The annual Week of Prayer and Service for Houston's Children and Youth begins with a Faith Community Summit on August 11! The Faith Community Summit is a gathering of leaders who meet in solidarity around our commitment to the well-being of the children of the greater Houston area. In this Summit you will get the most current information available from Dr. Bob Sanborn and CHILDREN AT RISK* on the challenges and needs of children and youth growing up in the Houston area. You will connect to others who have passion, empathy and a desire for justice for our children and youth. And you will have time to pray, and to consider ways God may have for you and those you lead to become a practical source of Life in the lives of children and youth.
Faith Community Summit
Date: August 11th, 2011
Place: St. Martin’s Episcopal Church
717 Sage Road, Houston, TX 77056-2111 Click here to register for the Summit. 11am-1pm - Summit
Week of Prayer and Service for Our Children and Youth: August 14-20, 2011 The leadership team of the Faith Initiative for Children and Youth, working with local intercessory prayer leaders and utilizing the research provided by CHILDREN AT RISK*, produce a Prayer Guide for the Body of Christ to be assisted in 7 days of informed and united prayer each year during the week prior to the beginning of the public school academic year. This prayer guide is available online and by email. Click hereto download this year's prayer guide.
In addition to praying, this year we are asking Individuals, congregations and ministries, and those whose daily work takes them to private sector businesses and organizations to engage in acts of service on behalf and children and youth during the dates August 12-21. There are a number of ways you can do this. For instance, contact the Principal of a local public school in May and ask if you and a group might serve the Administration, Faculty and/or students in a practical way in mid-August by
having a campus improvement workday project right before school starts, or
provide a meal during that in-service week for teachers, or
purchase and distribute gift cards to the teachers that provide teacher supplies from local stores to purchase additional classroom teaching aids.
In addition, you can make a contribution through existing efforts such as
participating in one of the many back-to-school supply drives (like that sponsored by the YMCA and KSBJ), or
participating in the efforts of the Houston Food Bank to provide additional food in the neighborhoods with the largest numbers of families lacking adequate nutrition.
These are just a few of the possibilities available for adding to our prayers demonstrations of God's love and of our commitment during the Week of Prayer and Service for Houston's Children and Youth. It is our hope that many will choose to engage in long term serving, as well, by volunteering during the school year at local schools and in after-school programs near where you work and/or live.
About The Faith Initiative:
The Faith Initiative is an association of pastors and leaders from congregations and organizations across the Greater Houston Area. You are invited to become a part of this initiative.
Established in February 2008, members of the Faith Initiative and CHILDREN AT RISK* meet to discuss children’s issues, inform one another of local efforts, and explore opportunities for collaboration in prayer, advocacy and service. Striving to build a greater awareness within the faith community and to bring about positive systemic change, the Week of Prayer and Service for Our Children and Youth is a city-wide movement to educate and mobilize individuals across the greater Houston area on behalf of the needs of our children. The Faith Initiative believes that this week of purposeful prayer and service will truly make an impact in the on-going, unfolding process that is needed to help all of our children. The 3rd annual Week of Prayer and Service for Our Children and Youth, in coordination with the Faith Summit, strives to educate and inspire participants to donate their time, resources, or talents to positively impact our youth directly or through advocacy. It also seeks to link up needs with assets that already exist in the community.
* CHILDREN AT RISK is a non-partisan research and advocacy organization dedicated to addressing the root causes of poor public policies affecting children. The organization began in 1989 and has evolved from an organization researching the multitude of obstacles our children face, to one that also drives macro-level change to better the future of our city and state through community education, collaborative action, evidence-based public policy, and advocating for youth at the local and state level.
Mission Houston believes that a purposefully unified Body of Christ, engaged in united prayer for our city and service to our city, is vital to the transformation of greater Houston. We celebrate the multiple cultures in our city and the Church, and relish those times when a gathering of believers for acts of worship or works actually looks like the diverse peoples in our communities and the community of faith. One such event, which has the expressed purpose of asking God to move in powerful ways to heal our city, will take place at Reliant Arena on Friday April 8 and 9, 2011, and you are invited to play a part!
Soulcheck --a FREE all-night multicultural Christian worship and prayer event, starting at 7pm and going until 7am-- takes its name based on Malachi 1:11. At this all-night event there will be no merchandise sold and no offering taken. For more information, check out the website: www.soulcheck.org.
One of Mission Houston’s core values for the transformation of our city is united prayer. We believe that a persevering and focused prayer movement is imperative for every spiritual revival and visible Kingdom advance. As stated in II Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.” We join local congregations and ministries throughout the Greater Houston area in extending the following invitation for “Houston Code Blue for Christ”:
Dear Pastors, Ministry Leaders and Praying Friends
Over the past several weeks a united community prayer walk has been considered for Houston’s historic Sunnyside community. When the word began to spread about a Sunnyside Easter Eve Community Prayer Walk, several other pastors and leaders began to inquire about planning a united prayer walk in their own communities. Thus far we have commitments from leaders in Sunnyside, Third Ward, Fourth Ward, Fifth Ward, Alief, Cypress/Copperfield, Kashmere Gardens, McGregor Palm, Clear Lake, South Park and Channel View, to call praying Christians together. Many more pastors and communities have expressed interest, so on Saturday, April 23rd pastors and ministry leaders from across Greater Houston are calling Christians to gather at various locations (to be determined) to unite, repent of our sins, and pray for the brokenness that plagues our communities.
