Join Us For Our Week of Fasting and Prayer
As we look forward to our Launch Sunday on September 20, we invite everyone to join us for a week of fasting and prayer from September 14 to 20.
Why a week of fasting and prayer?
I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. (John 15:5)
We are convinced that Covenant City cannot be established without God’s supernatural intervention and empowerment. And so, we want to devote the week to abiding in God – savouring his goodness and bringing our church before him in humble dependence. This does not mean that we are not going to pray in other weeks. Rather, we are setting aside the week leading to our launch for focused prayer and communion as one body.
Dedicating missional ventures to the Lord through fasting and praying was a common pattern in the early church. For example, Acts 13:2-3 tells us that the church fasted and prayed before commissioning Paul and Barnabas for their missionary journey, "As they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after they had fasted, prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them off."
Subsequently, as Paul and Barnabas helped to establish churches, they would commit those churches to the Lord with fasting and prayer, "When they had appointed elders for them in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed." (Acts 14:23).
How do I fast?
She did not leave the temple, serving God night and day with fasting and prayers. (Luke 2:37)
Fasting is a spiritual discipline that sharpens our attention on God and puts an edge on our affections for him. One writer helpfully describes it as adding fuel to the fire of our prayers. In Scripture, people used fasting for various purposes, including seeking guidance, asking for deliverance, humbling oneself, expressing repentance, dedicating oneself to God, and expressing love and worship to God.
Fasting is intentionally abstaining from a regularly enjoyed, good gift from God for the sake of some spiritual purpose. While it can involve forgoing food, it can also involve forgoing certain types of food (e.g. meat, desserts, alcohol), or anything else that you consume regularly, such as computer or social media.
While we are free to choose what we fast from, we need to be clear on what we are fasting for. We should identify the purpose of our fasting and decide what we will be doing to replace the activity we are fasting from. For example, fasting is more than simply going without food or social media, but replacing those times with focused prayer and meditation on God’s word.
How do I participate in prayer?
They all were continually united in prayer (Acts 1:14)
Prayer is a gift from God that enables us to commune with him. While we are called to pray in private (Matthew 6:5-6), we are also called to pray together in community by praying for and with each other (Acts 1:14). Corporate prayer unites us and reminds us that the Christian life is to be lived out in community.
We will have a time of corporate prayer during our Worship and Prayer Night on September 15 at 7:00 P.M. On the other days of the week, we will send out a daily prayer focus for us to pray into together as a church. While there will be no organised prayer meetings on those days, you are encouraged to reach out to a few others to pray together, either in person or online.
Our prayer to be a praying church
The 17th Century Puritan John Owen once wrote, "A minister may fill his pews, his communion roll, the mouths of the public, but what the minister is on his knees in secret before God Almighty, that he is and no more."
I often come back to this reminder when I reflect on my own life and ministry. But I think it is also instructive for our church community. More than anything else, our prayer life as a church both reveals and reinforces the gospel at work in our midst. As we bring our hopes and plans for Covenant City before the Lord, let’s start by praying that we would be a praying church that continually delights to be and converse with our heavenly father.