An Early Morning Prayer For imagine/Northampton.

"Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; establish the work of our hands." Psalm 90:17

Father,

You alone are the Lord of imagine/Northampton. You are its headwaters and its endpoint. You are its Source, Life and Purpose. Without you it is vacant of meaning. Without you it is impotent. Without you it merely is.

Let your gracious favor be upon us as we do the missional work of imagine/Northampton. Establish the work of our hands that we might see your Glory in the land of the really living.

Let us make a revolutionary difference in this small, historic, rebellious, wild hair of a New England city.

Let your redemptively subversive grace flood these streets.

Bring stunningly gifted people, young and old, to carry the work forward in creative and genuinely innovative ways. Yes, bring the Kingdom-intoxicated innovators whose spirits are full of love for you and for the people of this place.

Send the Kingdom dreamers who have "bet the ranch" on your magnificent vision for Northampton and the world, and will not turn back until it is realized by your gracious Hand.

Open the resplendent storehouses of heaven so we have all we need to settle a church of full-life and freedom, hope and healing/transforming love.

Establish our work of washing darkness with the light of truth.

Establish our work of creating music, art, dance, crafting, writing and film which show forth your majesty, setting wonder into place and opening a home for who dare to see and make what is not yet.

Bring your families and establish us as an estuary of disciple-making so young and old learn the joyous dignity of following Jesus with yielded hearts.

Send your poor, enchained, and abused; make us able to free them into hope and the simple grace of fruitfulness.

Bring your lion-hearted wondermakers who settle for nothing less than your Kingdom being now on earth as it is lived today in heaven, even if just a little bit - that will be more than enough.

LORD, establish the work of our small, weak hands and make them instruments of the truth that sets captives free and the creative love that overpowers hatred and deadening indifference.

Turn your beautiful face toward us today and smile like the sun warming the earth on a new morning, making all things alive with an abundance which cannot be stifled.

Soli Deo Gloria!