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!

Desperation 2009: Light Up The World

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending the Desperation Conference at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. This is a conference I attended for the first time last year and fell absolutely in love with. It focuses a lot on passionate prayer and worship. This year, we rounded up a crew of eight and headed back. The theme this year was "Light Up The World." Pretty SWEET conference if I do say so myself, I would recommend it to anyone! The Spirit was moving and so alive, it was absolutely amazing.

Here are some highlights from the trip...

• First and foremost, I have to say I love, love, love this conference so much because of the spiritual preparation that goes into it. New Life's staff is absolutely amazing, they are so open to the Spirit. They put a lot into what they do! They put A LOT into Desperation each year and the conference itself thrives because of it.
• Friday night, during worship, everyone completely let go. It was probably one of the most amazing worship services I've ever been a part of...the sanctuary was going nuts. It was amazing. I honestly never wanted to leave. Tiny taste of Heaven!
• Kari Jobe = Amazing worship leader! She led with Desperation Band friday night and just radiated Jesus. It was so inspiring to watch her lead and worship. Such a beautiful woman of God.
• Saturday, during evening worship with Desperation band, we had a very similar experience to friday. It was worship full of complete surrender. D-Band ended up straying off of their original playlist somewhat and Jared Anderson started leading "I Surrender All." After that song, it was then that Jon Egan, the head worship leader, spoke. He said "You know I really believe what Jared Anderson just did was a form of prophetic worship. There are some people that need to surrender tonight." He started calling out certian situations and certain things people needed to surrender. People were literally just falling on the ground being renewed and accepting Jesus. It was so amazing. The Spirit was so heavy and fresh in the room.
• The Desperation June Conference of 2009 ended up raising $16,000 dollars in an offering that went towards building an orphanage in Uganda.
• Our group of 8 had an hour long prayer meeting Sunday morning before service. It was such a great way to end our conference time together. We were in a prayer huddle, with our arms around each other praying for one another. It was such a powerful time.

Here are also some key quote from the speakers! I love to recap these! Such powerful messages.

