Do you need prayer?

Do you feel unheard and unknown?

Being heard is a basic human need. When you know you have been heard, you feel known. When that need is not met, it can lead to frustration, isolation, and despair. Thankfully you have a Heavenly Father who is always listening to you. When you know you have been heard, it leads to relief, community, and hope.

God hears you through prayer. God listens to you because He thinks that what you have to say is important. At New City, you will grow in the faith and confidence that your prayers are heard and valued.
God not only hears your prayers but acts on them as well. Prayer is powerful and God uses your prayers to create change in the world. At New City, prayer is a legitimate way for you to make the world a better place.

God desires a real relationship with you. The best way to maintain a relationship is through open and honest communication. Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, you can boldly approach God as a child approaches a parent.

Your prayers, no matter how trivial or serious, are heard by your heavenly Father. Come to New City Church, where you can be heard and known.

Do you feel like no one has time to listen to you?

Have you ever started opening up to someone you thought was safe, and then watch as their mind wanders from your conversation while their face feigns interest? You slowly trail off, and it takes the person a second to notice you have stopped talking. They smile at you and say something like, “Ok, I’ll be praying for that. See you next week.” As they walk away, you know that not a single prayer on your behalf will be uttered. An experience like that can be disheartening, and you might begin to hesitate to share your troubles with others within or without your church community.

At New City Church, you will always have an opportunity to make your requests known. Even if you cannot tell someone directly, you can always write your request down and pin it to our prayer board. Every prayer you place on the board will be prayed over every week by New City’s pastors and members.
No matter how trivial or small your requests are, you will be heard and known at New City Church.

Have you seen the power of prayer in your life?

Have you ever heard people say things like, “God really showed up for me,” or “I really felt God’s presence,” or “God gave me so much peace the other day,” and then you think, “I have never experienced that,” or “Are they crazy,”? You are not alone, but as crazy or cliche as it can sound God really does and can show up for you.

If you want to explore more of the life and relationship that God has for you, come to New City on Thursday mornings, 10am-noon. There is special prayer service led by the Pastors Adam and Matt. It is set up specifically for you to experience the presence and power of God.

Do you ever feel like you don’t know what to pray?

Prayer can feel like a daunting task. You can get caught up in thinking that you have to say the right words, feel the right feelings, or actually be a good person. You begin to think that you always have to have someone else pray for you, and then you slowly stop asking people to pray for you because now you feel like you are bothering everyone. And then you stop praying altogether.

Prayer is not that complicated. God wants to have a real relationship with you. He doesn’t care if you have the right lines, feelings, or behaviors. He just wants you to talk to him. Having others pray for you and having some “go to” prayers are not wrong, but know that they are not a necessary requirement to approaching God. The only requirement was the sacrifice of his son, Jesus.

Now if you do need or want others to pray for you, come to New City Church and we will pray for you and strengthen your own personal relationship with God. Also if you do need help starting or rebooting your own personal prayer life, then check out some of our favorite prayers. Remember that God wants a personal relationship with you, so feel free to change the prayers up so that they feel natural coming from you.

Are there different ways that I can pray?

Have you ever known someone that always says or talks about the same thing every time you are with them? After awhile, you may tune them out or even start to avoid them. At the bare minimum, you know that you are not going to have a deep relationship with that person.

Now think about your friends or significant other. You can talk to them about anything and everything. You do different things with them, have fun new experiences. When you do those things you feel closer to them.
Well God wants to feel closer to you. While his patience is vastly greater than ours, how deep of a relationship is he going to have with you when every time you talk to him you repeat the same thing you said last time? There are as many different forms of prayer as there are forms of conversation. We will list a few below with links to example prayers to help you bring variety into your relationship with God.

Prayers of Praise and Thanksgiving

When’s the last time someone thanked you or told you that you are awesome? How did it feel? Did your feelings toward that person change?

Now let’s reverse roles. When’s the last time you thanked someone or told them that they are awesome? How did it feel? Did your levels of appreciation for that person increase?

