50 Days Challenge

WPCC 50 DAYS OF HOPE CHALLENGE
It's that time of the year again! Beginning October 4th - November 22nd, is our 50 Days of Hope Campaign!

50 Days of Hope was birth out of a desire to see our community change by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, unity, purpose, and prayer! It is a challenge to all of us believers, especially those of us at Worship and Praise Community Church, to be an active part of what the Lord Jesus wants to do in the earth.

The Challenge for the Next 50 days:

1. Daily Prayer
a. Make time to pray each day for a total of 50 minutes where ever you may be.
b. Pray for our nation, our state, our city, our boroughs, our communities, our neighborhoods, your friends, our church, your family, and yourself to see God transform lives.
c. Think of 50 names of people that are connected to you whether through your family, your neighborhood, or your work and write them on the accompanying list.
d. From the list you made, call and pray for one person on your list each day for 50 days until you have completed your list. This is a simple 1-2 minute(s) call letting that person know that you are thinking about them and that you want to pray with (not for) them for anything that they may need. Let them know that our church is on 50 days of prayer, faith, and action and that you have them on your list of people to pray for cause you love them and want them to be happy and blessed. (Check out the accompanying sample conversation.)
e. Bring your list to church so that we can all pray for them.

2. Weekly Prayer
a. Attend a church-wide prayer meeting at the church on Fridays from 7pm - 8:30pm.
b. Here we will pray for all the people that are on each one of our lists from that week - mentioning their names for God to bring salvation to them and their families (if they are not yet saved), along with a prayer of health, wealth, and safety.

3. House Prayer
a. Commit to at least one night of prayer meeting in your house. (Send your date to prayerline@50daysofhope.com or schedule with Sis. Wilma.)
b. Prepare light snacks for fellowship and invite our members of the church, members of your family, and people on your list to come over your house that night for a prayer meeting.
c. At the prayer meeting, ask for everyone's prayer request and pray for those prayer requests. (Check out the accompanying instructions and prayer request cards.)
d. Enjoy the food afterwards. Invite any guest of yours to visit our church and this website.
e. Bring your meeting's prayer requests to our weekly prayer service. We will place them on the altar to be prayed for by those of us in that Friday Night (Power Night) prayer meeting.

4. A Dollar A Day
a. Set aside $1 per day. At the end of the 50 days, we will trade the $50 that you have set aside for a food card to be given away to our church family members who need the extra money for food and to people that we have invited to come.
b. We will give invitations out to our neediest neighbors - each church member that commits $1 a day will have one invitation to be handed to someone that they know or have met to come and receive the $50 food card at the end of the 50 days ... Sunday, November 22nd.

5. A Good Deed A Day
a. Find someone to do something good for each day. (I.E. - Buy someone a cup of coffee. Pay for someone's ride on the bus.) When you do your deed, tell them, "One good deed deserves another. Jesus loves you. God Bless." Then leave them alone - unless they start a conversation with you.

It is our hope that doing these five commitments will allow God to use us to help someone experience transforming hope in these last days!

What the world needs is the Church being the Church and the change! Let’s stop talking about it and be IT!

For more info visit: www.worshipandpraise.net or www.50daysofhope.com
To send your prayer request, email us at prayerline@50daysofhope.com

Christ Covers

God has given me an idea that I pray would become greater than myself and far encompassing than Worship and Praise Community Church. The idea is a blanket ministry: ChristCovers.

As our initial drive, we are looking to bring in 1000 blankets from June until November 22nd(the end of our second annual 50 days of Hope.) We're looking for brand new or newer receiving blankets for newborns (to support young, single or less fortunate mothers and their babies), regular sized comforters for families and heavy wool blankets for the homeless.

Anyone that would like to participate, please call us at 3476822237 or email us at christcovers@worshipandpraise.net

God bless. Please pray for the achievement of our goal!

More infor soon.

Think About It

The time for our conference is just around the corner. There are many bright ideas that I have thought about and that has not been implemented. The problem is that I undertake too many things at one time. Another problem that I face is, since I'm the pastor of the church, thus the spiritual leader, I have great thoughts but I do not give them time to simmer with the right people getting involved. (I often force the concepts; instead of sharing the concepts, I try to muster people to go along with me - a leadership flaw that can be fixed.)