• The Following quotes are by David Perkins
• There is a level of joy that no human being can rob you of--fullness of joy is available.
• Joy in Jesus doesn't change or depend on outward circumstances
• When you're sucking joy out of the world, it's ashes
• We will be going back to a culture that mocks. If you're lighting up the world and looking anything like Jesus, they will treat you like they treated him.
• Surely as they laughed at our Savior, they'll laugh at you
• When you come in with a gospel that cuts pride, arrogance, dishonesty, etc. people are gonna be ticked
• There will be uncomfortable moments for the Christ Follower. Jesus was Mr. Awkward.
• Holiness is lonely for most. You start to set a standard and people are bugged by it.
• Don't crucify the guy you're trying to be like. Conversations of mockery are coming. Just saying. You must be ready to face the onset of mockery.
• Blessed are you, in your lifetime, when people laugh, insult and persecute you
• Brady Boyd (Lead Pastor of New Life)
• God doesn't just love, he is love
• You have to know what is true about God or you can't be free, you can't enter into worship
• As humans we fall into three categories: We are either orphans, slaves, or sons
• The church needs moms and dads, but we cannot be moms and dads until we are sons and daughters
• Sonship doesn't change in Jesus' freedom
• God isn't always interested in what we're doing, but rather, who we're becoming
• If who I am is what I do, then I am a slave. Slaves are convinced that they can be demoted at anytime.
• Sons are free to love dad. When we're sons and daughters, we are motivated because we want to please God because He's been a good father. Why would you want to disappoint someone you love? Sons aren't afraid of being replaced.
• Dan Perkins (Internship Director)
• I like the idea of flipping the world upside down
• There is depth in God to be had for those who truly want it
• There's something about others experiencing God that is inspiring
• Depth in God is cultivated, it's relationship
• Relationships diminish when you don't pay attention to them, but when you get to know someone, everything else comes alive
• Sometimes, we "football smile" our way through our relationship with Jesus
• We've heard the phrase "God loves you" so often that it's kind of unbelievable anymore.
• We know the words "God loves you." but we don't understand the reality of them
• Loved people are powerful and dangerous people. Loved people are dangerous to the kingdom of darkness
• Love is passion for someone's highest good
• God lavishes his love on us in ways we don't even realize. We turn blind eyes to blessings a lot of the time.
• It's exciting when you realize that God loves you.
• Brent Parsley (Youth Pastor for New Life Church)
• We're not going to do the things God wants us to do until we're changed. You don't have to have the best ideas you just need to be changed
• Don't argue with the blind that can see and the lame that can walk
• We try so hard and wrestle with God because we want him to love us. He already wants to give us the good things of life. WE are the ones with the issues.
• You don't have to bend God's arm, just let him love you. It starts and ends with his love.
• You don't have to impress God, he's already impressed, he made you.
• Live a life that is self-forgetful and outward looking
• Let your self-sacrifice come out of God's love for you, then pass that onto others
• A self-sacrificed lifestyle is birthed out of love
• The goal of the gospel has never been to get, but to give
• Amy Perkins
• You're heart matters, and someday, it will be rewarded
• Don't become victim to your own circumstances--don't let your circumstances immobolize you
• Jesus often says to us, "You feel dark, but you're lovely to me because you want this."
• When you say "yes" to God, it matters
• Seizing small moments can do wonders for your heart
• Live a disciplined life. Discplined people are world changers.
• Take your heart and set it before God's heart. God will come. He will start to melt and tenderize your heart if you're willing to give it to Him.
• Pete Greig (Started 24/7 Prayer Movement in England and is starting CampusAmerica)
• God's will for us is that we would pray, play, and obey
• Prayer is a lot like sex. Out of intimacy with God can come a miracle and a mess
• You learn to pray by praying
• All good youth work is a work of horomones and Holy Spirit (lol)
• It's easy to have things in life that give us second hand spiritual experiences. Cut the middle man out and get together and talk with God.
• Pray like it all depends on God and play like it all depends on you
• Prayer propels us out to speak for Jesus and be his hands and feet
• Glenn Packiam (Author of Secondhand Jesus)
• We often rely on people to walk our walk for us and we expect people to tell us who God is insteand of figuring it out for ourselves.
• Our view of God often becomes a patch-work of second hand information
• Ask yourself, "Do you know Jesus more this year than you did last?"
• Anytime we trade an active, living relationship with God for something second-hand, death enters in
• For love I will set myself apart to know God
• "BRING IT"
• We can't be lights if we've never been on the journey ourselves
• John McDonald (Youth Pastor from Illinois)
• The more you gaze on the face of Jesus with the eyes of your heart, the more you're able to fully be alive; the more you attract Heaven's attention
• We have power and authority as sons and daughters that can shake the foundations of hell
• If you're going to be filled fully, you must yield to God first
• Replace everything that is of you, with everything that is of God
• Beth Diehl (3rd year DLA intern for New Life)
• God knows our hearts need more
• We often see life through our own eyes. Looking at the world through God's eyes can be a very different experience
• Through God's lens things are exciting. There is joy in life.
• Leeland Mooring (Lead singer of the band Leeland)
• God, you love us and you like us

An Ode to the Dads!

Crazy days in the life of church planting, crazy days, my friends! All last week we spent A LOT of time gearing up for Dad Fest, a celebration to honor all the dad's in the Andover/Wichita area. Trista and I ended up printing and canvasing around 1,700 flyers! Crazy! Office This (where we do printing) probably wasn't too excited about all of our flyers. We ran their black ink completely out of stock. Haha. Anyways, we had a lot planned for Dad Fest, including free hot dogs, root beer floats, prizes, and a moon bounce for the kids. We partnered with a local restaurant called Stooges, and planned on using their parking lot and stuff for our event...

Then, Saturday came. And Saturday came with RAIN. Woot, woot for weather. We ended up doing our event under an awning at Stooges and weren't able to use the moon bounce. However, everything else went pretty well, and despite the weather we had an awesome turn out. The launch team kids decided pretty early on that moon bounces were overrated anyway,and just went out and played in the rain. They had a puddle-jumping ministry of their own and most of the kids at Dad Fest ended up going out to play with them anyway. It was so fun to watch them. They were having a blast! Dad Fest wasn't exactly like we planned, but it was great to meet new people, and honor all of the dads in the area!

So, as Father's Day is upon us, and before I close, I wanted to take a minute to honor MY dad. My dad is Russell Leroy Komlofske. He's, hands down, the best dad around. He's an awesome provider, in every way, and is just a really big goof! He also makes the best pancakes and french toast in the whole world. Did I mention that he's an excellent griller? He's also a dreamer...he likes to make things happen, and he always has a positive attitude. What can I say, I just love my dad!

So here's to today, love on those dads!