Our church, Cumberland Community Church, is focusing on prayer. Our pastor will be teaching about prayer every week in 2010. I’m excited about a year long teaching on prayer as it is one of the ways I feel closest to God.

Yesterday, we studied Abraham’s conversation with God in Genesis 18 concerning the city of Sodom. Abraham was bold in his petition to save Sodom from God’s wrath because his nephew Lot lived there. He had a reason to care about this city. He was willing to “stand in the gap” on behalf of Sodom (see Ezekiel 22:30).

The sermon focused us in to the need to pray for our city. It occurred to me during our praise band’s playing of Chris Tomlin’s God of This City, I have complained about my city’s middle school for years as it has many academic and cultural struggles. Never once has it occurred to me to pray about it, asking God to work in the lives of the students and families and teachers. I could have been praying for God to increase the academic skills and decrease the cultural struggles of the students that attend there. I must admit I’m ashamed at this revelation as I’m a former teacher. I worked in schools that experienced academic and cultural struggles.

I’ve been convicted to pray instead of complain.

Our mayor, our fire chief, our parks and recreation director, an assistant prinicipal and many teachers attended the service yesterday. We, as a congregation, prayed over these servants of our community. Many of our congregation committed to ongoing prayer for our city, the servants in our city,our schools, and our church’s outreach to our community. I can’t wait to see what God will do!