weekly prayer focus

I sure love being back in Tulsa this week! Thank you for your prayers last week when I was on the road.

Here's what I'm praying about this week and would love for you to pray with me . . .

• Kind of ironic, but as we're in the middle of the "Discovering God's Will" teaching series on Sundays, I'm wrestling with a big decision myself. It appears that I may need to go into a season of suspending my own paycheck for a little while to keep the church bottom-line healthy. I knew, going into this, that this would be a very real possibility. I took full pay from the beginning hoping and praying that our church's financial momentum would pick up enough by now to support that long-term. To date, it has not. So, my specific prayer is when, where, how, how much to work outside of my responsibilities at the church. Sara and I do need wisdom on this question.
• This one is directly related to the one above. I'm in a heavy season of networking and fund-raising right now. Please pray that God gives his favor as I ask different people and churches to partner with us financially. On top of that, I am still believing that our weekly offerings would average $3K and we would see three significant financial gifts come in this year in the amounts of $10K, $25K and $50K. Those two moves would have our church fully self-sufficient and positioned to take some very serious steps toward planting our first new church in the near future.
• I am continuing to believe that God will heal all my back and neck problems. Thanks for your continued prayers on that.
• I'm going to attempt to write a vision statement for my marriage and my relationship with my kids this week (this will tie in with my message coming up on Sunday too). I need some good focus from God on these statements.
• Finally, our kids and youth ministry leaders are attending the Seed Conference at Church on the Move this week. I will be with them for much of it. I am praying that God will give us some fresh vision for reaching more kids and families and building our leadership structure to do just that.

I am praying that your week is awesome. Feel free to shoot a prayer request my way.