Call2Prayer - He Crowns the Year - 8th January 2021
/“You crown the year with your bounty” - Psalm 65:11 (NIV)
I’m sure that the majority of us, this time last year, looked ahead at 2020 with plans, thoughts and expectations that turned out quite differently to how we’d imagined them. We have all faced challenges to varying degrees in 2020, and 2021 won’t be without its own hardships.
But, amidst a global pandemic and various other significant difficulties faced by our field teams, we have seen the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord in many new and unexpected ways. It has caused us to take a step back and to acknowledge that truly only He is the one who can foresee, direct and bless the year ahead.
Our hopes for 2021 as an organisation are great. As we announced at our 45th anniversary celebration in September, God has directed us over the past year to move from being simply media producers to also becoming media shepherds. That is, to be establishing and incubating other media groups in the MENA region by offering them media coaching as well as ongoing holistic discipleship.
Experience has shown us that media is most effective when it is produced and curated by those within its target audience. The MENA region is made up of not only 19 nations, but over 580 distinct people groups, with 390+ of these classified as being unreached. By becoming media shepherds, we hope to enable New Church (NC) believers to reach their own communities in culturally-appropriate ways with the Gospel. We are already beginning this process, with prospects for teams in Libya, Morocco, and other regions of North Africa. Funds raised from our recent Christmas Campaign will be used to seed the first of these teams in Libya.
Though, we are keenly aware that it is crucial that we keep our eyes fixed on He who is able - on He who gives, and takes away, on He who holds all things together, on He to whom all glory is due. We want to be led by Him alone, and to boldly take steps of faith in the directions He is calling us. As 2020 has taught us, this might look differently to how we’ve imagined. This might appear to us as scary, dangerous or even counterproductive! But we know that it is He alone who crowns the year with His bounty, and He is altogether faithful, trustworthy and good. Please join us in prayer, as we lift up our hopes and plans for 2021, to Him.
Lord, we turn to you this week in prayer for:
Thanksgiving! We thank you, Lord, for how you have sustained and carried us through the past year, and blessed the work of MEM in so many different and unexpected ways. Help us to trust that You are sovereign over all of our circumstances, and that Your ways are far greater than ours.
The development of a Media Shepherding Development programme via our field teams this year. We pray that you will lead the way as we seek to equip media experts from a Christian background with the necessary mentoring skills in working with New Church believers. We pray for your wisdom, direction and sensitivity as this programme is coordinated, and staff are selected and trained. We pray that you will help each member of the MEM team, staff and volunteers, to be better able to identify and respond to the unique needs of NC believers, and to commit to walking alongside them.
The right connections to be made within the most under-resourced communities in the region. Thank you, Lord, for the connections we already have with three specific groups within the region, including Libya. We pray that you would deepen and mature these existing relationships, building solid foundations of trust and dependability. We pray also that you will direct us and make a way for us to connect with the right individuals in other people groups that are lacking in Christian content produced by and for them.
As we begin to work with new media ministries in the region, we pray that you would work through us, empowering them to do what You call them to do through media. We pray that you would provide the necessary resources for the establishment of these teams, and the right people to take on mentorship and leadership roles.
We pray, most of all Father, that in all of these plans, we might be rooted and dependent on You in prayer. We pray that our hearts wouldn’t stray from the truth, and that we will point towards You in all that we say and do. Help us to trust You and Your leading, whatever that looks like. And we pray that all glory, honour and praise might be to Your name alone!
