Day #3 Prayer Update

THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST

"in the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people..." - Acts 2:17

Tonight at the Parkcrest Campus we prayed that God would pour out His Spirit upon all people. Parkcrest will also be hosting our Pentecost gathering at their other campus and it was great to have Pastor Roger join us tonight.

We are beginning to ask the Lord in our times of prayer how we are to continue lifting up our city in prayer in the days ahead. Should there be more gatherings? How might the various prayer networks around the city share insights and requests? What role does the local Church leadership play in serving this city-wide prayer covering? How do we connect this prayer covering with the other Kingdom activities that occur (or soon will be!) around the city? We are asking the Lord for direction on this in the days ahead. If you are praying on your own and are getting a similar sense that this needs to happen and/or have been given a thought please let us know!

All hands on deck!!

I brought my two daughters out to pray last night. As one of my good friends always says... "When kids decide to follow Christ they don't simply get a junior Holy Spirit and a Jesus action figure" (hat tip: Neil Cole). They are full fledged followers. All hands on deck when it comes to praying for our city! My daughters pray for the city often and I am excited to have them be a part of the 10:1:90. They were encouraged to see that others pray for the city too, some of them "louder than others" :) Younger followers of Jesus are welcome to join us in any of our prayer times. We had a good contingent of the young ones present last night!

Day #2 of Prayer

"these all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer..." (Acts 1:14)

UNITED PRAYER

Today we prayed for every local church in the city BY NAME. Kingdom causes is working to have an updated list of local church bodies and we printed out that list and passed it around to the handfuls of people that came. What an incredible time of prayer it was.

We prayed for the local church leadership, the spiritual family that gathers there, the various generations of people the together there and their combined efforts in loving the city with the Love of Christ. We prayed that the Spirit would stir their hearts individually and collectively and make them people of prayer!

Quick shout out to the Long Beach Christian Fellowship Prayer team that joined us. They gather regularly on Friday mornings to pray. They left at 7:00 and headed out to pray for another hour. You go ladies!!

We are sensing already that one of the outcomes of this 10:1:90 effort is to identify the places around the city that Christians are gathering regularly for prayer. We'll see how the Lord leads here in the days ahead. Any others know of some!?

Two more local community organizations are on board for Pentecost Sunday

Today we heard from both Christian Outreach in Action and the Womens Shelter of Long Beach (Shelter and outreach program for victims of domestic violence and their children) about wanting to be there next Sunday. Stop by their tables to learn more about what they do and how you might get involved!

Day #1 of Prayer

"THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST"

The prayer has begun. 4 of us from different local churches gathered this morning from 6-7 am to seek the Kingdom on behalf of our city. For one solid hour we worshiped and prayed. Great time with the Lord! Much was accomplished in our time together! We rejoice knowing that we are part of an expanding and increasing effort in seeking the welfare of our city...by intently praying for it! We are hoping to establish a rhythm of prayer over the next 10 days leading up to Pentecost Sunday. It has begun...

In the evening Hilltop Park gave us an incredible view of a large section of our city! We worshiped, we prayed, we danced and we proclaimed publically that Jesus Christ is worthy of our praise! Following the designated prayer points for the day we prayed that hearts would blaze with love and loyalty to Christ the King and Lord of all. We also prayed for breakthrough of hope and blessing in the parts of our city that needed it. Lord bring lasting transformation throughout this entire community!!

Prayer Sites for 10 days of focused prayer

10 Days of Prayer (May 25th – June 3rd)

Download Daily Prayer points: visit www.kingdomcauses.org

Morning gatherings: daily from 6:00 am – 7:00 am

Kingdom Causes’ Office
1965 E. 21st Street, Signal Hill, CA 90755
(grey building on the NW corner of 21st Street/Cherry)

Evening gatherings: daily from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Thursday (25th): Hilltop Park (2351 Dawson, Signal Hill, CA 90755)

Friday (26th): Hilltop Park (2351 Dawson, Signal Hill, CA 90755)

Saturday (27th): Parkcrest Christian Church
(3936 Woodruff Ave, Long Beach, CA 90808)

