Friday, December 19, 2008
The temporal leader sets the spiritual tone.
If Mayor Daley called on the people of Chicago to fast and to pray, they would do it. We need the advisement of those in temporal authority to know what the issues are, then taking them to God. It was the job of the king to go to the prophet. When Jonah visited Nineveh, it was the king that responded, followed by the people.
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John, I support your call for prayer but wonder how we might bring such to actuality. God continues to bless your faithfulness. Mark Anderson
PrayTheLoop.Info
It's easy to think big, harder to think small. I start in my prayer groups, commissioning those in them to bring prayer and the kingdom of God into their work places. As a marketplace minister, I pray for my bosses and coworkers, and especially for the opportunity to be put to use, as a priest and minister of God, in the same way that, for instance, Melchizedek was put to use. Melchizedek was a type of Christ, and a minister of God. He blessed the marketplace, that is, Abraham, who was the Father of the nation, or a representative of the nation itself.
Blessing means encouragement, acceptance, favor, approval. And Abraham was a type of the worker, laborer, manager, boss. And the job of the Church is to bless what the nation is doing - the job of the marketplace priest is to bless his boss, business, client, etc. The nation is made up of our governments, schools, businesses. The direction of our prayer should be to bless what these parts of our nation are doing. And also to equip our people to do this same - this is not just something for the pastors, but for the congregation. Especially the congregation. To see that they are ministers in the marketplace, that labor is worship and is a kingdom-advancing activity, and that they are the primary frontrunners in bringing the kingdom into the world, thus bringing church outside the four walls.
So let's start with our businesses, our bosses, our coworkers, our clients, our partners and vendors and customers. Labor is worship and a kingdom advancing activity, and gives us connections and networks to spread the kingdom.
The primary indicator of transformation and the coming of the Kingdom of God is the elimination of systemic poverty. This, incidentally is one of the primary goals of government and education, pragmatic institutions that will partner with whatever works. If we want to speak into someone's life and announce the kingdom, we have to earn it - and we do that by meeting the felt needs of the institutions in our community, adopting schools, teachers, aldermen, promising to support them, yes in prayer, but also in tangible ways, giving away what we have.
It takes the whole church to affect the whole world, or in this case, the whole city. We need to get our house in order before we can change the city of Chicago. Right now I see a clamor of disunited voices, stepping over each other for the attention of the world. We need one voice.
Anyway, easier said than done, as always, but it starts right where we are.
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