Prayer and Fast | March 2019
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We are excited about our church family’s Global Prayer and Fast on Sunday 3 March 2019.
Even if you have already fasted this year as a local church, we encourage you to ask your members to fast over that weekend OR specifically on Sunday 3 March OR from the Monday to Wednesday after the Sunday prayer day.
Set aside sufficient time during the Sunday service(s) to show a 10-minute video where Heinrich shares the focus for the Prayer and Fast. Watch it here and/or download it here.
Arrange for someone from your office/congregation to compile a feedback summary of your congregation’s fasting experience (words, visions, songs, aspects that worked well / didn’t work well, etc.) and send it to Bernie by Friday 15 March 2019.
A few suggestions for structuring your service(s) on Sunday 3 March:
- Worship and announcements (possibly keep your worship shorter on the day if you want to have sufficient time for prayer and for a sermon, unless there is no formal sermon and you’re dedicating the whole service to worship and prayer)
- Show 10-minute video from Pastor Heinrich
- Local pastor shares for a few minutes to give extra context for the prayer time and to explain what the focus will be
- Structure the prayer time in 3 segments of 5 to 10 minutes each (depending on how much of your service you are dedicating to the prayer time). If it’s 5 minutes each, then you should dedicate at least 10 + 15 minutes = 25 minutes of the service to the video and prayer.
- Ask the church to make groups of 4 to 6 people to pray together:
- Segment 1: Awaken the spirit of encouragement to strengthen one another as fellow-harvesters. Pray for and anoint one another as harvesters. Break the spirit of shame and fear over one another.
- Segment 2: Call in the harvest in your area and nation.
- Segment 3: Commit to God’s Word, both written and prophetic. As a church, bring before the Lord key words you have received since the planting of the church.
- Shortened sermon, or dedicate the whole service to prayer: it’s your call.
- Communion
Encourage your church to set aside a day or a few days of fasting and to keep praying during the week. If you gather in the week for a Big Group, you could show an additional 10-minute video and pray around these points:
- In preparation before the meeting, prayerfully research symptoms of darkness and current issues in your community. Share some statistics.
- Bring these “facts/realities/dark areas” before God. Read them aloud and then sing praise songs that, for example, exalt Jesus as the Light, His reign, His dominion, and His power.
- Repent of any spirit of criticism and judgment towards the Body of Christ, locally and universally.
- Pray about what is in your hand: the areas where you are connected to the world where God can shine His light. For example, family relationships (children’s parties, school events); university (classes, lunch breaks, sports, camps); business (subcontractors, boardrooms, HR team), etc. Consecrate these areas to the Lord and submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit, not just as a Christian, but also as a disciple.
We hope you have a great time of prayer and fasting. Feel free to share this article on fasting by Pastor Ross van Niekerk (Shofar Durbanville).