Often times I frustrate myself by the lack of foresight that I have. Sometimes I can be very wise about certain things, but there are other times that I fly by the seat of my pants. There are plenty of ideas that I have that can be life changing or even world-changing (and I don't say that to brag). God somehow infuses my mind with these incredible thoughts that I try to accomplish on my own. Sometimes I ask, "Why to me, Lord?" I don't know and don't begin to say I know but I do know this: I believe thoughts are the foundation for reality. It is the basis by which things in the real world exist. Even the earth itself with the surrounding universe and galaxies come from the Mind - all be it the mind of God - but God"s "mind" created it all by His spoken Word. So eventhough my plans don't always come to fruition, I must continue thinking great thoughts (and working on my areas of weakness).

So why should someone have great thoughts when most of these thoughts would go unfulfilled? And, why should we spend the time thinking great things so just to see time fly by and those things that we thought about fade as we get older? Why spend the time to explore the possibilities - even the impossibilities - if they'd never come to pass?

Why?

Because the mind is the lab by which the scientist create his greatest inventions. It is the ball field where pitches are thrown and where the batter swings for the fences. It is the lens by which the director sees the intriquiesies of his film. WHAT? What I mean is that the thoughts we think are genesis of all creation.

Yes, some of the things we think about to do not come to pass. Yes, there are numerous daydreams that we explore in our minds that will never happen. But, what if thought become action? What if thought is embraced by discipline? What if those things that we think about in our minds are plucked from the tree of obscurity and eaten by the mouth of activity? Could you imagine the minds of the men who worked at the Manhattan Project? What thoughts ran through their minds in search for the end of World War II? The concept of nuclear weaponery. The design of nuclear accelerators. The legacy of Einstein. The A-Bomb.

I guess we can go back to action! (Since that's where this blog seem to be heading.)

But before we scroll down and find the entry on action and rehearse the concepts explored in that blog, lets spend some time on thinking. The Bible admonishes as that we need to reason. That is, to think about the things at hand in the proper viewpoint. Many people fall hopeless because they have stopped thinking. OR, they are thinking on the wrong things! Paul admonished his readers in his letter to the Phillipians that there are better things to think about: Honesty, truth, purity, and innocence; whatever is acceptable and reputable; whatever produces excellence and is commendable - these are the things that we need to think about. The road that leads to hopelessness starts it's first few miles in our thoughts; we think we are defeated before we really are. So is the same for success, we are successful before we areally are. Thus it is the direction of our thoughts that should be of most concern.

A few days ago one of my coworkers heard me stating that I do my job well. Yes, I was the one that said it. And, if I'm correct, I think I even said that I do everything well. My coworker was impressed - to my surprise. Most people would consider that bragging. To her credit, she did not see it that way especially since it was not intended to be so. In fact, she approved of my self promotion. She stated, "I like that Lemuel (that's my first name). You are confident in what you're able to do." I, ofcourse, could not take all the credit. My dad once told me the positive concepts of self promotion: "No one will promote you greater that you. If you can't promote you, then who will?" What I got from him was that, I need to be the greatest promoter of myself. Why? Because I must learn how to speak the things (or the man) that I want to become. My thoughts about my person has got to be the best they can be and I have to speak those thoughts so that I can be the man that I want to be. So despite not being able to "do everything well", I say it anyway to "trick" my mind to produce excellence as supposed to mediocrity.

How does that relate?

It relates big time! Thoughts are creative reality waiting for activity. The direction of your thoughts is your forecast destiny.

Last words:
With the conference looming ever so near I know that I will approach this first conference as a lesson in what not to do. Next time (by God's grace), I will have a committee of people running the conference. I guess: Better thinking for a better tomorrow.

We bless you in Jesus Name!

Ready, Set, Action!

The Bible, in the book of James, declares that faith without works is dead! Wow. To those who have read the last blog I have news for us ... If we're not working then we are just daydreaming.

One of America's great founding fathers once said, "Well done is better than well said!" Two cheers for Mr. Franklin for coining that phrase 'cause what a phrase it is. One would be hard pressed to find someone that actually does not have anything to say. Almost everyone has an opinion or a thought or even an idea. Now, I have not surveyed all of humanity, but I can't imagine someone that has the ability to think not to have any desire to be something or to be someone in the future. I can imagine that even the worst thug desires to be the best in his field or at least be like someone else he admires in that field. Of course, there are less people that can articulate their desires and thoughts eloquently with precision and destiny. But there is a distinction between the man that can think and can speak, versus the man that can do what he thinks and what he speaks. The accomplishment of a deed is far better than the planning of the deed. To think and dream without action is to kill the thought and the dream.