Sunday (28th): Light & Life Christian Fellowship (North)
(5951 Downey Ave, Long Beach, CA 90805)

Monday (29th): Victory Outreach (11 W. Plymouth, Long Beach, CA 90805)

Tuesday (30th): Long Beach Christian Fellowship
(3210 Airport Way, Long Beach, CA 90806)

Wednesday (31st): Long Beach Community Worship Center
(1309 E 3rd Street, Long Beach, CA 90802)

Thursday (1st): Glad Tidings Tabernacle
(1900 E. South Street, Long Beach, CA 90805)

Friday (2nd): Covenant Presbyterian Church
(607 E. Third St, Long Beach, CA 90802)

Saturday (3rd): All Saints’ Anglican Church
(346 Termino Ave, Long Beach, CA 90814)

Did you know?

When you compare Long Beach to the 70 largest cities in the United States Long Beach is...

6th nationally in overall poverty (26.4% of all residents)
6th in households paying 30% or more of income on rent and utilities
3rd in children under 18 living in poverty (45.2%)
2nd in persons living in overcrowded or severely-overcrowded conditions (15.1%)

Lord, have mercy! Church, should this be?

*(source: recently released by the American Community Survey (ACS))

Grass Roots Mobilizing for 10:1:90

We are sending out the following email this morning to help spread the word. If you read this would you consider passing along the information!?

Momentum is building! The word is getting around! People are responding! Together we will “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city…praying to the Lord for it…” (Jeremiah 29:7).

Prayerfully consider being a part of this 10:1:90 effort! Think of 3-4 (or more!) other people that you know should pray/serve along side of you! Help us get the word out in the next few days about this grass-roots mobilizing effort for prayer/service!

10 Days of Prayer (May 25th – June 3rd)
The daily prayer guides are available for download at our website! We have also almost identified all of our nightly prayer gathering opportunities. Parkcrest Church, Light & Life Christian Fellowship (North), Victory Outreach, Long Beach Christian Fellowship, Long Beach Community Worship Center, Covenant Presbyterian, and All Saints’ Anglican have all caught the vision for city-wide prayer/service and are on board. Two more local church sites yet to go and we will be all set!

1 Day of Gathering for Prayer on Pentecost Sunday (June 4th)
This gathering will be the culmination of 10 days of focused prayer for our cities and we are believing that God has something special in store for us as we come before Him together asking for “His Kingdom to Come and His will to be done” in our lives, our families, the Church and in our cities! We will be gathering at Parkcrest’s Lakewood Campus on that Sunday from 6:15 – 7:45 pm.

90 Days of Serving our City (June 5th – Sept 2nd)
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you!” – Jesus (John 20:21) A call has been extended by none other than the Lord himself for us to go! It is for the sake of this call that we are seeking to unleash the Church upon our city this summer in the 10:1:90 effort. Over these 90 days of service may we be known in our city as having the Lord’s same passion, love and commitment to our neighbors that He does! We want to encourage you, your family, your small group or your church family to go!
All of the specific details are in the following attachments. Feel free to tailor the information as needed for your context. If you know anyone who might be interested in being a part of this pass on the information or have them get in contact with us!

Visit our web site at www.kingdomcauses.org for more information

Pressing On~

Brad Fieldhouse
brad@kingdomcauses.org
562-208-0500

Jim Schorr
jims@kindomcauses.org
562-256-6870

National Day of Prayer

It is great to be apart of a community of believers who want to make Jesus famous in our city. At 12 pm on May 4th (the national day of prayer) over 120 people gathered at city hall to pray for our nation, state and city. There were 11 leaders from different ministries in the city, that took a leadership role in

1:Praising God for who he is and thanking Him for His abundant blessing on us everyday, ---- Pastor Keith Wells – Bethany Church, Pastor Tony Perez – Worship Center in Long Beach, and Pastor Brandon Piliavar – Calvary Chapel North L.B.

