R e c e n t S t o r i e s
A Night in the Prayer Room
by Jessie Marquis - May 9, 2013
God started calling our community to pray more. In an effort to be obedient, we set aside the last weekend of April to do 24 hours of prayer with individuals taking shifts to go in and pray.
What does a prayer room look like? Well, it could have an altar in it, or a big cross, but it didn’t. Instead it had some crayons and paper, markers and brown paper posted all over the walls. On this paper individuals would spend time with Jesus and write down their prayers on the wall. There’s a phrase that stretches across the room “Father, what are you speaking? We want to know your voice…”
Prayers are like prophetic voices, like the One that created the world and said “Let there be.” We ask God His heart, and then speak those things into existence. We partner with him whenever we say, “Let there be…” And here’s the thing, those words don’t rest until they find a place to land. Prayers are living and active. They are catalysts that write history, events set into motion the moment they are written. Too many are fooled by their stationary physicality on the wall.
In many different handwritings were scribbled words like “New Disciples”, “Freedom”, “Healed Hearts”, “Single Parents and Young Couples”, “Hunger”, “Families”, and “Supernatural Encounters” to name a few among many. They were written and set into motion with few knowing what the exact outcome looked like except the One who is orchestrating it.
One of the Grove City students, Ben, was leaving his early morning shift in the prayer room, probably as the sun was rising. Probably about to return to his dorm and go back to sleep. But as he stepped out of the doors a voice off the sidewalk caught him. It was a young man returning home from the bar after a not so normal night. He caught sight of Ben leaving the HUB where we had the prayer room, “What were you doing in there?” “Man, you’re glowing!” “If that is where you are coming out of, I want to go in!” And for the next three hours that is where this young man went, sitting in the room covered in brown paper as Ben and my friend Brad McKoy shared stories of Jesus and spoke life and destiny over his life.
The night prior, it occurred in this particular family that the wife and child were kicked out of the home, and for the most part, he had quit on his marriage. That night after this supernatural encounter, God gave him a dream and that morning he called back his wife and daughter of whom he excitedly introduced us to the next day. I watched him turn to Brad and ask, “Will you give us marriage counseling?”
“Just another word on a brown piece of paper…..”
AOX and ROI
by Brad McKoy - December 2012
I know that people financially support missions for a host of different reasons, but a recent discussion about Return On Investment with one of our very first partners gave me a fresh perspective. This partner happens to be part of a management team for a large company and I learned a lot from our conversation. I wanted to pass along some of the highlights of that very interesting discussion about AOX and ROI.
#1. Faithfulness to Mission
As we discussed what had gone on throughout 2012, my partner asked me to tell him our mission statement. He then went through and helped connect each highlight from the year to a specific part of our mission. In his estimation, we were following through with what we had said we were going to do.
#2. Building Long Term Fruitfulness
This partner has been financially supporting our mission for nearly four years. Originally we asked for people to partner with us to help train students to live like missionaries on their campuses and beyond. With the first wave of students that we have trained now exiting the campus, we are able to observe how our investment in students is beginning to impact cities and nations. Our goal of seeing fruit that remains seems more promising than ever.
#3. Low Cost Reproduction
Because our model of ministry is primarily based on equipping people to go into missions as tent-makers, we are able to be efficient financially. My partner commented that he likes investing in AOX because we are preparing people to live out missions in the workplace and that means we are not paying every "missionary" a pastor's salary. This helps us invest in getting the gospel into the places where people live life.
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