In the worst of times, people can dream up of inventive ways to get through the hard times. Staring out onto space with your thoughts of rebounding from failure can bring some very innovative thoughts. Thoughts of buying and selling and profitering light up the mind. Even the thoughts of winning the elusive lottery, can spark the mind into hopeful daydreaming - which is shadow of faith. Our mind has the power to concieve the uninvented, the unchartered, and the beyond; but even playing the lottery requires a dollar, a few numbers, and the walk to a nearby store to put all those ingredients together if there is a chance of winning the jackpot. If the mind has the right numbers in its thought, without the activity of actually buying a ticket, one will never win.

What am I saying? Even if you have the faith to move mountains, if there is no action accompanying that faith, then your faith is dead. Faith alone cannot do it. Even in salvation man must believe - have faith - then he must confess, repent, accept, and obey. James states it this way (I'm paraphrasing here), "You can tell someone to be fed, but unless you feed him he won't be fed. You can tell a man he will be clothed, but unless you give him some clothes to put on he'd still be undressed."

Right!

You can't just believe for a recovery. We can't just believe that things will turn around. We can't just believe that we will get another job, have a new business, or we'll have more money. Well, I guess you can, but if you don't do anything about it, you're going to lose hope. True faith is like true love - it requires action. Jesus, our greatest example, hung on the cross after He said that God loved the world! Well done better than well said! John 3:16 is a great Bible verse but Luke 23:46 is better. Talking about ideas no matter how long the conversation lasts is not better than perfoming the ideas. You know why? Because doing is harder than talking so doing is a greater expression than speaking. It's easy talking about how wonderful a Ferrari looks and sounds and maybe even runs, it's another thing to be in the factory in Italy putting finely tuned pieces together making sure that all pieces fit properly, functioning according to specs, and all parts are engaging seemlessly.

Dreaming is easy. Saying that you have faith is easy - children speak of the impossible all the time -but acting out what one believes is hard. Why is that? Because there is no fear in dreams and faith. No one can fail at dreaming or expressing faith. Dreams and faith are immeasureable, but action is measurable. We cannot tell whether or not a dream is good or bad we can only make opinions about it; but when we act, we have the capacity to fail. There can be no failure in faith but there can be failure in action. Therefore the fear then is not in believing but in failing. I have heard over the years many people say that they have faith, but, like James stated in his epistle, show me your faith by your works.

What do I say to all of us?

Dream big! Have faith! Believe in the possibility of the impossible! But let's put our money where are mouth is - so to speak. Can you imagine if you have the next multimillion dollar idea and you don't pursue it? Did you know that we have the light today because Edison failed thousands of times before the invention of the filament? Did you know that there were 20 or so investors in front of Ray Croc when he pitched the idea of a franchise - namely McDonalds and less than a handful bought into the idea? Did you know that Colonel Sanders was almost a senior citizen when he finally stablished Kentucky Fried Chicken? You didn't know? Well, neither did they until they went out and did it. And did it again until they finally got it right!

Last words:

Action is faith visible.

Have Some Faith!

Faith, the Bible states, is the substance of things that one hopes for; it is the evidence of things unseen!

I don't think there is a more powerful phrasing of the definition of faith than that! When I think of faith, I think of the invisible being visible in the area of dreams and imagination. It is the formation of the uncreated in the consciousness of the person who hopes to bring those things that are not to existence. Every builder builds in faith - he builds in hopes to complete his plans the way he planned it. Every entreprenuer raises his pen in faith, hoping to bring dreams into reality. Faith is the substance - it is the house when the architect is just looking at the lot. Faith is the substance - it is the bustling of customers for the woman who is just looking at property for her new business. Faith is the job when one has just been recently fired. Faith makes men and women from all walks of life pursue dreams, chase opportunities, and embrace strangers in hope of fulfillment, success, and friendships.

Faith is also evidence. What I see in my spirit or in my mind is witnessed by faith. In the court of hope, when situations look grim and dark, faith is the key evidence that bears witness that the sun will shine and the rains will cease. Behind every great thinker, there is someone that believes he/she is crazy. Before society stamps honor to men/women who have done things that have never been done before, society considers these group of people as odd or "off". Faith in man states, "I know what I'm after because I have seen it already even if it has never been seen before."

