Starting August 8th and going through the beginning of September at High Peak have been emphasizing prayer on our 30 Days of Prayer campaign. The goal is to help people be more focused in their prayer life for our church, but also for your personal needs and areas of influence. Here is last weeks message about Praying People in case you missed it. Come next Sunday as we continue for two more Sundays mornings.

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If you haven’t been to our Sunday Night services we are in the middle of a 6 week DVD study called When God’s People Pray with some very inspirational teaching and testimonies from Jim Cymbala and the his church The Brooklyn Tabernacle. Be sure to come and be inspired.

Please pray for our mission team as they travel to Madison Wisconsin. We will be working at Midvale Baptist Church doing a soccer camp, some construction and also working with another church in the area doing more construction.

We leave at 8:00 am on July 17 and travel first to Cincinnati, OH. The next day we will be in Madison by the end of the day. We will work in the mornings at the camp, sharing Christ. Then in the afternoons we will do light construction work.

On Friday we will return to Cincinnati and to North Carolina on Saturday, July 24th. Come Sunday July 25th to hear about the trip that Sunday night at 6:00 pm.

Baptist Global Response is raising funds for disaster relief in Haiti. All Southern Baptist relief is being organized by Florida Baptist who have an ongoing ministry in Haiti to help the people there. If you want to help click the link or the picture which will take you directly to the donation page.

Pray for Burke County is a new web site focused on praying for Burke County, NC.  The site is kicking things off by supporting the Prayer for the Cities event on November 21, 2009 at Freedom High School Stadium from 5 till 7 PM.

Last night our deacons met and discussed and finally approved the official formation of a Prayer Room.  They decided that the current library is in fact the best place for it for the following reasons.

• It is close the sanctuary and would be easy for people to stop off and pray before service or during service
• If someone makes a decision during the service it would be easy to get to for counseling and further prayer
• If someone is praying at the altar and needs extended time of prayer, then a friend or family member or just another concerned member could come forward and ask that person if they would like to go to the prayer room to pray together.

There may be other good reasons.  Previously that room was serving as our library with a lot of very good (and sadly some very outdated) resources.  I am thankful to those who have been working hard to make the library a useful tool.  Sadly, few were actually using it.  So, I asked that the books be moved.  It was suggested that we move them to various locations in the church.  That is what is being done with help from our youth.

At the top of the stairs going down to our basement, there is a bookshelf where some of the best and newest books will be placed.  Stop and look. If you find something of value, then check it out and read it and please return it.  In the children’s area we will be putting children’s books.  Videos will also be distributed based on their content.  We ask that you use the resources and return them.  Many people gave them to our church in memory or honor of someone special. Not using them would be sad.  Not returning them after use would also be very sad.

Once the prayer room is up and running, we will explain some of the great things that it will contain.  Until then, just pray that God will use both our new prayer room and the books from our old library to help grow the people of High Peak!

Knowing that so many people in the U.S. are suffering from the economic downturn, and thus are challenged in ways that they never anticipated, I have felt a bit uncomfortable lately in asking for increased prayers for the peoples of East Asia. Yet the reality of lost humanity on a staggering scale continues. Without hearing of the Father’s love, one billion people of East Asia will one day depart this earth headed for an eternity of separation from the very God who created them and loved them enough to give His own Son to save them!

That is how a blog post begins about the people of East Asia, where our chosen people group the Miao of China live.  We have so much to be thankful despite our economic downturn.  But the greatest is Jesus.  We take for granted that we learned about him growing up, most of us in the Bible Belt.

Young Miao Chinese make crafts like the ones you see in the picture

Remember to pray for the Miao people of China.  Pray …

• That God will send someone to be a witness to them.
• That God will find a way for the Gospel to reach them via electronic means if possible
• That God will be rising up a missionary for them right now.