I welcome you into our class on church planting and church revitalization. While I have prepared and now seek to guide our students through the Scriptures, church history, missional and pastoral Theology according to the old Reformed Faith and the inerrant and infallible Word of God, I am also seeking to do so by asking God to give them a spirit of urgency and the power of the unction of the Holy Spirit. I have provided here an inaugural prayer for our course which I hope to buttress by continued intercession for our students. If so moved, would you join us in prayer?
My dearest Students in Christ Jesus
“Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Timothy 1:2 KJV).
O what an honor and privilege it is to welcome you to Church Planting and Revitalization! I could not be more thankful that I have the opportunity to go through this season of learning together with you. Please know that I will pray for you and that I am dedicated to supporting your success so that you may leave here and proclaim the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ to a world in desperate need of him and his gospel. I pray for you even now:
Our dear Heavenly Father, I appeal to the throne of grace in the blessed name of your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ the righteous; I thank Thee for these students who have come together to consider the advancement of the kingdom of God and how we as Christian shepherds can be infused with faithful courage to stand in the midst of this generation and with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit upon us proclaim the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ so that some are saved and others continue to come to hear—and see with eyes of Faith—a vision cast for a Christian community that will appear by Christ’s grace to transform the world: And grant for Thy sake O God that our dear students will be given wisdom and insight that will allow them to be like “the sons of Issachar,” those who knew the times, and to “redeem the time,” ministering with urgency and unction; I pray for each one of our students, and their families, that their vocations will become their sanctification and that Thou wouldst form Christ in them, the hope of glory, in their studies; and, O Holy Trinity, may it please Thee to hear these prayers, and send Thy Holy Spirit to seal these intercessions, amend them, and carry them to Thy throne, mixing with them the sweet spiritual perfume of the prayers of others; So, with a desire that I have prayed with Biblical confidence and all due humility, and recognizing that I have no righteousness to come before Thee apart from the life of Thy Son, and that I have no rights to approach Thy throne except by Thy invitation, and the atonement of Christ, and the divinely-provided gift of faith to touch the hem of His garment, I pray these things in the name of Jesus our resurrected and reigning Savior. Amen.