Building Community and a Prayer Life
Impressed by the description of the church in Acts 2, we gave a great deal of attention in our first year to fellowship and prayer. The weekly prayer meeting in the summer of 2000 evolved into a midweek prayer time twice monthly in the fall and weekly prayer before worship once we had our space at Seventh Church. In addition, elder teams offered prayers for healing a number of times during communion, our monthly Mission and Prayer Meeting (MPM) began, and our first retreat (described below--from our newsletter) was dedicated to prayer.

On Saturday February 3 over thirty folks crammed into [the Drew's] apartment for a six-hour prayer retreat. We followed the ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) approach, dividing our time among these four types of prayer with lots of singing, concluding with the Lord's Supper together. The numbers (close to 40% of our average worship attendance) encouraged us greatly. The quality of our time and its evident fruit encouraged us even more. One participant said, "I have known about the ACTS model for some time; but this is the first time I have seen it in action. I know how to do it now." A seminary student who helps oversee our small group ministry echoed the reaction of many when he told me at worship the next day, "I feel like the quality of our community life has just taken a quantum leap forward." I had to agree with him. The numbers (over 110) and the energy at worship the next day attested to it.

Fellowship was another priority. Much of it happened informally as scores of us routinely enjoyed dinner together in a variety of local restaurants after church. Our spring overnight retreat drew 70 and eager requests to take a full weekend next year. We saw as especially important our home fellowship groups and had Scott Strickman, our seminarian, focus his attention on them. The single greatest challenge these groups faced was church identification. Since Emmanuel had developed out of the Redeemer network, many groups had a mix of people from both churches. One of the stated purposes of our small groups was that they be "staging points" for ministry in the church and in the community--a purpose difficult to realize if the groups lacked a strong connection to our church and vision. We determined to give the process time--to allow the groups to grow and multiply along church lines.