When you thank God in prayer, you switch from focusing on the negative to lifting up the positive things in your life. You stop asking the question, “Why is there so much bad in the world?” and begin to engage the question, “How is there anything good happening in my life?” As you thank God, you realize that there are a lot of things in your life that operate outside of you control. If it wasn’t for God’s constant grace, there would be nothing good happening. Your appreciation for God increases the more you recognize the good he bring into your life, and your feelings of value increase when you realize that God wants to give good things to you.

Prayers for Protection and Blessing

Do you ever feel out of control, scared, or unlucky? Do you find yourself struggling to keep everything from falling apart? Do you chronically worry about things you know are outside of your control? Do you feel like there is a force working against you? You are not alone. All these feelings and thoughts are completely natural in a broken world. Fortunately, there is a God who loves you and wants to help. All you have to do is ask.

God wants to help you, but he also isn’t going to force his help on you. Have you ever tried to help someone who doesn’t want your help even though they clearly need it? It doesn’t work. They will get angry at you and you will resent them. God doesn’t want to resent you, so he will patiently wait until he is asked to help.

Since you are broken, the world you live in is broken, and you have an enemy who is actively trying to harm you and the world you live in, your need for help is a daily one. The good news is that God wants to help you everyday with everything. When you feel out of control, God has peace. When you feel scared, God has courage. When you feel unlucky, God has blessing.

Prayers for Forgiveness and Confession

Has someone wronged you in way that you felt you would be unable to recover what they stole from you? Everytime you think about them you spend way more time than you would like to admit engaged in fantasy arguments, or you complain about them out loud to the nearest person. You begin to avoid the places they regularly attend and halt activities that reminds you of them. After awhile you feel trapped and that you have lost way more than can ever be recovered. This is where God’s amazing gift of forgiveness steps onto the scene.

Often times forgiveness is portrayed as a dismissal of the pain that you have felt. What happened to you wasn’t a big deal, and you should have gotten over it. Why can’t you forgive them already, so things aren’t awkward for everyone else?
That isn’t forgiveness. That’s denial.

You were hurt.
It was a big deal.
Something was stolen from you.

Forgiveness is truthfully acknowledging those facts, but instead of trying to steal back what was stolen from you or waiting around for the person to give it back, you do something ridiculous. You cancel their debt. You recognize what they took from you was valuable, but you don’t need them to pay it back. You don’t need to live in fear that they will continue to steal from you, and you will never have enough for yourself or those you love. Why? Because everything you need and more you can receive freely from Jesus.
Every time someone hurts you, mourn the loss and cry out to Jesus to replace what was stolen. He will hear you. Forgiveness allows you to live in freedom instead of fear.

Confession is a similar gift to forgiveness. When you have stolen something from someone else and realize you are hopelessly incapable of paying it back, you can cry out to Jesus to cancel your debt and repay what you have stolen. Jesus paid for all your debts and the debts of everyone else on the cross. He is ready and willing to give you everything you need and more. Come to New City Church on Sunday mornings to participate in confession and receive audible absolution from a pastor.

You are important.

Allow others to get know your story and allow your story to be known by God. God is writing a bigger story with the church. A story that is about saving the world.

Your Home is Important

Also if you ever feel out of control, scared, or unlucky in your own home, you can ask Pastors Adam and Matt to pray over and bless your home. One of your jobs as a human being is to care for the parts of creation that God has given to you that includes your home.

Your home gets dirty. Dirt is tracked in from outside, food spills, dust builds up, insects find their way inside. Your home also gets dirty spiritually. Frustration is tracked in from work, arguments break out, resentment builds up, and the enemy finds a way inside. It’s nothing to get worried about. It just requires some cleaning. The main cleaning tool is prayer and it can be as easy as vacuuming a dirty carpet. But if something hasn’t been cleaned for awhile or something major happens like pipe bursting or an appliance breaking, you might need to call in an expert. Adam and Matt are your spiritual experts. They have prayed through and blessed over twenty locations. Send an email to schedule a time for them to pray through your home.

Your Family is Important

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