2: Asking for forgiveness and mercy on behalf of the church and the nation, where we have violated Gods laws by our actions, thought and words – led by Pastor Tom Fenholt -- Calvary Chapel The Shore and Pastor Tom McNaughton – Signal Hill Christian Center

3: Praying for our national needs; leadership, wisdom, President Bush, Senate and House, Justice Department and for our service men and women around the world that are in harms way for protection and safe return home led by Pastor Randy Carter – Friends House at Drake Park, Pastor Jerry Reub -- Cornerstone Church, and Pastor Gregory Johnson – Westside Baptist Church.

4: Praying for the City of Long Beach the election, Mayor, City Council, Police, Firefighters, Teachers, Businesses, Poor and Homeless, Students and God visitation once again to the churches led by Pastor Bob Mabry – Hope Community Church and Pastor Greg Rhodes – Bethany Church.

My sincere thanks to all the pastors who came our to pray and to Jana Shields who got the whole thing together. It is my privilege to serve in this city with such a group of believers.

Great time this morning!

We had 15 people at our ministry facilities forum this morning. This diverse group represented church leaders who have been working in the city here for more than a decade all the way to one person who is praying about planting a church here in the city. All of these leaders in one way or another are wrestling with facility space issues.

Harold Richardson, a retired local business owner (and the father of Doug Richardson who is the pator of Long Beach Christian Fellowship), gave us a first hand account of someone who has worked with the city to identify and secure ministry facility space locally. Great stuff! He painted a realistic picture of the potential challenges that anyone might face along these lines.

Two quick take-aways for me: 1) One really does need to do their homework (local community by-in, functionality of the site, etc...) before bringing your Conditional Use Permit (CUP) Application before the Planning Commission and 2) as a collective Church here in the city we need to make sure that we are approaching the process, as challenging and frustrating as it might be at times, with the upmost integrity (not trying to skirt the CUP system, not flying under the radar, etc...). There is a lot at stake here in terms of credibility and we need to have a clean conscience if we are going to fight for this and/or any other justice issue in our cities. The other reality is that it only makes life more difficult for those that come behind us if we don't.

If you want any more of the brainstorm details check under the "Forums" link.

And, oh yeah, thanks Harold!!

Identifying Local Ministry Facilities Forum

This Wednesday Kingdom Causes will be hosting a forum on "Identifying Local Ministry Facilities" for any local church leader here in the greater Long Beach/Lakewood area. This can be a challenge no matter if you are a new church planter or have been ministering here for years! We have heard many of you talking about this issue lately and we want to serve you by helping get many of your questions answered that no doubt come to mind with this issue.

We are inviting a special guest, Harold Richardson, to come and share with us out of his years of expertise in working with the city in this regard as a local pastor. He has REALLY DONE HIS HOMEWORK on this issue and will be giving us a first hand account of the process of working with the city, the numerous challenges that we face locally and even suggest how you (we) might proceed from here. We will end the time by brainstorming about what next steps there might be to help you proceed from here.

When: Wednesday, March 8th
Time: 7:30 AM (sharp) - 9:00 AM
Where: Bixby Café & Pizza (3900 Atlantic Ave, Long Beach, CA 90807)(Atlantic Blvd just South of Carson. Across from Washington Mutual)
Cost: Free other than the cost of your own breakfast The Bixby Café is providing us with a separate back room free of charge but will be providing staff to take our breakfast orders.

In order to attend this forum you will need to RSVP!! Please contact Judy Wilson at jwilson@lbcf.org or at 562-989-6000 before Noon on Tuesday, March 7th if you plan on attending. If you get this message after this deadline give me a call. We will make it work!

Praying for Citylights Community Church

Another incredible morning discovering how God is mobilizing His people locally. This morning we were hosted by Pastors Thien Doan and Tom Demorest for our local monthly church leaders prayer gathering. These two brothers are the leaders of Citylights Community Church. What an exciting time of story telling and prayer! This church is yet another one of the Church PLants that has recently come into the city. They shared about how God drew them here and how there are navigating some of the challenges that face ministries in a complex and diverse urban center such as this. They were extremely encouraged by having other leaders from around the region come and pray for them. The rest of us were encouraged by their faith and their passion for the city that we also love dearly.

