Fasting & Prayer Gathering
Happy New Year!
I trust that 2025 will be a great year!
As we started our Bible reading plan with the book of Acts, I am excited to anticipate God's work of grace this year. It will be a year when we will experience the ministry of the Holy Spirit ever more afresh. I pray that it will be a year of spiritual growth and breakthroughs. That we will be devoted to prayer together with one accord. That God will do deep surgical work to bring about healing and restoration. That he will raise up more disciples and servants for his ministry.
And that as we will be gathering together, especially this weekend, the Spirit will fill our praying space and rest on each person, filling us with God’s grace and truth, giving us utterance from the depth of our hearts—to repent of our sins, to be renewed in our souls and to be revived for the sake of his mission to the nations.
I am excited and grateful that we get to start off the new year with fasting and prayer gathering over the weekend. It will be good! Make sure that you don’t miss out on what God will be doing in our midst.
We will be meeting in room #308. We will start with praise at 7 PM on Friday, but the door will be open for us to mingle with others, settle and prepare your heart from 6:30 PM. We plan to end by midnight, but we are open to how the Spirit will move and lead our time together. We will gather back on Saturday morning at 8 AM, and break fast together at around noon.
For those of you who still wonder why we are having this fasting and prayer gathering and how we are going to do it, please check out my pastoral column: Invitation to Fasting and Prayer Gathering.
Let me share little be more about the fasting and prayer gathering in response of some of the questions I have received:
1. Can I sleep over at church on Friday night?
Some of you are wondering whether you can sleep over at the church. The answer is YES! We have been able to reserve two rooms: #316 for sisters and #204 for brothers. If you want to do an overnight at church, please bring your own sleeping bag. FYI: there are a few dozen Korean ministry members staying overnight on Friday night; they will be using different rooms on the second floor (for men) and third floor (for women). Junior high (grades 6 to 8, supervised by Pastor Susan) and senior high students (grades 9 to 12, supervised by Pastor Jae Seok) will be sleeping at the gym on Friday night. (Personally I am going home to sleep at home and then come back on Saturday morning).
2. What do I need to bring to the fasting and prayer gathering?
I suggest you bring your own water bottle (though there will be bottled waters provided), your own Bible (for we will be praying with the Bible, especially with Acts chapters 1—4), and a journal (if you want to write a prayer journal during personal time of prayer). Most importantly please come with open and ready heart to seek God, praise and pray together!
3. How will we be actually spending 4–5 hours on Friday and Saturday?
As you can see in the schedule, we will be spending extended time of praise on Friday evening and Saturday morning, followed by ample time to pray with the Bible. We will camp on Acts chapters 1 and 2 on Friday and then chapter 3 and 4 on Saturday. There is no preaching per se. We will read a chapter per our prayer time, meditate and pray on our own, then have facilitated prayer times in large groups and small groups for each of the four prayer times. You will get to hear from many others how God is speaking to us and how we speak back to God in prayer. We also plan to have a prayer station available at the end of our gatherings on Friday night and Saturday morning, so that if you want to receive a prayer, there will be a prayer team available to pray with you.
4. How should I prepare for the fasting and actually do the fasting?
Here is wise advice from Richard Foster from a chapter on “Fasting” in his book, Celebration of Discipline: “Before starting an extended fast, some are tempted to eat a good deal to ‘stock up.’ That is most unwise; in fact, slightly lighter than normal meals are best for the day or two before a fast…. If the last meal in the stomach is fresh fruits and vegetables, you should have no difficulty with constipation.”
We will be basically abstaining from eating dinner on Friday and breakfast on Saturday. Drink plenty of water. If you want to do a juice-fast, you can drink juice and just avoid solid food. I will leave the decision up to you. The most important thing to monitor is the inner attitude of the heart—whether you are seeking God through your fasting and prayer. Again, when we hear a growl in your stomach, we will respond by saying, “This much, O God, I need you and I want you!”
We will break our fast together at around noon on Saturday at church with congee!
For those of you who have not fasted and would like to get more information on the basics of fasting, please check out “Fasting for Beginners” by David Mathis. John Piper has a helpful interview on “Why Do Christians Fast” that you may want to check out as you prepare to fast.
If you have any further questions about fasting and prayer, feel free to ask me by emailing me (Charles.lee@newhopefellowship.ca).
I look forward to seeking our God together through fasting and prayer over the weekend.
What a great way to start the new year together as a church family!
What a blessing it is that we get to do it together!
Blessings,
Pastor Charles