Things To Pray For In January
I recently asked Andrew Leung, a Pastoral Candidate here in Sydney, to write a paper on our plans and goals for our prayer ministry in 2023, and under the banner of ‘Our convictions about prayer’, he wonderfully wrote the following...
“God delights in His people coming to Him in prayer. Through Jesus, we have unfettered access to God, and the confidence that He hears our prayers and desires to answer them in accordance with His good and glorious will. Therefore, we are to continually grow in our humble dependence upon Him in prayer.”
What a wonderful reality and reminder this statement is, and so here are some ways we can be using that ‘unfettered access’ in the month ahead...
Please pray for Sergei, our key leader in Belarus, as he spends the next two months in the US, for immersion training into Sovereign Grace Churches. Visas and national realities have not made this trip possible until now, and so we’re so pleased that we can make this happen. Sergei will be attending the Pastors College course on Pneumatology, the Global Leaders Fellowship retreat, and will visit with a number of Sovereign Grace Churches. Please pray for Sergei, his wife, and for Kyle Huber and Greentree Church as they continue to care for, equip and come alongside Sergei for further work into Belarus, Poland & Russia.
Please pray for Josh Kruger Jr and his family, as they relocate to the US later this month, for a one year Pastoral Residency in Kingsway Community Church in Richmond, with a view to planting our first Sovereign Grace Church in Namibia, in early 2024. Over the year Josh will be attending seven classes at the US Pastor’s College, serve alongside Kingsway elders in a variety of contexts to learn how biblical convictions shape pastoral ministry, and develop a prospectus for church planting in Windhoek, Namibia. Unlike Josh, his wife Lieze and his two sons, Joshua and Matthew, have never lived in the US and so please be praying for them as they adjust to their new house, new school, new city and new church.
Please pray for Marty Machowski (Pastor in Covenant Fellowship Church, Glenn Mills, US) as he heads to Seoul, South Korea, January 11th-17th to serve Songhwan Kang and Lord’s Grace Church. He will be teaching on the Deaconate, giving a parenting message, a marriage message, preaching twice on the Sunday, and spending time with the Pastors and Interns of Lord’s Grace Church to encourage and care for them. It will be a full trip for Marty as he seeks to serve our dear brothers and sisters well, so please be praying for him.
Please pray for Greg Dirnberger, as he leads the US National Church Planting Assessment, January 20-21 in Irvine, CA. Please pray for the assessment team (Greg and Laurie Dirnberger, John and Nancy Loftness, and Christopher and Stephanie Warren) as they consider each of the candidate’s references, resumes, and then observe them preach, cast vision, evangelize, and communicate to them God’s developmental process in their lives. The purpose of this National Assessment is to serve local elderships, and regional church planting committees by offering potential candidates discernment in their process of determining God’s call on them for planting Sovereign Grace churches. There are four brothers being assessed and so please be praying for everyone involved.
Please pray for the nine young people in Sovereign Grace Churches, Australia that have signed up for our Young Leaders Internship Program for 2023, starting at the end of January. Please pray that God quickly builds them together as a cohort and that they catch a vision for serving Jesus in the Local Church, the Dearest Place on Earth.
… Thank you for praying for our family of churches. May His grace abound to us all!