In the midst of the election uncertainty and various other things going on in our lives, we joined together in prayer and worship on Friday, November 20th. We bagan the night with worship that was focused on the throne of Jesus. We intermingled worship and prayer for the first 30-45 minutes. We continued to play music throughout the rest of our intercession time and the Lord used it to bring peace and anointing into the room.
We began intercession time with little direction. I personally assumed we would be praying over election uncertainty or other ministry things. We got word that another group of people were going to be gathering in a nearby city to pray over the elections. I thought maybe the Lord wanted us to partner with them from downtown Platteville. I soon found out that the Lord had different ideas. It turns out the Lord wanted to pray for the people in the bars that surround our little upperroom. We prayed and sang blessings over the patrons of the bars, the residents living above the bars and even the bar owners themselves. We began to see pictures of believers going into the bars to have lunch or dinner and changing the atmosphere of those establishments. The Lord brought revelation to my heart that He wanted us to be like Him and not the pharisees and other religious people of His day. Jesus was the one who went in to sit with "tax collectors and sinners," much to the chagrin of the religious establishment of that day. He was delivering us from various fears we had of going into the bars and making connections with those who either own or attend the bars.
We also prayed specifically for some of the local bar owners who had been injured. Many stories were shared regarding connections that the Lord was already creating around 2nd street. We prayed that the Lord would continue to give us an opportunity to love on our neighbors and continue to make connections that He had for each of us.
Overall, it was very refreshing to come back to the 1st and 2nd greatest commandments. His desire was for our small group to love Him and love people and I fully believe that is what He was breathing into our lives on Friday night. We are very excited to see how the Lord increases our ability to love both our neighbors and Him.