United prayer topics will include such areas as: children and families in poverty; abortion and human trafficking; the needs of Houston’s at-risk children; the call of the Church to serve and heal our communities; the needs of the elderly; prayer for Houston area law enforcement officers; prayer for local government officials and educators. Each community under the leadership of local pastors will be responsible to determine timely, relevant prayer targets for their community.
Our city is in urgent need of a praying, obeying, united and loving Church! Let’s help lead and call together massive groups of people to pray and care for communities across our city on the Easter Sunday Eve – April 23rd!
All Houston Code Blue for Christ prayer partners will be asked to bring non-perishable food items to their community prayer staging area on April 23rd to help support local food banks or food pantries.
You are invited to join us. Thank you for praying, caring, uniting and believing! May this Easter and resurrection weekend be a time that impacts our lives, the church and our communities with healing, hope and transformation, through the power of our risen savior – Jesus Christ!
On behalf of the Houston Code Blue for Christ Steering Committee,
I’ve been asked why the Mission Houston Board and Staff decided to offer all of the Faithwalking services for free. The short answer is that it has been a deep work of God in our individual and collective hearts. There is a story behind how that occurred.
Faithwalking was launched in 2007. It is not uncommon in today’s environment for individuals with gifts (like talented musicians) or skills (like gifted preachers) to offer those gifts and skills to people beyond a local church. It is also not uncommon for those individuals to place a value on those gifts and skills and then sell them to the public. Whether it’s in a record album or in a collection of sermons that are placed in a book and sold in the market place, this is a common practice.
So when we launched Faithwalking we stepped into that common practice. We developed a retreat and then a small group follow up experience. We placed a value on it, and we sold it to anyone who would buy.
Along the way two things happened. First, virtually everyone who fully completed the Faithwalking course gave testimony to the deep impact that the experience had in their lives.
Second, a large number of people indicated that they could not participate because the cost was prohibitive. Though we were sympathetic to that, we also needed money to pay the salaries of the people (including me) who led Faithwalking, so we just kept charging a fee.
Then on Saturday morning of our December 2010 Board/Staff retreat we had one of the most courageous, authentic conversations about money . . . about our view of money . . . about our practices of stewardship . . . about our willingness to trust the Lord to provide if we would simply obey Him in every area of our life - especially, in the context of this conversation - regarding our money. Though we didn’t make any decisions that day about the fee for Faithwalking, we looked back at that conversation as one of the most powerful conversations about money in which any of us had participated.
Two weeks later - a week before Christmas - we met for another half day to finish up the planning that we needed to do for the 2011 ministry plan. In an unscripted moment of discussion about the budget, someone, I don’t even remember who, said, “How much income did we get from Faithwalking in 2010?”
Someone else said, “I think it was about $50,000 last year.”
Someone else said, “I think God is calling us to give this stuff away, and I believe we can trust the Lord to provide the income that is lost from charging a fee.”
A flurry of conversation occurred in the next seven to ten minutes and the decision was made. We looked at each other in a kind of stunned silence. What this really what God was calling us to do? It was our unanimous sense that He was.
Then someone realized that one of the Board members had left the meeting about an hour earlier. He was the Chair of the Faithwalking Task Force. We couldn’t make this decision without him. So we called and asked him to step out of a meeting he was in. We told him what had just transpired. He said, “Something in my spirit just thinks this is right.” And the decision was final.
So there is a real sense in which we are giving Faithwalking away as an act of obedience to God’s leading.
Faithwalking is a spiritual formation process that God uses to produces personal transformation in the lives of people who love Him and are eager to be on mission with Him. It is now our privilege to offer all the services of this ministry free of charge. If He is stirring your heart to join us, go to www.Faithwalkingonline.com
Mission Houston is excited to announce that our Faithwalking training is now offered free of charge!!
The purpose of Faithwalking is to create a growing community of Christ-followers who experience on-going personal transformation and who live in the kind of relationships while on mission with others that together they help produce transformation in neighborhoods and workplaces. This decision of the Board of Directors of Mission Houston became effective in January 2011, and reflects the ministry's desire to remove cost as an obstacle to participation in Faithwalking by residents of Houston.
Faithwalking exists both for individuals longing for increased impact in and through their lives, and for the leaders of congregations eager to help produce the kinds of saints who are more effective in their works of service as agents of God in every arena of life. Registration for Faithwalking offerings is required, and there is a $75 deposit that is fully refunded to participants at the conclusion of the training they participate in. For more information, please go to our website: Faithwalking.
We solicit your prayers for us in making this step of faith, and we look forward to being with you on this journey!
On behalf of the Board of Mission Houston,
Randy Schroeder
Chairman of the Board
Mission Houston
