Starting The Year Off Right!

Pastor Rick
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Soon the New Year will be upon us and the first decade of the 21st century will be in the books! Wow! Where did it go?

Each new year is a big deal at Wellspring. Our congregation was first gathered as a small group of Swedish believers on New Year's Eve 1883. So the turning of the year marks our anniversary as a church. First the Swedish Elim Baptist Church of New Britain; then Elim Baptist; next Kensington Baptist Church; and since 2005, Wellspring Church.

As a congregation January will mark an effort to Start The Year Off Right! This will be the teaching theme for the first four Sundays of the year.

On the weekend of January 7-9, we will hold a 36-hour Worship and Prayer vigil in the sanctuary. Beginning at 9:00 pm on Friday night, January 7, through Sunday morning services on January 9, there will be continuous worship and prayer in the sanctuary. (This will include the Saturday @ 5 service on January 8.)

What will happen during those 36 hours? A lot! There will be some sessions of worship led by our various bands interspersed with corporate intercession for the coming year. There will be some sessions in the deep night and during the day where individuals will lead in worship. Other times will be more quiet - times of "soaking" in the Lord's presence or quiet prayer.

Why are we doing this? We want to start the year off right! The foremost reason for this 36-hour initiative is to honor the Lord's presence amongst us with an extravagant offering of praise, worship and thanksgiving. To use a familiar metaphor, we want to stoke the fire on the altar. Secondly, as we go into 2011 we want to continue to seek the Lord for his blessing and provision for our ministry through the coming twelve months.

So, please won't you help us Start The Year Off Right? Mark your calendar; make your plans now to be part of this 36-hour vigil the first weekend after the New Year. You can sign up on the big board at the Welcome Center.

Blessings,

Pastor Rick




Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem

Pastor Rick
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Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

So are we enjoined by the psalmist. So I have prayed many times. Not often enough.

Having just returned from Israel for my second trip this year, I was struck even more than the first time by the daily pressures that war against this prayer of the saints.

Just consider two factors--one for Jews, one for Palestinians.

Every day hundreds and thousands of Palestinians who live in the territories of the West Bank must line up in long queues in order to pass through security check points to cross over into Israel proper to get to work. This is a daily reality at the check point between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, seen in the picture with the call for "Peace" written in three languages on the security wall. Imagine the daily frustration, anger, fear and dehumanization for those Palestinian workers making their way to and from Jerusalem.

Then, on the other side of the equation, Jews in Jerusalem are bombarded five times a day by the call to prayer from the minarets of the scores of mosques that dot the city landscape. Five times a day that oppressive howl comes forth from loud speakers on the minaret towers, filling the atmosphere with reminders that the Israelis are surrounded by followers of a faith pledged to eradicate their very existence and push them into the sea. I can't begin to describe how disturbing and vexing those calls to prayer are--imagine being assaulted with that wail five times daily and maintaining a posture toward peace.

I did encounter some amazing believers in Messiah on both of these trips who are committed toward peace. Some are Jewish by birth, some Palestinian. But they have been born anew by the Spirit to become sons and daughters of the Most High, working toward peace in the land across centuries of fear, betrayal, mistrust and anger.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. It is a daily vocation.