So what does that have to do with those of us that are in the midst of struggle? Well, have faith!

"How?" one may ask.

Well faith, the idea of believing without seeing, I believe, is one of the greatest ascent of the mind. Man! A person has to be able to look past current situations, market stipulations, and one's own fear of failure to elevate to the realm of faith that moves mountains. The mind must be thoroughly convinced no matter what the senses are feeding it about the fulfillment of what it believes is able to achieve. So, to have faith then is to ascend into the heights of the spirit where the natural is outwieghed by the supernatural and the visible is brought to question by the invisble. (That's why a complete surrender to God is the ultimate expression of faith because the Invisible takes greater precedence than the visible.) To achieve faith then is to defeat doubt - meaning, it is to accept the reality of the unseen. When we lose a job the natural tendency is to worry, fear, and succumb to the feelings of defeat. Faith states that worry, fear, and feelings of defeat are real, BUT what is happening now is not what necessarily will be tomorrow. In fact, in faith, what will happen tomorrow, is going to be greater that what had happened today or yesterday.

Hope unfulfilled is exhausting and frustrating. Imagine hoping and hoping everyday for a miracle and the miracle does not happen. Hopelessness is the result of prolonged hope that has met dead-ends at every corner. Faith is not hoping against reality. Faith is the acceptance of reality with an understanding that those things that are real does not change the things that can be. Meaning, if the doctor has come to you and told you you have an incurable illness, faith understands that's reality. But what faith then does is, despite of the reality - the prognosis of the incurable disease - it does not change the fact that others have beat death before. Others have recieved healing before; men and women have had fulfilling lives despite a such prognosis. Faith understands that a diagnosis of pending death or hurt is not lethal until I allow it to kill my mind of dreams and hope. Faith is at times hoping against hope. Choosing life for death, joy for sorrow, happiness for sadness, and living instead of giving up!

A man by the name of Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with prostate cancer. His mind, filled with faith, accepted reality but determined to live surreally. By fighting the cancer, he was able to rise above the statistics into a national hero. Since Lance Armstrong had already done what others have thought was impossible, winning 7 straight Tour de France, fighting in faith for a recovery and remission is already in his DNA.

This is what I suggest: Live life in faith so that faith gets intertwined into your DNA. See the invisble! Do the impossible! Think above your circumstance! Live with your destiny in mind! Act as though you have been where you're going!

We bless you in Jesus Name!

Pastor L. Jones Ayudtud

Let's Pray!

So everyday we are endeavoring to pray morning, noon, and night - a pattern reflective of Daniel's prayer life.

Daniel was a prophet of God stuck in a country that was not his own, separated from his family, and was in the company of idol worshippers. Daniel was in captivity! He was were he did not want to be but Daniel made the best of it. In fact, despite of his situation, he prospered in the land of Babylon because he knew how to get a hold of God. Daniel stood up against the paganism of the Babylonian King and prayed despite being under the threat of death. Daniel stayed a night in a lion's den and came out the morning after victorious over his enemies! Daniel was bold, passionate, and favored because he connected with God at least three times a day. Daniel was a steemed magistrate in a strange land because of the wisdom God bestowed on him. What an amazing Bible character Daniel was! Not only did he experience all the above mentioned, Daniel also recieved visions from God concerning the future including the death of the Messiah - Jesus and the rapture of the saints in the end times!

Fantastic!

We don't know the extent of the knowledge of Daniel. We don't know the scope of his natural talent. We don't know his pedigree. We don't know if he had a familial propensity for greatness. We don't know alot of Daniel's background history, but what we do know is that he knew how to pray.

Sometimes we depend on our physical and mental abilities to bring us through our life's situations. We focus on what we can do and what we think we are able to do. We can rely on our resources such as our careers, our jobs, and our wages to pull us out of tight spots. We strive to make sure that we are able by ourselves to make it through. What happens? When our resources does not meet our needs, frustration can come. If we continue to pursue the answers for our situation through our own powers, we can find ourselves more and more frustrated as we find out that alot of what we think we're able to do sometimes do not meet the need at hand. If we are not careful, frustration can lead to hopelessness!

