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LIVING IN AUTHENTICITY
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PHILIPPIANS
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Did we cancel church that morning? No way. We settled in
tightly, squeezing close to one another as we worshiped and learned
from Nirup’s sermon. It was one of the most beautiful and meaningful services I’ve ever been part of. One of our local Denver news
channels referred to the theft as a “Holy Heist”—and we kept not
only the term but the lessons we learned from it.
Now on the first Sunday of December each year—the first Sunday
of Advent—we also celebrate Holy Heist Sunday. We strip down to
the basics. We don’t use our lights and big sound system. We don’t
put up our screen and projector. We pass around Starbucks bags as
we give our tithe. We go back to the essentials: community, the message of Jesus, and a whole lot of prayer.
Nirup often calls our community a House of Prayer, and we certainly were after the Holy Heist. Our relatively new little church plant
didn’t have a hundred thousand dollars in the bank to repurchase
everything, but God generously answered our requests. First, a few
larger local churches called, saying they had a check for us. And then
smaller churches reached out with that same message. A body of
believers out of state said they were sending money. Even a brandnew church that had only been open a Sunday or two generously
gave to our little House of Prayer. We were astounded. And humbled.
And thankful to be part of a community that also believes in the
power of prayer.
A few days ago, we learned from Acts 16 that the church in
Philippi was also a place of prayer. In fact, the church was literally
born out of an outdoor House of Prayer by the river. And we discover
in the letter to the Philippians that remembering and advocating for
the believers in prayer was an integral part of Paul’s relationship with
this young church.
What if our lives were the same—built on a foundation of prayer?
It might be easy to say we want that, but when we really stop to think
about it, we might feel a bit daunted. Most of us believe in the power
of prayer, yet we spend an incredibly small amount of time each day
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