40 people, 40 days
Invoking the special nature of one of God's favorite numbers of days to get something accomplished.
The mission of this effort is to humble ourselves to God's will.
The challenge at hand:
We have grown from 18,500 people seen in 2002 to over 48,600 people seen in 2008.
From 2008 to 2009, we have seen 42% more people this year due to the global recession.
Many people go hungry every night in Denver, over 52% of our clients are children.
The opportunities:
Our 7,500 square foot building has been so full for the last three years that we stack supplies up the walls.
The ACS Thrift Store has grown from $33,000 to $54,000 in the last three years.
We have grown from 68 volunteers to well over 225 over the last 7 years.
The request:
Please pray the prayer of Jabez or your favorite
Please pray for up to one hour per day for 40 days.
Please Post your comments about your prayer experience here in this document.
Good Morning Prayer Warriors!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on taking this step in your spiritual journey!
Welcome to this group of Gideon's 300.
A good read for your hour with our Lord is Judges 7 - the story of Gideon and his large army that was too large. We, like Gideon need to make sure that all of the glory goes to God, it is not about what WE got accomplished.
Something you can pray about today is the ACS "Yesterdays Treasures" Thrift Store.
What would our Lord have us do with the futre plans for the store?
Blessings Prayer Warrior!
Michael
Sign in and post your comments for the rest of the group!
ReplyDeleteGood Morning Prayer Warrior!
ReplyDeleteLooks like a good thing to pray about today is that the Holp Spirit will help more of our brothers and sisters make it over to this blog to take a look and get some ideas and encouragement.
How is it going for you in your prayer journey? Please post a reply by clicking the Post Comment button.
A little research project for you;
compare and contrast the Prayer of Jabez with the Lords Prayer. Tell us all what you find!
Blessings to you and yours as you extend yourself for the future of ACS
Good Morning and welcome everyone!
ReplyDeleteWe welcome our new member Laurie Lobb and wish her Great blogging! Please feel free to post a comment as the Spirit moves you.
Please pray this morning for Jessica and I getting more involved in the Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved. We are going to their annual conference today and I woke up with the thought that I need to get her onto a committee or on the Board of CCMU. If the is His will, then the opportunity will present itself.
Also, we had a wonderful Benevon meeting last night. Planned all sorts of events: Next weeks Learn To LIFT's, Thursdays tour at 7 am, and Friday's tour at 1:00 pm. We all need opportunities and the thoughtfulness to invite our friends, neighbors, and relatives to learn more about ACS.
Blessings!
Michael
Good Morning Prayer Warriors!
ReplyDeleteI must admit, I took the weekend off. Even though I prayed, and prayed for ACS, I didn't actually spend an hour each day. That brings up a good point I believe. I think we are interested in intent, sincerity, thoughtfulness, actually caring, and persistence, not just following a rule for the sake of following a rule. "Up to and hour a day" includes praying for more, and less than an hour.
A place that your prayers have been answered is in clarity of thought. After we started praying, I found out that we really do have our new mobile medical van (that we need to buy) on the agenda for the Rocky Mountain Adventist Healthcare Foundation to decide if they want to help us raise money for it. It will cost upwards of $350,000, and to raise that kind of money, there needs to be a case statement. A case statement is a document that describes the past, present and future of the Medical Services Program. It talks about the plan we have for helping serve patients medical care in much the same way that Jesus did. It talks about the plan for carrying that out, and what would the van look like and do if we bought it. Your prayers led to the clarity of thought for several of us to sit down last week and start that document. It looks good so far!
Pray that if the Lord wants us to have a new CareVan, that the doors would be opened for that to happen, giving Glory to Him!
Blessings,
Michael
Good Morning my hearty little band of Prayer Warriors!
ReplyDeleteToday is Medical Services Day
Two or three of our volunteers are out this week with the H1N1 flu. Please pray for them to heal fast. Also, please focus on how we can be an even better medical ministry.
Last year we turned $87,000 into $2,8 Million in delivered medical services to people in the Denver area. This year we have $180,000 for our budget and we could us 10 times more than that. We have now proven that we can be trusted with a little bit, is it time for the Lord to bless us with more?
