The Amberly Prayer Project

Matt Rice
Church Plant Pastor

“I know exactly what to do Dad.”

This past weekend was a great day with my kids. We are moving to NW Cary and my wife – God Bless her – is working a little more so we can live there and plant a church. This affords me the honor of being the Lone Ranger Dad every 4th weekend. This past weekend was the first in this new arrangement.

After some cartoon watching, I turned the TV off and gathered the 3 oldest ones together to assemble a 24 piece floor puzzle. The puzzle was a circus puzzle and quite complicated. Andrew and Mollie did a great job of helping and Luke the 2 year old did a great job of distracting while Jake slept. Overall, things were going great. We had 23 pieces in place. But there was a problem…the puzzle had 24 pieces. We looked for the missing piece and could not find it anywhere. Just then Andrew jumped up and announced in typical Rice loudness, “I know exactly what to do Dad” as he headed into the bathroom. I thought to myself, “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

He came back and asked, “Guess what I did Dad?” I hesitantly asked, “What?” He said, “I prayed and asked Jesus to help us find the puzzle piece.” I was caught off guard and praised his action. We left the puzzle on the floor and went outside to play hoping the piece would show up. Later that night, just before bed, I was looking for something and found PIECE NUMBER 24!

God taught me a huge lesson and Andrew was equally stoked. God is concerned about all the details of our lives…..all of them. He wants us to come to him with all of our requests – the big ones and the “puzzle pieces.” We are a church in the process of replanting ourselves to be a church planting church in order to build the Kingdom of God. I serve as the pastor of the first church plant out of this new vision. We have been meeting for 4 weeks while ABC is finishing up casting her new vision. You might be asking, “So, what can we do next?”

To quote a wise 5 year old, “I know exactly what to do.” We must PRAY!

On March 8, 2008 we will join forces – the church plant and ABC - to prayer walk NW Cary. I invite you to GATHER in the ABC Fellowship Hall at 8:15 am; to GROW together with a challenge and some Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (Did I say the hot sign was on?), and GO prayer walk Amberly calling on God to open the hearts of these people as we reach them with the Gospel.

Can you walk? Can you pray? See you on March 8th at 8:15 am…Did I say the HOT SIGN was on?

Click here to read a biblical definition and explanation of prayer walking.