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"And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers."
(Acts 2:42)
God is using Pastor Nathan Lino in powerful ways in Houston, TX. He serves as pastor of Northeast Houston Baptist Church. He planted the church 19 years ago, and they are in a season of revival. Last week, some of our staff and I met with Nathan for about an hour on a Zoom call. We are restarting our prayer meetings tomorrow night, and I wanted to glean some wisdom from Pastor Nathan and have some of our staff at our church listen in and ask questions as well.
Nathan was very transparent with our team and told us how, prior to this revival brought on by prayer, he was going through a very hard time, a dry season of the soul. He had encountered some serious setbacks and was trying to navigate all of it through the global pandemic. He cried out to God in desperation and felt led to begin a weekly prayer meeting much like the prayer meetings Jim Cymbala writes about at Brooklyn Tabernacle in his book, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. Almost one year ago, Nathan called the church to pray. At first, not many showed up, but as they continued earnestly in prayer, they reached the point of having over 50% of their Sunday morning attendance show up for each prayer meeting. God has been blessing and moving in power. They have seen miracles happen, and God has blessed them with a zeal for sharing Jesus that they had not had before. In fact, they are very close to seeing 500 people receive Christ in just one year!
One of the key points Nathan shared with us is how prayer must be as important to the church as preaching the Word and the fellowship of the church. As we read in Acts 2:42, the Early Church placed great emphasis and value on prayer. They heard the Word taught by their leaders, and they enjoyed wonderful fellowship with each other. But that was not all. They continued steadfastly in prayer as well. God poured out His favor upon them. We read in verse 47 that God added people daily to their number. Wouldn't that be awesome to be part of something like that? The good news is we can.
We are kicking off our weekly prayer meetings tomorrow night. We had these prayer meetings from November 2020 until June 2021 and stopped during the summer months. We will start meeting weekly again, and I am looking forward to spending an hour in prayer with our church and any others who will join us online. If you live in the Austin, TX area, feel free to come and join us at Great Hills Baptist Church at 6:30 p.m. tomorrow (Wednesday) night. If you cannot physically come, I invite you to join us online at our GHBC.org livestream page or on YouTube or Facebook Live. |
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