100 hours of prayer - halfway point

Several months ago, I was listening to a church planter give an amazing testimony of what God had done through their church and how God had lead him to pray 100 hours for his church. While hearing that story, I felt lead to do the exact same thing. To spend 100 hours asking God what he has for Trinity Family, how he wants me to lead and anything else he'd reveal to me.

Amazingly enough, God has been speaking. In fact, these past several months have been one of the most refreshing spiritual seasons of my life. God has strengthened, motivated, inspired, rebuked, comforted, challnged and loved me during these 50 hours of prayer.

I sit in a recliner in our spare bedroom, notebook open and just start praying. Looking back through my journal, here are some of the highlights of my prayer time:

• Early on in this journey, I read Joshua 3:5, "Then Joshua told the people, 'Purify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do great wonders among you.'"
  
• When God calls a new church into existence, he's calling a leader. The work of starting a new church is going to do as much, if not more, in the life of the leader than anyone else.
  4 ways God is growing me as a leader:
  1) Humility - As much as my identity is wrapped up in this church, Trinity Family is not about me, it's about JESUS.
  2) Courage - I'm a people pleaser, I want everyone to like me. But my role is not to be everyone's friend, but to be the leader of this local community of believers. My focus must be on God's approval, even if this brings the disapproval of others.
  3) Persistence - Most (although there are supernatural occurences) church plants don't explode with growth overnight. Ministries are built with sweat and effort and over a long period of time. Even though things aren't always easy, I'm in this for the long haul and am trusting God to use TF to build his Kingdom in the Gardner area.
  4) Patience - Similar to the above. In my mind, we should've reached 1,000 new people for Jesus last week. We're going to keep giving it our all, trusting in God's long term plan for growth and effectiveness.
  
• Children's Pastor; I've spent hours praying about our Children's Pastor postion. God has really been pushing me into an area of faith (read more). We've offered the position to an incredible candidate and are trusting God to lead her to the right place and us to the right person (I wouldn't mind if those two were one and the same).
  
• I've begun praying about when and where we'd either start a new church or a launch a new worship site/ campus.
  
• There are so many people in our church with hurts and needs, I've prayed for many of you.
  
• Resurrection Sunday - I've spent hours praying for Easter and I'm not done yet!
  
• Neighborhood Group - I've been asking God how Erin and I can serve our neighborhood and after a couple months, God gave me an answer (read more)!
  
• Future of TF - I've been asking God how he wants this church to develop and how we can better serve our community
  
  There's a lot more I could write about, but those are some of the highligts.