Lakeview Christian Center

In case you didn’t get to pick up a Mission Paper from the service this past weekend, sections from it will be posted here.
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Over the month of October, please dedicate some of your prayer times to focus on this month’s mission emphasis (Russia). (Information excerpted from Operation World, calendar targets).

Targets for Prayer (cont.):

The religious freedom of the 1991-1997 period was a time of euphoria, excitement and interest created by disillusionment with the old system and its leaders. The ideological vacuum was rapidly filled by eager foreign Evangelicals, Western and Eastern sects, the indigenous Vissarion movement and a rise in occultism, parapsychology and even Satanism. Roman Catholics multiplied because of their credible opposition to Communism. Evangelical congregations increased from 2,700 in 1990 to possibly 6,000 in 2000 but the Evangelical percentage increase was far less (0.6% to 0.7%). The expected harvest was not brought in to the churches. Pray for the redressing of these weaknesses:

a) Inappropriate evangelism. Huge evangelistic outreaches by foreign evangelists drew many people, glowing reports of ‘conversions’ gave high profile to the gospel, but long-term results were less encouraging. The long-persecuted churches were culturally isolated, lacked disciplers and could not cope with the new-style aggressive evangelism. Pray for flexibility, adaptability and culturally suitable local church outreach.

b) The need for practical holiness and integrity in daily life. Communism created a society where deceit, fear, low moral and work standards, and unwillingness to make decisions became normal. This spirit affects many Christians too.

c) Serious divisions. These were rooted in the efforts of Communists to divide Christians. The bitterness between the formerly registered and unregistered churches (Baptists and Pentecostals) continues today. The extreme hostility of some Evangelicals against anything Pentecostal or charismatic hinders cooperation and fellowship.

On Mondays, the targets from the corporate prayer gathering on Saturday at 9a will be posted here. Here are this past weekend’s targets:

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“Freedom from Bondage”

Bondage in the Heart

Freedom from:
-The shackles of the fear of man
-The hooks of lust
-The maze of anger
-The nets of pride
-The traps of misplaced affections
-The cages of harbored bitterness

Bondage in the Body

-Miraculous healing of the sick in our midst
-Pray specifically for the needs that have been expressed in your Covenant Group
-Those who are suffering to persevere in faith
-Elderly to be sustained as they “wait with eager longing” for “the redemption of their bodies” (Rom. 8.19, 23)
-Those who cry “How long, O Lord?” (Ps. 13.1) to sing, “I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation” (v. 5)

Bondage in the Mind

-Depressed to find hope in the Gospel and joy in the Cross
-Minds that are spinning with the concerns of the world to rest in the peace of God
-The anxious to know the pleasure of seeking “first his kingdom” and having “all these things” added to them (Luke 12.31)
-Our church to meditate on the glory of Christ and to “think on these things” (Phil. 4.8).

In case you didn’t get to pick up a Mission Paper from the service this past weekend, sections from it will be posted here.
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Over the month of October, please dedicate some of your prayer times to focus on this month’s mission emphasis (Russia). (Information excerpted from Operation World, calendar targets).

Targets for Prayer (cont.):

The Church in Russia has suffered the most severe and sustained persecution of any nation in recent history. All deaths in the gulags (prison camps) between 1920 and 1990 are reckoned at 20 million; a further 16 million perished en route to them — many were Christian. It is reckoned 200,000 Christian leaders were martyred and a further 500,000 imprisoned. There were 100,000 church-owned buildings in 1920 (mainly Orthodox); by 1940 only 1,000 were in use by Christians, the rest being seized or destroyed. Structures and ministries were emasculated or manipulated, leadership cowed into compliance and compromise, Christians discriminated against, their children harassed and denied educational opportunities, and millions consigned to years of imprisonment, exile or psychiatric ‘treatment’. Give thanks to God for His protection and for enabling His Church to survive, grow and triumph in the end. Praise God also for many agencies in the West who did so much to maintain links between the persecuted Church and Christians in the free world, and to provide Bibles, literature and practical help.

In case you didn’t get to pick up a Mission Paper from the service this past weekend, sections from it will be posted here.
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Over the month of October, please dedicate some of your prayer times to focus on this month’s mission emphasis (Russia). (Information excerpted from Operation World, calendar targets).

Targets for Prayer:

The government faces a daunting task. The election of President Putin brought a ray of hope that the catastrophic decline of the 1990s might be reversed. Major issues for prayer:

a) Political wisdom in balancing the need for strong government but with democratic accountability and respect of basic freedoms. A new tyranny is likely to arise if the present system fails.

b) Economic stability. Much must be done to set up the legal framework and financial accountability to successfully privatize industry, make services work and encourage investment. The poverty of the majority and their hopelessness has stimulated crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, family breakdown and suicide to alarming heights. Many ordinary people live for months without wages.

c) Justice. The economic levers of society have fallen into the hands of criminal networks that have crippled business initiative and subverted the bureaucracy. There is no chance of change for the better without confronting these dark forces which make a mockery of legislation that cannot be enforced.

d) Building a multi-cultural nation after centuries of imperial and Communist tyrannies and, at times, ethnic genocide. The Chechen war is one manifestation of the feelings of ethnic minorities having suffered injustice and mistreatment not only in the Caucasus but also the Urals, Siberia and the Arctic. Russification policies deprived minorities of their land and wealth and suppressed their languages and cultures. Such attitudes threaten the integrity and survival of the Russian Federation. Inflamed nationalism severely hinders the progress of the gospel

e) Upholding constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. An alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church (hostile propaganda and misrepresentation), the Press (biased reporting) and the local and regional authorities (imposing arbitrary restrictions on religious minorities) all threaten it. Non-Orthodox have been made into second-class citizens, or even strangers in their own land. Pray that this legislation may be nullified and repealed, and true religious freedom re-established.

f) Health. The combined effects of the collapse of funding for health services, the availability of free abortions for birth control and a general sense of communal despair is causing accelerated population decline through family disintegration, alcoholism, TB, AIDS, high infant mortality and emigration. Pray for improved funding, morale to be restored, and Christians to play a greater role in health care.

g) A facing up to present and looming ecological disasters. Many thousands of square kilometres have been made uninhabitable by nuclear disasters and weapons testing (Chernobyl 1986, and parts of the Urals, Kazakhstan and the Arctic) and chemical/biological poisonings. The oil industry has massively polluted vast areas.