24 Hours of Prayer

How Will We Pray?

If you've signed up for a time slot or even if you're awaken in the night and wanting to pray or have an unscheduled moment during the day, here's how we would love for you to spend your time praying:

Praise

Read Psalm 145

Spend time adoring God for who he is and all he's done. Rejoicing over his marvelous works, his goodness, and his trustworthiness in our lives. Praise God for specific things you're seeing him do in your life, our church, and this city.

Reflect

Read Psalm 35

Think about our church, your personal life, and this city. Confess sin, idols, and injustice that are prevalent. Reflect on your heart, and posture toward's Jesus's work around you. Be honest and bold before the Father.

Ask

Read Psalm 1

• Pray for Rest in the Lord within our Body

• Pray for Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit – Listening and Seeking to be led by the Spirit and invite the Spirit to lead us in our decisions and ways of being a church

• Pray for the City. For your coworkers, neighbors, family, friends, etc. to come to believe. 

• Pray for us to grow in having a deeper hunger and desire for prayer. That we will continue to grow.

• Pray for generations that goes for for generation to generation (waves of LA people, the coming and going, the Saints that come after us, and came before us)

Yield 

Read Psalm 40

Lastly, listen to what the Spirit might be calling you too. Surrender to his work. You can offer the simple refrain of Jesus: "Not my will Lord, but yours be done." Or, "I'm here, I'm willing, take my life and let it be an offering to you."

Good Friday - Reflection Guide

Read

John chapters 18 and 19

Reflection

I want to talk about death.

Jesus died on a dusty hillside outside of town near piles of trash on a Friday afternoon. We might imagine huge crowds of people standing by to watch the spectacle either in grief or victory. However, what we’re told is there were a few soldiers to guard him, a few the other dying men, and no more than a handful of women and men. By the time Jesus cried his last cry, and spoke his last words, his fifteen minutes of fame were over.

The city had moved on to the preparation for the Passover festival. They were busy at the market buying ingredients, they were preparing the lamb for super, they were checking chores off their list before sabbath. The excitement of Jesus’ presence in the city, his trial, his torture, and his death waned. The crowds disappeared. Jesus died in obscurity. Jesus was forgotten—by his enemies, by the Roman Empire, by many of his admirers. He was yesterday’s trending topic.

Jesus was on the cross for hours. He was tortured through the night. He carried his own grave maker on his back. He was rushed to midnight courtrooms. He was betrayed. He was killed.

Breath in and out. That’s what Jesus was doing as his body began to shut down. That’s what you’ll be doing as your body shuts down. Your nose and mouth inhale oxygen. The oxygen gets into your blood and your heart pumps it to every organ and muscle in your body. The breathing makes you alive. When you stop breathing, life is over. Whether it’s an accident on the side of the road, in a hospital room, or surrounded by great grandchildren while in hospice care, you will breathe one last time and wont breathe again. Your organs will be starved of oxygen. Your muscles will stop. Your brain will shut down. Your heart will be still for the first time. You will die.

One of the greatest displays of Jesus’ humanity is his dying. He enters the finality of what we’re all going to experience. He enters the silence. He enters the isolation. He enters death. He knows what lies beyond the cavernous shadow of death that’s awaiting us all.

Death is something we’re so afraid of we’ve created euphemisms to obscure it’s reality. “Your brother passed away”. “Grandpa has gone asleep.” “They aren’t with us anymore.” “We lost her last year.” This language doesn’t exist to respect the dead, but to respect our fear and give honor to the greatest unknown. Jesus died. Jesus knew death.

What Makes Good Friday Good?

Jesus dies to eliminate the death we don’t know and to embody the substances of sin we’re well aquatinted for so that death can be abandoned and sin could be forgotten.

What happens to Jesus on this night, is nothing short of evil. Powers, conspiring for more power, coldly dispose of life. He dies for evil. As Shusako Endo writes in his novel Silence, “Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt.”

The good news about Jesus’ death is He identifies himself with the shame of evil.

The shame of evil is the wounds deep within you done by others. The shame of being left. The shame of being forgotten. The shame of being condemned and judged. The shame of being let-go, neglected, hated, betrayed.

The dark truth about all those things is this: they never roll off your back. They infect you. They break you. The weight of it, the stain of it, it’s all overwhelming.

Jesus, in his death, walked a path for your healing from the shame of evil. Jesus embodies your shame. He carries it to the cross while being spit on, despised, betrayed, and abused. Each moment he’s forgotten, you’re remembered. Each moment he’s scarred, you’re healed. Each moment he’s betrayed, you’re beloved. Each moment he carries the cross of evil, you’re carried closer to freedom. When the chains are put on him, the chains are taken off you. When he stares into the silent unknown of death, you’re ushered into the known kingdom of life.

Jesus, on that Good Friday, walked a path for your freedom by taking all of the guilt and all of the brokenness on himself. It was the cross he carried, it was the breathe he breathed out. He took it all. How will you pay? Jesus will pay. How will it be made right? Through the body, blood, and death of Jesus. How will the world be mended? Through this moment.

The Good News about Jesus’ death is you’re free from guilt because the guiltless one died for you.

Good Friday for You

Jesus’ claim at the beginning of Mark that the kingdom of God was at hand means he is coming to face death. And this is what he has done on the cross. He came to die.

With these words, your life is forever change: “He breathed his last”.

All of this was God’s will—his desire, his passion, his purpose, his plan. What a remarkable creator of the heavens and the earth that he would fix his eternal love on you, and me—humanity. The one that breathed life into Adam breathed his last for all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.

No one has ever done anything like this for you, for me, for the world. No one has ever claimed to do anything like this. This wasn’t a martyrs death. This wasn’t a rescuers death. This was death by love for the world.

This was a good day for humanity. Good Friday. It’s the day shame died. It’s the day sin was dealt with. It’s the day death was buried in the grave.

It’s a day of deep gratitude. It’s a day of sincere joy. It’s a day of response. It’s a day of belief. It’s a day to accept the forgiveness and love of Jesus. It’s a day to say with Jesus, “the time is now”, the world is free. His scars prove it.

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy

Response

Q: What makes Good Friday good for you this year, this day?

Q: As Jesus walked the path of the cross for you, what was he carrying?

Q: What makes you thankful today?

Maundy Thursday Guide

On Thursday we place ourselves with Jesus and his disciples during their final meal found in the gospel of John. The goal of this guide is to read and absorb these words. To place yourself within the scene.

• What are you noticing?

• How are you seeing Jesus? What is standing out to you?

• What is the Spirit saying?

If you’re reading with kids, read the chapter: “The Servant King”.

Jesus Washes Feet

With adults and older kids read John 13

In one of his final acts, Jesus takes the posture of a servant and washes his disciples’ feet. Those who would deny him and those who would betray him.

Jesus Teaches One Last Time

Read John 14:1-16:33

These words are sparked by Thomas’ question: “How can we know the way?”

As you read and listen, take in the scope and words of Jesus. This is the longest continuous words of Jesus in the Bible. After washing his disciples feet, he describes the way to truth and life, the promise of the Holy Spirit, abiding in Jesus, commands to love one another, and the reality of being a disciple in this world. He talks about grief and joy.

Jesus Prays

Read John 17

You can always learn a lot about a person by how they pray. You hear what they believe. You hear what they are concerned about. You hear their hopes for the future. Listen to Jesus praying over those disciples and even praying over you, too.

Respond

Pray and reflect on these tender and powerful things for the rest of your day and evening.