Epic Gathering: Prayer is Dependence

*these are the talk notes from our first Epic Gathering…it was a webinar through dimdim and we had over 100 staff and epic students participating earlier this evening!

We are entering fall which is my favorite season of the year. Having been on staff and in campus ministry for 21 years, I still look at fall as the beginning of the year. The technology that allows us to all participate in this epic gathering from all across the country is amazing. As I look down the list of those attending, I feel privileged to know many of you and be able to put your names and faces together. For those of you I haven’t met yet I look forward to our paths crossing in the coming months and years.
This is what I picture in my mind as I think about this time each of you checking in from all over the country. Some of you are exhilarated by people coming to faith or coming out to epic events or God providing in completely unexpected ways. Some of you are still flying high coming off the most amazing summers of your life. I know that each of our epic interns has experienced God provide their financial support down to the wire and we celebrate everyone reporting. Some of you are awestruck that the prayers you prayed last spring for this incoming class of freshmen have been answered way above and beyond your expectations. Others of you may be feeling alone or beaten down and discouraged. Some of you are facing challenges that seem insurmountable, some of you are running on very little sleep and you are physically wiped out, some of you may be emotionally running on empty. Regardless of where you fall in the spectrum of your experience so far, all of us are connected through being a part of something bigger than ourselves.

We are here. And even though sometimes we struggle with wanting to quit, each of us has come to a place in our relationship with Jesus where we have said, like Peter and the end of John 6 when Jesus asked him if he wanted to bail, “Lord, to whom shall we to? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” I trust that you and I are in on a journey of knowing and loving our King and the things of the Kingdom and that we are involved in epic because we have been captured in our souls by the incredible greatness of our God–that 1 Peter 1:8 resonates in your heart and mine: “and though you have not seen Him you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.” As we trust God to raise up Epic movements all around the country I pray that our motivation comes from an overflow of experiencing God’s love and forgiveness, gratitude for God’s mercy in rescuing us from the kingdom of darkness, and the hope and anticipation that we can be a part of pointing those who are lost to the Lord.

Tonight we are going to be talking about prayer and dependence on God.

There is so much that can be shared on this topic. Entire books have been written on prayer. My hope is that as a result of our epic gathering we will feel more connected to what God is doing across the country and that we would be lifting up our brothers and sisters and epic movements to the Lord in greater frequency and with greater insight and clarity. I am going to focus on one thing tonight: prayer is dependence.

Anytime prayer is brought up, it often evokes feelings of failure or for a rare few it can lead to pride. Who can really say how much prayer is enough? I think this is because we look at prayer as something to check off on a to-do list, an agenda item or the way we start and end meetings. Prayer can sometimes become boring or monotonous. But I think prayer is not so much about reciting a laundry list of requests but a heart posture of dependence on the Lord. And rather than another thing to do to add to the already too full plate of things to do, it is, instead, as natural as breathing. I am going to be jumping all around the Scriptures, so I will be putting the passages on the power point so you can look them up and read them on your own. I will also post on my blog these notes so you can read them if you like.

QUESTION: Why do we need to pray/depend on God and not ourselves:
ANSWER: Because our battle is spiritual
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

Sometimes we can mistakenly think that our enemy is the school administration, or other people, but the Scripture is clear: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Eph. 6:12
We are engaging on a spiritual level in a spiritual battle and are unable to see with our earthly eyes what is going on in the spiritual realm. In 2 Kings 6:15-17 Elisha and his servant are surrounded by an army with horses and chariots circling the city and the servant freaks out, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” Elisha prays that the Lord would open the servants eyes to see reality and God answers and “he saw; and behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

QUESTION: How do we express our dependence on God/pray
ANSWER: Inquire, acknowledge, dwell/linger

David: inquired of the Lord before battle: some examples–1 Sam. 23:2,4, 1 Sam. 30:8, 2 Sam. 2:1 As leaders, I want to exhort each of you to follow David’s example and be diligent in inquiring of the Lord
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, IN ALL YOUR WAYS ACKNOWLEGE HIM, and He will make your paths straight.

One of the observations I’ve made as I read through the Bible is that no two battles are the same. Sometimes God confused the enemy and they ended up killing each other and the Israelites only had to walk in and plunder. Sometimes they had to do hand to hand combat and there was blood and death and pain. Even the miracles that Jesus performed looked different each time. Sometimes healing came just from Him saying the word and the person wasn’t even with Him like the centurion’s servant, sometimes He gave instruction to do things like the blind man who had to wash a certain number of times in the pool of Siloam (John 9) and then his sight was restored. I think God mixes it up so that our dependence is on Him, not on methodology. So what works on one campus may not work on another. Our confidence cannot be in our training, our leadership, our ministry philosophy, our skill set, gifting, or past experience. Our confidence must be in the Lord. As we turn to Him, fix our gaze on Him, inquire of Him, He will give us wisdom, ideas, favor, courage. Remember, we are a part of something much greater than we even know. So much of what is happening occurs in the unseen realm.
I love the example of Joshua: in Exodus 33:11 would sit and linger in the tent of meeting after Moses left and had spent time hearing from the Lord.

QUESTION: Who should we invite to join us in dependence on the Lord/prayer?
ANSWER: Leaders, churches, alumni, kids, grandparents, everyone….

As you move out to “take the land” enlist the prayer support of everyone you know who prays. If your church has a prayer chain ask them to be in prayer for your outreaches, for your fall retreats, etc. Enlist those godly prayer warrior Grandma’s and have them adopt your campus to pray for you. Send out fb msg to your friends and family near and far and ask them to join you in praying for your campuses.

I’d like you to take a few moments and share two or three prayer requests for yourself or your campus on the live chat. We will be able to capture these requests and continue to pray for you in the coming weeks.

Some of you are experiencing incredible outpouring of God’s blessing and we want to celebrate with you. Some of you are facing campuses that have spiritual strongholds and things have been discouraging so far. One of the great things about this format of meeting is realizing that we are not alone.

aside: Some of you will be used by God to lay the foundation as a “Moses” kind of leader. You will not actually get to enter the promised land, but you will raise up the next Joshua and he or she will be the one to take the land, or in our case see Epic become established on your particular campus.
We are all a part of the story–the Epic story that God is unfolding. It is an honor and a privilege to travel with each of you.
Pray