So what do we do?

Connecting to God is the key to perpetual hopefulness. When we are connected to God, there may be times where we do not get what we feel like we should but we later find out that God has everything working together for our good. Connecting to God enables us to not be so entrusting with our own abilities thus preventing ourselves from feelings of frustration and hopelessness. If we can rely on God as we exercise our God given abilities, even if our talents are not enough, we'll find ourselves less stressed since our reliance is not our resources, but on God's resources; we're we fail, He steps in!

Prayer is the connecting point to God. Learning how to trust and lean on God is the outcome of prayer. God answers prayer - but equally important is - prayer changes our attitude about our situations. When we pray for our needs, we release our self-reliance into God-reliance. Prayer has a natural element of surrender and humility. It's very difficult to pray for God to answer or meet our needs without inherently confessing, even without speaking it out, that we are in need of Him. Yes, God hears our prayers and it affects God because God is stirred by prayer (along with praise), but the affect of a heartfelt prayer works on our spirit and our mindset. The praying person learns, as he/she prays, to trust in God.

Daniel's prayer life raised him to be a man of favor. Daniel's connection to God enabled him to withstand his time of captivity. Daniel's prayer life made him a prosperous man and an esteemed man in Babylon! Like Daniel, we can recieve favor, perseverence, prosperity and esteem if we would take the time to pray like Daniel.

Last words ...

Just so I don't get mistaken ... yes, the very act of praying changes us, but, remember, it is the answering God that makes the true difference in prayer. Some of us may lose our jobs, possesions, and money - but God does not lose anything. What we lose, God can find!

We bless you in Jesus Name!

It's Just A Matter of Time.

The first day of the 50 days began on Sunday morning. As the United States celebrates the hopping of bunnies and the painting of eggs, the Church celebrates and commemorates the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Nothing in history has been so world-changing as the life, the death, and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. No sentinel event can even come close to the change that Jesus brought to the world then and even now.

There are many things we can learn from the gospel story. One of them is that it's just a matter of time until a crucifixion becomes a resurrection. It took but three days to see the most gruesome death of Jesus Christ turn to the most glorious comeback story in history. Imagine: Jesus was beaten, played before a crowd of death-mongers, spit on, made to carry a wooden plank, and then nailed to a cross to die. Everywhere around him people were either whispering to each other about how wrong He was, betting one another for some memorabilia of the downfall of this great Rabbi, or just somewhere in a corner regretting that they backstabbed Him. Days before His great humiliation, all of Jerusalem were on their feet receiving Jesus as the King. Young and old were shouting, “Hosanna in the highest!” People took palms and made a path for the King! In just a matter of days, the great Superstar of the time had become the laughing stock of all Jerusalem! But three days later, Sunday came! A huge stone was rolled away, an angel proclaimed His victory over death and the grave, and He eats with His disciples again. Most of us would have just stayed up on that cross and died! In fact, some of us would have been glad we died. After having such a great streak of success and fame, some of us would have refused to rise from such a degrading demise.

I recently read a story of a man who used to make $750,000 a year. He had a mansion for a house, luxury cars, and a year round schedule that boast of vacations and lavish visits to five star restaurants. Because of some personal choices and the economic state of the country, he lost everything. On the interview, the man and his family were about 7 months behind on their mortgage, the cars had to be returned, and he spent his working hours delivering pizzas! What so fascinating about this story is that the man never took his life, did not run from the shame, and didn’t seem to be in a depressed state. From the story, one can tell that the man had a resurrection in mind!

What I want to offer this week is: think of YOUR own resurrection. Yes, things are difficult, the bills still need to be paid, and there seem to be no hope in sight! But if we can learn anything from our Lord Jesus is that, don’t let yourself be kept up on your cross! Bury your demise and your shame. Wait on the perfect timing of God. Expect a resurrection! Don’t stay hanging on the cross. Don’t stay in the tombs of your disappointment. Don’t stay wrapped up by what could have been. Learn to trust in the promise of God that it’s just a matter of time! We need to muster the tenacity, the guts and the courage to wait for the upswing of our downturn.

Jesus could have died and stayed dead in the grave. What made Christianity become what it is today was not the death of Jesus, it was His resurrection! As Paul the Apostle declared in his epistle, "And if Christ wasn't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries." (1 Cor 15:17-20 Message Bible)