40 Days of Prayer - Vision

Did you ever have one of those meetings with a boss that asked you, “Where do you want to be in five years?” And during this meeting all that you could think about was finishing the next task on your to do list before the deadline so that very same boss won’t yell at you. Sometimes it’s really hard to think about the future of your life or of your church when the blur of the present clouds everything else.

This week of the 40 Days of Prayer we focus on the future of Crossroads Fellowship. The following weeks will bring about the specifics of the future, but this week is meant to be more general. Either way we have to start with being open to whatever God would have us to do, including things that we don’t want to do.

When Charlotte and I moved to Albuquerque to start this church we had a vision for what God would do in this great city. We saw Crossroads as being a multiplying church. In other words, Crossroads would be a church that plants more churches. There is no reason that the PCA can’t have more than five churches in the Albuquerque area. We saw Crossroads as being a church that impacted the lives of those who are less fortunate than we are. We saw Crossroads as having a significant ministry to students in college. I believe that one day UNM will have a RUF ministry that will impact the campus in unique ways that aren’t currently happening. We also saw Crossroads as being a church that reached out to people that didn’t feel that they belonged in any other church. That coincides with the, “Don’t put your church face on at Crossroads” statement that I make all the time. I want people to come to our church just as they are, in the same way that our Lord receives them.

When God called Abraham to leave his home and go the promised land, Abraham had no idea what that would look like in the end or even what the journey might bring him. At Crossroads we have been called by God to go and bring a message of hope to this great city. We are not sure what it will look like in the end or even what the journey might bring and yet we still go. May God give us an understanding of the journey and a willingness to do the hard things as we see how He will reach and impact Albuquerque and even the world through us. I’ve included a prayer below that may help in your time of prayer.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.
Sir Frances Drake