Grassroots-Gardener God,
Thank you for the growth your Spirit has infused in your children, for such a time as this, and for the many prayer warriors who have been and are being raised up in this season of the Church’s life. Thank you for those who have gone before us and have planted seeds of faith within us – nurturing us in our relationship with you. Thank you that when we trust in you – place our confidence in you – we don’t need to fear the “heat” of our circumstances because you never leave us or forsake us. Thank you for loving us, no matter what, and yet challenging us and calling us to grow beyond who we currently are. Holy Spirit, you have planted, watered, and nurtured the seeds of faith in many people in this season. Now we pray that you will use the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to equip your people for works of service. Build up your Church’s “grassroots” and leadership in maturity, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ so we are unified in our discernment, wisdom, service and love. For the glory of Christ we pray, Amen.
“So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Eph. 4. 11-17)
“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-9)
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)