Moses is My Friend: Thoughts on Prayer Lately

One of the things that I've been studying lately is prayer. If you know me, you know I love prayer--passionate prayer. I never used to be extremely into prayer until about a year or so ago. I had an experience where Jesus just touched me in a way through prayer that I never have forgotten. This past year, my prayer life has accelerated. I've had so many experiences
(just in the past year!!) where God will speak--where God will move. I've seen people healed, I've seen prayers answered, I've had God speak to me, and I've been surprised by God over and over again. I am currently doing my devotion time through the Psalms. The other night I was studying and praying Psalm 90. One of the most interesting things that stuck out to me about Pslam 90 is that it is a prayer of Moses. The first verse states "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations." That is a verse that totally caught me, and really made me think. Biblical Moses was born (scholars say) between 1300 and 1150 BCE. Zoom all the way back into the book of Exodus and you will soon figure out that Moses is an old guy. Over three thousand years ago Moses was praying the same prayer I prayed--being taken care of by the same guy who's hearing all my church-planting prayers (and my Moses prayer verbatim). What a comfort it is to know that the place where Moses (an EXTREMELY powerful man of God) dwelled is the same place we go to dwell, where we go to hide. Just like our ancestors and those who have gone before us, we all have one common dwelling place. It says from generation to generation comfort is found there.
I've been learning a lot about prayer. One of the things God has been speaking to me lately is that prayer = persistence. You'll find parables about persistence in the Gospels. Luke 11 is a good one. One day I was praying for Andover and Epic and I just started to wonder if God ever got tired of hearing the same thing over and over again, so I asked Him. He gave me this image...I saw a child who really wanted a specific Christmas present. The child kept asking her parents for it everyday, she dreamed of it, she thought of it, she wanted it. She was persistent in her thoughts and her desires. Eventually, because of her persistence and her patient heart, she woke up Christmas morning to her present underneath the tree, her parents smiling in the background. It was then that I realized that God wants us to desire what we ask for, he wants us to be persistent in our asking. He wants us to fight for the good. We are only persistent for things that really mean a lot to us. For me, that has been Epic. It's good, it's true. I want, I desire to see people know Jesus. I trust God sees that obedience and hears that prayer.
To end on a good note, I finished going through Pslam 90, learning a lot and being very encouraged by Moses' note at the very end. His prayer, and a new one of mine is this:

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us--yes establish the work of our hands." (Pslam 90:17)

• (Addendum to Moses' Prayer by Molly: "Teach us to be persistent!" Someone, somewhere is putting that into the Bible. Jk of course ;))

Anyway, Good one, Moses. I like.

It's beginning to look a lot like LAUNCH...

This past week was a full one. Sunday we observed at Aviator Church (another church plant that launched a year ago in Derby, KS). We left Andover at about 6:40 AM to observe their set-up at 7:00. An early morning, but it was a great time of learning and observation. Monday we had our first official staff meeting, which went excellent. We spent some time catching one another up in our personal areas and we also spent time just praying for the community of Andover and for launch. Tuesday we hosted yet another "Summer Fun Day" at the Andover Library. The library group is starting to become a bit more consistent, so it's nice to meet new people as well as catch up with mom's and kiddos we've met before. Many are starting to really show a great interest in launch. Wednesday, I got to spend most of my day planning for children's ministry. I started planning Sunday's out and worked on reviewing our children's ministry curriculum, Kidmo. Whoo!! So wonderful. Thursday, we hosted another "Summer Fun Day" at the Library, and rested Friday. Saturday, the real excitement started. Central Christian Church, another church in East Wichita is partnering with Epic and supporting us by allowing us to come into their Saturday night Service, 5:33, and ask for volunteers on Sunday morning to help us get Epic up and running. We were officially introduced this past Saturday night during service. Central has such a heart for church planting. After service we were able to connect with some potential volunteers. It was an AWESOME time for us. God really showed us himself that night. Each person that we talked with fit in places where we need people to fit! It was so exciting. This morning, Kent, Jory, Damion and I headed out at about 10:00 AM and did some door-to-door advertising and this evening we met with our launch team for a worship service and a time of fellowship at a local park! The days are busy but good. Keep praying, harder now than ever! God is GOOD.

The Adventure Continues...