One of the exciting aspects of their story was how they are partnering with Parkcrest Church which is letting use their facilities on 7th and Obispo. They currently have their offices there and have just begun a program called Kids Stuff for the local kids in the neighborhood. What a great example this is of churches in the city not caring about their "own territory" but rather creatively seeking out ways for Kingdom resources such as these buildings to be maximized for the greatest Kingdom impact.

They specifically asked for prayer in the following areas:

1. For their Kids Stuff program
2. Word to spread throughout the neighborhood about this safe place for kids to come and play
3. Their Sunday evening church gathering at the Blue Nile coffee shop in the East Village Arts District.
4. Team dynamics with their core team - a few people doing a lot of work
5. More strategic partnerships across the city
6. Financial advancement for their ministry
7. Clear sense of direction and organizational development as they move forward

Next month we are heading over to West side Long Beach to see and hear how God is at work there as well. Email me if you are a local church leader and are interested in joining us!

Dinner for LB Pastors & Spouses

Last night we hosted an evening of blessing, connection, dinner, and entertainment for pastors and their spouses of the Greater Long Beach area. Enjoying a wonderful dinner at Khoury's Restaurant, pastors and ministry leaders representing 40 distinct churches and organizations had an opportunity to meet and/or reconnect with each other while being entertained by a very funny comedian named Thor Ramsey from Outreach Comedy. Six professional counseling ministries helped to sponsor the dinner and collectively made a commitment to support the marriages and families of these pastors.

Click Here to View The Photo Galleries

Kingdom Causes would like to thank the following 27 businesses, organizations, and individuals who partnered with us as sponsors and contributors for the dinner:

A McNabb Design
Aquarium of the Pacific
Bianca's Divine Costumes
B.J.'s Restaurant & Brewery
Break Thru Ministries
Center for Individual & Family Therapy
David Zabalaoui
El Torito
Family Outreach Counseling
Foursquare, LA South Coast District
Futas Design Group, Inc.
Hiatt & Peek
Hyatt Regency Long Beach
Islands
Khoury's Restaurant
Kingdom Causes
Lighthouse Christian Stores
Mark Giraud
Michele Jarosh
New Hope Grief Support
Olive Garden
Outback Steakhouse
Outreach Comedy
Pathos Christ Centered Counseling
P.F. Changs
Promo Direct
Restored Hope

"Seeking the Welfare of the City"

4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."

I am presently in Iowa sitting at a BILD conference hanging out with some friends and potential benefactors of our work here in Long Beach and they just read one of my favorite passages. Jeremiah 29:4-7. How does this passage speak into how we should live our lives in Long Beach in our day? What does this look like? How could you pattern your daily life so that you are actively seeking the welfare/prosperity of our city?

Metro Kids Ministry

My son and I went down today to see firsthand a ministry that I have been hearing about for over a year now. I first heard about this ministry from numerous people that working together in the mutiple church task forces in North Long Beach. The large converted van in the picture with the drop down side and the p/a system is the home base for a mobile ministry that reaches out to kids with the Love of Christ. You can find Calvin and Sarah Tatupu regularly stopping at places where kids like to hang out. Today they happened to be at the Carmelitos Housing Projects here in North Long Beach. What a joy it was to seeing these kids listening intently to the word for the day about King David. The message: "say NO to temptation".

If you would like to learn more about this outreach ministry you can view their web site at www.metrokidz.org. They currently do this ministry full time are always looking for weekly sites, special events, and other creative ways that the can use this ministry to serve the youth in the area. Feel free to email them at sidebyside2004@yahoo.com for further information.

Eric at the Long Beach Leadership Prayer Breakfast

38 people decided to trust and follow Christ this morning! I always have had mixed feelings about these breakfasts that are patterned after the presidential prayer breakfast but I can honestly say 'What a great prayer breakfast this year!'. In spite of some technical difficulties there was definitely a sense that God wanted to stir many of the hundreds of hearts in the roon this morning. The guest speaker today was Ken Blanchard (Author of The One Minute Manager) and he really did an excellent job sharing his personal testimony and also about how he has come to believe that Jesus is the ultimate model of leadership.

