming the pain of sin committed against them, getting married, reconciling friendships, having babies, and, by God’s grace, growing to look more and more like Jesus Christ a little bit every day. We praise God that at least five hundred new Christians were baptized last year alone and our church has grown by a thousand in one year.
Prayers of Commitment
Pray for your part. If you are a faithful servant of Jesus Christ in our church, pray for those Christians who are not yet partnering with you but rather freeloading from you. And for the freeloaders in Christ, pray about what part you should play in God’s kingdom work.
Prayers of Mission
Pray for the official launch of our new Mars Hill campuses in
Federal Way and
Albuquerque. Pray for the ability of Mars Hill to grow to one hundred campuses in the next decade. Pray also for the planting of new churches from Mars Hill in Seattle, San Diego, and
Chicago as we send leaders out to begin those works.
Pray for the
Acts 29 Church Planting Network, which has seen over two hundred and fifty churches planted in the U.S. and is on pace to have over one thousand in less than ten years. Pray also for Acts 29 as it spreads throughout the world, supporting church planting in multiple nations.
Pray for the other churches in your neighborhood that they would be on mission with Jesus to see non-Christians saved and Christians grow as worshiping missionaries. Pray for the first class of the
Re:Train school, opening this fall to train missional leaders.
Pray for the Executive Elders and Board of Directors who lead Mars Hill and need much wisdom from God. Pray for the Campus Pastors and their teams who care for our people and lead our mission. Pray for the dozens of elders who lead the church and dozens of elder candidates who aspire to. Pray for the hundreds of deacons and interns who labor often quietly and privately for the good of the church.
Pray for the most generous financial worshipers who help to carry us, that God would entrust more wealth to their stewardship and that more people would join them in generosity. Pray that this year at least one thousand people would come to or come back to Jesus at Mars Hill.
Lastly, pray that we would be bold and humble as we proceed forward by God’s grace.