Our little clinic on First Avenue does triple duty as it is so small. We have created four other medical areas in the areas that normally look like a hall, a conference room, an interview room, and Chris's office looks like a warehouse. It is time to expand, but the Lord will have to help us grow.
Blessings,
Michael
Good Morning All,
ReplyDeleteLet's dig into the world of possibilities this time. This will help you to speak to the Lord of the options before us.
The physical building we occupy now at 1st and Sheridan is 7500 square feet big and was built specifically for us in 1978. Someone bought the land and donated it to ACS. A group of people then built the building to specifications. That effort needs to be acknowledged, and if you know anyone from that era, please let us know. We thank them for a job well done. This 31 year old building was appraised about 3 years ago and is worth about $350,000. Who knows if that is accurate now.
The building has been too small for at least 3 years, when we noticed that we had so much stuff flowing into and through there that we stack stuff many times all the way to the ceiling, in all of the rooms.
Given that, we can think of several options:
1. We COULD stay there and do nothing, it is an option.
2. We could try building a second story on top of the one we have.
3. We could look for an building close to us that makes sense for our needs.
4. We could get a new piece of land and build a building on it that would accommodate us.
More on #3: my favorite option is what Chattanooga ACS has done. Buy or lease or have donated to us an abandoned grocery store in a strip mall. We put our Yesterday's Treasures Thrift Store in there and let it make money so that we could buy the rest of the space in the strip mall. Each of our other services could be offered out of the spaces we occupy: Food bank, medical services, client interview offices, and the other things we offer currently. Then we could add new things like a garage for our volunteers to offer car care at reduced rates or free to clients, a healthy foods store, a Christian book store, and several other ideas that we have. Sounds like fun to me!
Portland ACS has found one building where they do most of that - another version of option #3.
We can't think of any more options, if you can, call me on my cell. 303-913-1585.
Please feel free to add your thoughts to this discussion, just post a comment!
Blessing to you and yours,
Michael
Good Afternoon fellow Prayer Warriors! I wanted to just write a quick blog about the things I have experienced to be answers to prayer. In the last three weeks God has brought to ACS Medical Services a doctor from Kaiser Permanente, a physician assistant, and a nurse practitioner! The Lord is truly answering the prayers of the faithful! I am so humbled to be a part of this ministry and to go out into the community with the support of our ACS Prayer Warriors. God is blessing us and leading us in the right direction. Thank you for your time spent in prayer. It is definitely making a difference in the ACS Medical Services. I can't wait for November 7th!
ReplyDeleteGood Morning Prayer Warriors
ReplyDeleteYesterday was a stellar day for ACS. Teri Walter, Jessica Dorval and I went to go see the President of the Senate for the State of Colorado Brandon Shaffer. We talked about the future of ACS Community LIFT to him as well as many other topics. He was very cordial and open to our suggestions. If you have any ideas that you think that we ought to talk to our legislators about, please give me a call to talk about it.
I am very curious about your experiences speaking to our Lord in Prayer so far. Please post your comments here!
Michael
Hello All
ReplyDeleteOur 40 days are up. Our First 40 days are up.
There are many things that happened this last 40 days, many people have been drawn to the Lord's missionfield in Denver these last 40 days. Only one thing was decided, many possibilities have been created and spoken of.
The only thing decided by a small band of believers this last week is that another 40 days of prayer is required. More purification, more supplication, more thought, more ideas, more engagement, more honor, more prayer.
Isaiah 58 verses 6 and on:
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke: Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: here am I. ...you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls."
We are Repairers of Broken Walls, and broken people, and relationships, and people's health, and their disaster torn lives. We seek to be the people Isaiah was speaking about.
We are doing God's will in Denver, we choose to seek this honorable path. In this honor comes a high relationship with our Creator.
By honoring the Lord in such a manner, He will honor us with an enlarged territory of ministry. We do none of this for ourselves, we seek only to give glory to God.
The next 40 days will prove very fruitful:
and EXCITING!
Join our Band of Brothers and Sisters!
Add your voice, your thoughts, your spiritual journey to ours.
Michael
Update on the topic of Senator Brandon Shaffer, his staffer called this week and said that the Senator was interested in seeing the CareVan in Action this next Tuesday evening. If you would like to be a part of the action, this is how. 16th and Marion, Tuesday evening, 7 pm. See you there.
ReplyDelete