Special Prayer Requests from a GAFCON Participant

Today’s post on the GAFCON prayer blog contained a few special prayer requests for GAFCON.  I thought they deserved highlighting and posting here on Lent & Beyond too:

Special Prayer Requests From a GAFCON Pilgrim

1) pray for all who deal with jet lag/lack of sleep

2) pray for the pilgrims as they ponder the questions raised in Bp. Akinola’s address -We are being challenged to answer seven crucial questions (found here) the answers to which will determine the direction of the conference. We have difficult work ahead and your prayers are coveted.
In order to stay in touch with the GAFCON news and prayer needs, here are a few links:

The GAFCON website is here.

Stand Firm’s Matt Kennedy+ is providing outstanding coverage.  Look for all the posts highlighted in red over at Stand Firm.

Titusonenine has a helpful list of links where you can find many firsthand reports from those attending GAFCON.

Keep praying!

Psalm 95

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. (Psalm 95:1)
      Jesus, you are the rock of our salvation.

      Holy Spirit, please fill the parishes of this diocese with songs and praise for Jesus.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to him with psalms. (Psalm 95:2)
      Jesus, please help us come into your presence with our worship.

For the LORD is the great God, and the great king above all gods. (Psalm 95:3)
      Father, we acknowledge your greatness. Keep us from all forms of idolatry.

In his hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are his also. (Psalm 95:4)
      LORD, the earth and all that is in it belong to you; you created it. Help us to be faithful stewards of your creation.

The sea is his, for he made it; and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:5)
      You made us as well, Father; you are the creator, we are your creatures.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our maker. (Psalm 95:6)
      Holy Spirit, please bring us to a reverence awe of God the Father and Jesus his only begotten son.

For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. (Psalm 95:7a)
      Jesus, the Episcopal Church has become a wandering flock; please bring us back into your sheepfold.

Today, if you will hear his voice: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, (Psalm 95:7b-8 )
      Jesus, the Episcopal Church has become a people of hardened hearts; please put a new spirit in us, your Holy Spirit. Give us hearts of flesh once again. Thank you.

“When your fathers tested me; they tried me, though they saw my work.” (Psalm 95:9)
      Jesus, we have seen your work among us, yet we still test you. Have mercy on us.

“For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know my ways.'” (Psalm 95:10)
      Father, please teach the Episcopal Church your ways.

“So I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.'” (Psalm 95:11)
      Jesus, please save us from the wrath to come!

Tuesday: 94, [95]; Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30
Wednesday: 119:121-144; Numbers 16:36-50; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 20:1-16

Albany Intercessor

Hebrews 12:1-2

“Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross.” Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton, Doubleday Image Book, page 48 © 1908, 1936 by Dodd, Mead & Company

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

      Holy Spirit, please help Bishop Bill, Bishop Dave, and all the other leaders of the Anglican Communion who are meeting at the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) and at the Lambeth Conference that they will hearken to the witness of the saints in ages past who received the gospel and passed it on to us without blemish. Please help these leaders of the Anglican Communion to hear that great cloud of witnesses that surround us today.

Tuesday: 94, [95]; Numbers 16:20-35; Romans 4:1-12; Matthew 19:23-30
Wednesday: 119:121-144; Numbers 16:36-50; Romans 4:13-25; Matthew 20:1-16

      Notes from the Front Line

LAMBETH REFLECTIONS
Province II will be hosting a conference, being convened by Bishop Councell, on October 4th, called Lambeth Reflections. The Lambeth Reflections Day will be held at Trinity Cathedral, Trenton, NJ, at 10AM on Saturday, October 4th. Featured presenters will include the Rt. Rev. Chilton Knudsen, Diocese of Maine; The Rt. Rev. Bill Love, Diocese of Albany; The Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, Diocese of New Hampshire, and Professor Gordon Graham, Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary. We expect all of the bishops from Province II to be present to offer their views on the results of the Lambeth Conference. This event is open to all.

Albany Intercessor

GAFCON Continues

Please pray that those attending GAFCON will abide in the Lord throughout their meeting.

Matthew 19: 28-30

Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.  And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.  But many that are first will be last, and the last first.

Father, we pray for those who have left their homes and families to come to Jerusalem to answer your call and to follow our Lord and King, Jesus Christ.  May they be certain that in your economy it matters not who is first in this world.  May they not be ensnared by the desire to conform themselves the world’s culture and fashions.  May they simply believe that your are faithful to your promises and that you have the power to keep your promises.  May they have the faith that is reckoned as righteousness. 

Father, may Jesus be their honored guest throughout their time together. 

Amen.