Prayer Walking – A Kingdom Experience
On Sunday I was able to participate in a prayer walk around Coronado (crazy how we don’t have Bible study and my church ends up doing that) and I was super excited about doing it with my Gospel community at school. I told some people and sure enough a small group of seven gathered outside of the main offices that are famous for having bathroom tile walls.
We walked around the perimeter of Coronado, stopping to pray when specific things came to mind: teachers, people, events. A cheer clinic/camp for younger kids was just ending as we rounded one corner and families slowly trickled from the gymnasium. Potential victims. Leave it to a girl to be more manly than I and be the first to ask someone if we could pray for them… Everyone was very kind and we prayed over many small children and their families.
We decided to walk inside the school since the doors were wide open and found a janitor to pray for. Except he prayed for us! Turns out he is a reverend at a local church. What a blessing it was to have the coin flipped and to be prayed for. We walked to many teacher’s rooms and prayed for them and even left a couple of notes saying that we did so.
Overall, the experience was incredibly humbling. The faith of my friends, the faith of the families, the surprise reverend, the nearly empty school, the sincere prayers – all of it was God revealing portions of himself to us. I didn’t expect it take more than forty-five minutes, but we were there for an hour and a half! The Kingdom of God was so beautiful, even in our simple gestures of prayer.
I cannot wait to prayer walk at Coronado again and work toward the new goal of praying specifically for every single teacher. God’s plans are not finished. No, much power is yet to be poured out.
Monday Night Prayers
I’ve been attending Monday Night Prayer for nearly a year and a half now at one of our local churches, Experience life, and several of my fellow believers from Coronado have begun coming as well. Tonight was special because we prayed the entire time for something that this blog is devoted to: revival.
The worship, the prayer topics, it was all centered on the idea of revival – something the people at elife have been praying about for a long time. I’ve even experienced many nights similar to this one, but tonight really hit home for me. God really can and will revive and refresh us if we continue to ask him to. I know it.
This is Monday Night Prayer, but I'm not sure when it was taken exactly.
Here Begins the Last Semester
Bleh. That’s how I feel about my spiritual life these past few weeks. Not meeting with all of my believer friends (I honestly didn’t put forth much effort to) and not taking time to draw close to God on my own has taken a toll on me. It’s made me think how far I could go personally if I really did put in the time that I wish I did. Soooo…
In an effort to expand my comfort zone and spiritual boundaries I’m gonna commit to getting up a whole THIRTY MINUTES EARLY in order to read scripture and pray for this semester. In addition I’m going to actually try hard to randomly share the Gospel at school. I’ve definitely put forth effort in the past, but I often found myself making excuses such as, “It may be awkward,” or “This may not be the right time.” That’s stupid. There’s no wrong time to share the love of God.
This semester is gonna be one that shakes the walls of Coronado High School with the immeasurable glory of God. I know it.
God is not Small (Week 4)
This evening, 24 people in the name of Jesus gathered to have fellowship, worship, and glorify God in immense ways. Christian, a real servant, arrived much earlier than everyone else to grill sausage, chicken, hamburgers, steak, and pork chops, allowing for an intensely big and filling meal! Woo!
After indulging in conversation we began to worship. I told everyone to take 30 seconds to thank God for our gathering and to prepare their hearts for tonight. We sang three powerful songs, each person actually singing! We had some issues with insecurities while singing in the past, but tonight everyone was more excited to worship. It was weird: I was having trouble hitting the high notes all week, but when it came time to belt them out I had no problem whatsoever! It was definitely the Holy Spirit giving me a little boost. My confidence encouraged the others to sing loudly and with much of that insecurity out of the way we were able to sing to God more fully and excitedly.
I should really start adding pictures...
Machenzee’s lesson was more of a discussion topic. She played a video of an atheist talking about how a Christian talked with him for a few minutes and ended up giving him a Bible. He was surprised because it seemed like the Christian actually cared about him. He kept mentioning how the Christian was very encouraging, how he looked at his eyes like he legitimately cared, and how his general demeanor was joyful.
He then began to wonder how much you have to hate a person not to tell them the Gospel. He related it to someone being hit by a truck: how could you sit there, knowing a truck was on its way, and not do everything possible to move the person. Though he’s still an atheist, he had some good wisdom.
Wow long post…
We then began discussing how big God is, and how dumb we are to think He won’t come through if we trust Him – He created the universe for goodness sakes! We touched on fear, insecurity, and finally decided that God is so good, we should be terribly excited to be in His presence all the time. Hunter then proceeded to lead us in the song ‘Undignified’ and Rachel screamed every word at the top of her lungs. It was good – 2.5 hours well spent!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: God has massive plans for Coronado!
The Buddy System (Week 3)
Taquitos, barbeque weenies, and chips and salsa were planned for dinner tonight. Yum! After enjoying each other’s presence over dinner we briefly looked at what scripture had to say about patience, anger, trust, and got to hear Rachel’s testimony. Someday I’ll post it – it’s an amazing story!!
We then learned that the same day Rachel had been taken to a mental hospital (like I said – it’s a great story!), the brother of another girl present was taken to rehab. These two people live across the street from each other, were involved in similar troubles, and went to get help on the same day! Things like that don’t just happen! So we all wrote encouragement letters to him on notecards and prayed for him, even though several people had never met him! I’m sure he’ll be so excited to read them all!
We then were brainstorming and thought up an interesting way to serve some of the people around our town. How awesome would it be to have a line of cars drive up to a person who sells newspapers every Sunday and each car buy a newspaper and offer them something like food or a drink or a jacket or a prayer?? Wicked sweet awesome! I think we’re gonna do that next week.
Lastly, we devised a buddy system. Two names would be drawn at random (or three if there was an odd number) and those people would be supposed to encourage each other throughout the week, pray for each other, and go to lunch. I think it’ll be a great way to get to know people.
God has some awesome plans and already this year He’s come through so many times! Our numbers have grown (19 this week), our worship has become more intimate, and a community is forming that I never thought I would see! Wows!!
The Beginning (Week 1)
I was positive that God had MAJOR plans for this year, He had been stirring me all summer, but I had no idea that this wasn’t just between me and my close friends. Turns out, God was instigating relationships, urging followers, changing hearts, and revealing himself all over the place. It’s one thing to find a couple people who are really in tune with the spirit and want to see God’s will carried out in a major way – it’s completely different when thirty people all share nearly the exact same vision for the same school!
Our divinely-planned community all started with a simple Facebook message aimed at getting the believers at Coronado Highschool talking. I wish I could take the credit, but this wonderful girl beat me to it! Through extreme excitement that God was connecting us we all planned to meet together at 7:30 Sunday, September 11th. Tonight.
Pizza, fellowship, discussion, and prayer dominated the meeting, each of us just in awe of simply our willingness to gather in order to discuss God’s glory revealed to our school. It was insanely awesome. We partly organized our school’s See You at the Pole and prayed feverishly for guidance, boldness, and unity. This is what the church is supposed to be about.
Follow this blog, a testament to God’s love, peace, joy, glory, and ability to overcome one of the most sin-filled environments: highschool.
Father, let Heaven and Earth Collide
In the endless wonder of Your love upon the cross. – Hillsong United
Highschool Revival 