Week 4 - Community

What is 5(hundred) Hours?

5(hundred) Hours is an ambitious, church-wide call to prayer aimed at spending five hundred cumulative hours in corporate and private prayer to prepare for the February launch of re:Generātion, a new Young Adults Ministry taking place Sunday nights.

Week 4 - Community

Having been created in the image of a triune God, humans beings are made for relationship; we are built to live in community. Tragically, our rejection of God, what the Bible calls “sin,” has fractured our relationships—both with God as well as with other people. Through the gospel, God is at work to draw us back into renewed communion not only with himself but also with his people—the church. Life, ministry and mission are, therefore, all meant to be done together in the context of God’s family.

re:Generātion exists not to replace the local church but to embrace and support it by providing both small and large group gatherings committed to propelling their members into full participation within the body of Christ.

What to pray for as we ought . . .

Unifying Spirit, I pray for the ministry of New Life re:Generātion, for its individual members and for the communities of believers who gather beneath its name.

May they be one, Father—as an extension of Christ’s body—just as you and the Son are one,

Enable them to love one another in such a way that the world might see and know that you too have loved them and sent your Son to save them (Jn. 17:11-21).

Cause them to walk in a manner worthy of the calling they have received, with humility, gentleness and patience.

May they bear with one another in love and eagerly maintain both the unity and the peace that your Spirit has brought between them.

For there is only one body, through which your people have become members one of another, one indwelling Spirit, one enduring hope, one sovereign Lord, one common faith, one initiating baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all (Eph. 4:1-6).

Make re:Generātion, as a ministry and as Life Groups, a gospel-shaped and Christ-centered community.

May its members experience through their shared lives encouragement in Christ, comfort from your love, participation in the Spirit, affection and sympathy towards one another,

In doing so give them one mind, maintain among them one love, make them united in one spirit and focused upon the same purpose and goal.

Let them do nothing from selfishness or pride, but rather in humility may they consider others of more value and significance than themselves,

Cause them to look not only to their own needs but to readily turn to the needs of others (Phil. 2:1-4).

May they rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, being neither haughty nor conceited but associating with the lowly (Rom. 12:13-18).

Make them daily to watch over and exhort each another that they might not be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, nor be led away from you, the living God, through an evil, unbelieving heart (Heb. 3:12-13).

Make re:Generātion a safe, gracious and honest place where the truth is spoken in love and sins are freely confessed (Eph. 4:15; Jam. 5:16).

Ultimately, Father, may you, the God of endurance and encouragement, enable them to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together they may with one voice glorify you, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, welcoming and accepting each another just as Christ accepted them, all to the glory of God (Rom. 15:5-7).

Printable Prayers

For a printable version of these prayers to take with you throughout the week click on the following link.