And the adventure continues. So much has been going on the past couple of weeks, I can't believe it's already mid-July and summer's closing up! Well I have done lots of traveling in the past few weeks. I went from Colorado Springs to Dallas to Joplin. I was the camp missionary at Cyokamo Camp about a week and a half ago. That was a wonderful time! I got to hang out with kids (400 or so to be exact) and talk a little bit about church planting with them. They were a pretty awesome bunch. They raised over $1,500 for Epic Missions. Such a blessing! Then, last Sunday, we partnered with the YMCA in Andover to do, what we call, "Summer Countdowns." Epic comes in and we set up our moonbounces, have free-throw contests, prizes, and homemade Italian Creme Sodas (My Personal fav). Yum, Yum! On Tuesday we hosted "Summer Fun Days" at the Andover Library and that was a wonderful time as well. Again, we set up our moonbounces, handed out free popsicles, blew bubbles, drew with sidewalk chalk and hung out with kids. We sat up to meet the kids and their moms right after story hour concluded. One of the coolest things about church planting has been getting out into the community and just meeting families. Jory, our brand new worship pastor also came on Tuesday. Our staff is now up to 5...woo! He's here for good and is preparing for launch. Wednesday night we had a "Welcome" BBQ for him and a bunch of people came over to our house for that. Also on Wednesday night, Trista and I attended our first midnight premier--yes, we went to see Harry Potter (nerds, I know)! We also went bulk shopping for our children's ministry. That was AWESOME. I can't wait to start up and meet the kiddos! As we are getting closer please be praying for this stuff:

• Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance and strength!!
• Our launch team and our new worship pastor, Jory
• The Epic community God is formulating...
• ANDOVER (seriously this is huge)
• Our mass advertising day on August 29th and youth groups/small groups to help us out
• LAUNCH on September 13, 2009 (Can't wait, I'm so antsy!)

Oh, How He Loves Us

This morning, I literally woke up singing "Oh, how He loves us." Kind of funny, but I just felt like it was God's way of telling me "Good Morning." Lately I've been reading in the Psalms and I keep noticing how David constantly asks God to pour out his unfailing love, or refers to God's unfailing love. There is something about love that makes me so...giddy, so I did a Wikipedia search.

Wikipedia says:
Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection[1] and attachment. Love is an extremely powerful emotion; it can be irresistible and people are often bound to pursue their love interests.

Scripture says, in 1 John, that God is love. And also, that perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. So many times, when I ask people what their thoughts are about God, I get the consistent thought and answer that God is kind of "scary," or that God is a "party pooper" he's just "sitting around waiting to take all of the fun out of the world." Oh, how this breaks my heart! What we are not understanding is love itself. St. Augustine says that the only one that can truly love is God because human love allows flaws, such as, jealousy, anger, suspicsion, and fear. He says that to love God is to "attain the peace, which is yours." When we truly believe we are loved people and when we truly accept God's love, we are able to grasp love fully. Love is such a divine gift, one that I only believe the Spirit can truly reveal to us. It is when we are safe and secure in that perfect love that we are able to go out and love others powerfully, and all of a sudden God isn't the "party pooper," he's not the guy that is constantly taking "fun" away...He is just, beautiful. There is no fear in Him. God pursues us constantly because we are his love interests. How many of us truly miss that? There will be times during prayer where I will just sit and repeat over and over: "I love you, I love you, I love you. You love me, you love me, you love me." And God will just explode in my heart. Love is power, it's beauty, it's fearless, and God is the epicenter of that. OH, how he loves us.

I want to share the lyrics from "Oh, how he loves us" written by John Mark McMillan. They are so very powerful!

He is jealous for me. Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me.

Oh, how He loves us so Oh, how He loves us How He loves us so.

So we are His portion and He is our prize, Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, If grace is an ocean we're all sinking. So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way...

Oh, how He loves us so Oh, how He loves us How He loves us so.

Molly's Travels + Desperation Photos

These are some pictures from the Desperation Conference that we went to last weekend. Most of these are just pictures of our group! Seven girls and one boy--Russell Harp, you're a brave one, sir! Kudos to Emily Hubbard--the amazing photographer, and all around amazing girl! Anyways, most pictures are pretty self-explanatory. There are some of worship towards the bottom and also there is one of our candle lighting ceremony. That was the last night of the conference and we had a candle-lighting ceremony to symbolize the conference's theme "Light Up The World." It was pretty powerful--that all happened after our group took up a $16,000 love offering to build an orphanage in Uganda. God really showed his grace through his people that night. Pretty awesome stuff!
This past weekend was a fun time. I went to Dallas with my friend, Lauren to visit another of ours, Kyle, who is doing Project Transformation--an urban ministry in the Dallas area. We all had great fun spending time with one another again, summer is long when you're in college! You don't realize how close you've become with the people there until you have to leave them for 3 months! We went to a waterpark, a Ranger's game, and celebrated the 4th in the Dallas heat. And, of course, I didn't walk away as pale, I have a lovely sunburn from the Texas sun even after applying and re-applying sunscreen. But, then again, I guess it wouldn't have been an authentic experience without it...Kyle IS always complaining about that sun.
This week I'm headed to Joplin, MO to take on the camp missionary position at a children's camp. Should be a great time. Prayers for strength and safe travel would be much appreciated. I'll keep you posted.....with that all said....enjoy these Desperation photos!