Also, well done Eric. This year Eric got the opportunity to read the NT passage at the breakfast. Here he is eating his luke warm eggs and bacon before the program started. He was there today representing DeVry University as their Fall 2004 Valedictorian. He is in the background there at the table with the white shirt. Nice tie!

Church being mobilized in Torrance

Eric, Mary and myself joined our Torrance Catalyst, Evan Chase, at his home church for the initiation of a couple task forces for that city. One of the joys or our calling is to travel to neighboring cities to see how God is moving there. There was about 60 people who stayed after the morning services to hear about how God is mobilizing the entire Church there (as individuals and and as a collective body) and how they are a strategic part of it. There was definitely a buzz in the room as God's people really began to sense how they could further take responsibility for their city. It was so exciting that us "city outsiders" almost joined one of the teams ourselves! Keep up the great work Evan as you lovingly serve the Church of Torrance and beyond.

North Long Beach asking for a "healing of their land"!

It was great to see many people from a number of local ministries come out to Houghton Park to lift up the Name of Jesus in North Long Beach. I forgot to count but there must have been around at least 50 people there. One of our stated goals for the day was to spend more time talking to Jesus than to each other. I know that may not sound like a revolutionary concept for a "prayer gathering" but many times gatherings like this aren't actually as much about prayer. I was encouraged to see various sized groups walking around the park talking to King Jesus asking Him to "heal our land". Thanks to all of you who helped out behind the scenes and/or took a lead role in making this time happen. God's desire, as both you and I know, is to "hear from on high" the prayers of His people when they intercede on behalf of their neighborhoods like we did and continue to do. Lord, may your will be done in North Long Beach as it is in heaven!

Hope to see many of you out tonight at our Community Mobilization Meeting at Glad Tidings from 6:45 to 8:30 PM. Tonight we will be breaking out the Strategic Planning Process and will be laying the groundwork for some action plans for the next year.

Our Golf Marathon was a success!

I know EXACTLY how that guy feels! I too spent much of my day wandering around looking for my golf balls!

I did it though! I actually played 100 holes of golf in one day. I shot a 25 under par. Not bad for a 4x per year golfer/hacker! Here is how I did it. We all teed off at 8:00 am. It couldn’t have been a nicer day. We were the only ones on the course so we had the run of a top notch golf course. We each played 5 balls off of each tee. We would then round up our four terrible shots (actually, we only rounded up the ones that weren’t in someone’s backyard, under 10 feet of green water or left resting somewhere in the “I’m sure I saw it land over here somewhere” parts of the course) and then hit 5 shots again from where our best shot was lying. For you golfers, this would be known as a ‘personal best-ball scramble’. At the end of each hole we would count our shots as if we had just played that hole 5 times.  5 balls x 20 holes (plus 8 band-aids, 3 granola bars, a nice box lunch, 30+ lost golf balls, 3 bananas, gallons of water and juice, and a week long recovery from sore muscles) = 100 holes of golf in a day! Simple as that! For the record, my mother-in-law says that this was cheating! Technically, however, I did hit 100 tee shots, 100+ approach shots and 100+ puts.

What a blast! What a great way to spend a day. What a great way to raise some money for a worthy cause. We were able to raise just over $40 thousand dollars to support our work across the LA Basin. Thanks to all of you who helped to make that happen! We are deeply appreciative! All of us as Kingdom Causes Catalysts are dependant on raising monthly financial support for our work so the investment on your part will go a long way! It was such a success that we plan on doing it again next year and would love to have you join us out on the links!

Busy day of planning for the North Long Beach Charet

Tommorow night is our North Long Beach Community Forum. We are polishing up many of the last minute details today. We are hoping to have another gathering with a diversity of local ministires there. In addition to helping to mobilize God's people there we are also looking to learn from this Charet (strategic conversation) and see if this might not be a model that can be reproduced in other areas.

The purpose of this meeting is to find ways to identify, celebrate and even initiate signs of Hope and Life in the community. The meeting will be held in their social hall from 7:00-8:30 PM. Doors open at 6:30 and light refreshments will be served. Childcare will also be provided. All are welcome!