This Saturday, July 11, we will be holding our first prayer walk in the neighborhoods around Cambridge. We will be holding another prayer walk on August 8. We are sending out a postcard to the 5000 residences within a mile of Cambridge, and our desire is to pray for the people in the community as we let them know that we exist and want to serve them.
If you have questions about prayer walks, watch the video below! If you still have questions after watching the video, let me know! We recognize that this may be new territory for you (and therefore a little strange), but rest assured that it is simpler than you think.
Please RSVP on the link provided as soon as possible. We will be putting people into small groups based on the time that you register for, and sending each group in a different direction with a street map to show you where to go. It is fine if we have hours that have no one registered and hours with lots of people registered—our goal is to blanket the area with prayer, not the day.
In Christ,
Steven+
Steps Forward - Prayer Walks
As we seek to come out of the season of coronavirus as a worshiping, missional body, we will be taking concrete steps forward in the development and activities of the church. Each week in the newsletter, a section will be devoted to the steps that we are taking. If anything is mentioned that piques your interest, please let me, Justin, Katherine, or Erich know. Last week, we took the concrete step forward of restarting a basic children’s program. In the next couple weeks, we will be going on a prayer walk and sending out a postcard…
On Sunday, I announced to the congregation that we would be holding a prayer walk on July 11 and August 8 in the neighborhoods surrounding Cambridge. Because of coronavirus, we put on hold “Coffee in the Park,” and it may be quite a while before it is safe and appropriate to do something that involves close physical interaction. Even though we are limited in the ways we can bless our community, it is still the right time to begin to reach out tangibly.
By coupling a postcard with a prayer walk, we can let people know that we exist and also take a simple, yet very important, step forward in reaching them with the love of Jesus. The postcard will be mailed to the 5000 homes in a 1-mile radius around Cambridge, which is basically the area we will be walking through and praying over.
This is a time in our country when it is incredibly important to pray for people in our community and let them know that the church exists as a place of healing for them. That the world is broken is clear even to those who reject God—sickness, death, fear, murder, racism, rioting, unemployment, and political rancor are all front and center every time we turn on the news. And this doesn’t even include a host of other destructive sins unmentioned by the news, yet prevalent in our communities!
The church engages the pain and brokenness of the world best when it is a praying community. Throughout history, the church has been strongest when it acted as a hospital for broken sinners, not a museum of saints. As you all have heard me say, the church doesn’t exist for us! We come together to give our lives away in worship and give our lives away for the salvation of the world. When we give ourselves away, we paradoxically find that we receive true life in return, but as soon as we settle into thinking that what we do is for our own benefit, we leave the path of Christ.
Our prayer walks will be from 8am to 3pm. We are asking people to sign up for 1-hour time slots using the link that at the top of the letter. You will be grouped with others who have signed up for the same hour and sent out from Cambridge’s parking lot with a map. If you have never done this before, or it makes you nervous, have no fear! Next week’s newsletter will be devoted to how to do a prayer walk. It is simpler (and less awkward) than you might imagine.
In Christ,
Steven+
Steps Forward
If you did not have time to read last week’s newsletter, I encourage you to go back and do so! In it, I discussed what it will mean for Incarnation to restart certain activities and move forward in our calling in the community.
James 4:13-17 cautions us to hold our dreams lightly and keep the perspective of “if the Lord wills” whenever we plan for the future. The fact that we are worshiping outside and are susceptible to the weather and a last-minute change of plans has reinforced that perspective in my mind. In that vein, if the Lord wills, we hope to take concrete steps forward every couple of weeks to grow and enrich the church. Our target is not just what the church was before the season of coronavirus, but instead what we hope to become for the years ahead. Some of the early steps will be reengaging things we have always done, but others will be new things that have opened up. As we take these steps forward, we will use a section of the newsletter to keep you informed. As always, if you have questions or ideas, don’t hesitate to talk to a staff member, the governance team, or the outreach committee (the list of names was in last week’s newsletter).
This week, our concrete step forward will be offering a basic kids’ program during the service again. Initially, this will only be for children ages 2-6. We will continue to provide activity sheets on a clipboard for children who remain with their parents, and we continue to encourage parents to bring a blanket, toys, books, and snacks for children who remain in the service. The children will be meeting outside whenever we are outside, and in the fellowship hall whenever we are inside. Both of these locations will allow us to spread out and be sanitary. When outside, they will meet on the playground side of the church. All of the children will be brought back to their families at the peace for communion, just as we have always done. If you have questions about the specifics of the plan, please reach out to Katherine!
Keep praying for the church and for our community as a whole! Pray particularly that we can begin to share the Gospel with those who don’t attend church anywhere. My heart’s desire is that we will be a place that expands the Kingdom of God.
In Christ,
Steven+