Pray Like God Hears You and the Community Matters

 

Pray Like God Hears You (1-5-2020)

            Pray like God hears you and our community matters.

            OK, what’s this about?  It’s the first of Monday of the New Year.  I went for a walk through the neighborhood that’s adjacent to our church’s lot.  We are surrounded by neighbors of varying stories.  The hundreds of people who live within a quarterback’s throw of our property are characterized by diversity: income diversity, racial diversity, political diversity, varying family set-ups, religious diversity, and education diversity. 

            As I walked through the neighborhood and thought about it and prayed for the people who live there, a thought hit me. So, I posed my thought as a question to God.  “Why can’t three or four of these households, people who are currently unchurched, find their way to Jesus at Hillside church in 2021?” 

            We – the Hillside Church family – need to pray like we think God is listening.  We need to commit ourselves to this in 2021.  We can pray about many things, but one item that must be a priority among our many prayers, is a concern for the lost and unchurched of Chapel Hill.  We need to pray that God will show us how to reach the people right around us with the message and love of Jesus. 

            Many of our neighbors are in churches on Sundays.  Many more are not.  Those are the ones we want to reach with Jesus’ love.  God longs for these who are indifferent to faith and worship to turn to Him.  We are His messengers, commissioned to love people and help them find their way to Jesus. 

            This has to be more than a nice newsletter article from the pastor, something easily discarded and forgotten. We have to make prayer one of the centering activities of our lives so that our lives wouldn’t make sense apart from prayer.  For the story of the salvation of 100’s around us and for the story of our own church’s faithfulness to God’s call, we must commit to prayer and witness. 

            As you pray and share your faith, I request that you add a special emphasis for Chapel Hill, and specifically the people who live within 1 mile of our church’s property.  Our town has a reputation for being erudite, snobby, godless, materialistic, and decadent.  The reputation gets overstated as many followers of Jesus do live here.  Yet the grain of truth in the stereotype serves to remind us that Chapel Hill is our mission field.  Our primary mission is to help people meet Jesus and become his disciples.  In 2021, we – the people of Hillside – recommit to full dedication to our mission, one we carry out with hope and joy.