So What Now?

So I'm back, safe and sound, in Chicago. To welcome me home is a pile of homework, and as I write this I am in a coffee shop trying to make some headway into a book and some writing. The lengthy to-do list lets me know that I am back, but not for long.

Exactly 8 weeks from today, Josiah, Lauren and I will arrive in the Manchester airport ready to start our internships and serve Formby Baptist Church in a greater capacity at a greater length. It's going to be an incredible summer, and I am looking forward to it with great anticipation.

But the question becomes: so, what now?

These next eight weeks are going to be spent in a lot of prayerful preparation for service this summer. I have to plan sermons and Bible studies, organize Holiday Club information, plan youth ministry programming and direction, and so much more. In short, these next eight weeks will not find me idle in preparing for this trip.

I said earlier that the next eight weeks will be spent in prayerful preparation. Over these last two weeks I realized how my prayer life can and does affect ministry in a profound way, and so I want to spend a lot of time in focused prayer for direction and instruction.

I don't want to cross the pond again and see it go awry because I was not attuned to the Spirit's leading, and so prayer is the key objective for the next eight weeks. So, what now? Prayer, and lots of it.

Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored...

---2 Thessalonians 3:1