Remember those stirring words from Martin Luther King Jr? They bring back powerful memories of a time when someone dreamed of something better than what the present was offering but maybe moreso of a dream to change the lot of a whole group of people and a nation.

I’m not sure when it happened or how but I know sometime within my first two years here I began to take note of the housing booms that were happening south of Navan and in Rockland. It seemed that each time I drove by those areas more than idle curiosity was growing; I was feeling an incredible burden for the families who would be filling those homes, mostly without a church in their neighborhood to serve them. As I began to pray about it I shared the burden with a few others and eventually the elders, the idea of planting a church in these areas made sense.
As time has gone on and we have explored the possibilities one door after another seems to have opened for us to go and begin working in Rockland, to the extant that in the May we received approval from the New Church Development Fund and our Presbytery for two grants towards the work totaling just over $70,000.00 over the next four years. As we received word of the grants coming through we also received word that the space we had been looking at and praying about became available as well.
I am more than a little stunned thinking about all of this. God has gone before us and as we have explored His will the outreach to Rockland continues gain momentum.
Bobbye Byerly, in the book Miracles Happen When Women Pray (Regal, 2002) tells the following story:
I remember the first time my older son Jim and I worked as counselors with the Billy Graham Crusade. It was at Shea Stadium in New York. The airplanes from La Guardia Airport flew over the stadium, dozens by the hour.
    On the opening night of training, the Reverend Billy Graham started talking with us from the podium as the engines roared overhead. He paused, glanced up and quietly said, "We'll have to do something about this noise. This just won't do." He bowed his head and said a simple prayer to the effect: "Lord, we ask you to shift the wind and send these planes in another direction. Thank You. Amen."
    Well, we were believers, but this was a tall order. We weren't sure what, if anything, to expect. But God did it. He answered our prayers in a wondrous way! The morning newspaper reported that the winds had changed during the night, and the airplanes over Shea Stadium had to be routed another way. For several days thereafter, thousands of people came to Christ under this anointed leader's preaching. At the conclusion of the crusade, the winds reverted to their normal flow, and the airplanes returned to their normal flight patterns.
    If God can manipulate flight patterns I believe He can do everything needed to put a church a new community, but it is a little scary taking the steps of faith to follow Him.
    When we were living in Toronto, each evening as I drove home form the church I would stop at light in an intersection that always confronted me with a strip club. As I sat at the light I would pray that God would bless the owners out of business. Within a couple of years the strip club closed down and a church took over the building.
Andrew Murray once wrote: “Beware in your prayer, above everything of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do.”
Ezra 8:23 “So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer.”
May I suggest that we set aside Wednesday lunches as a time for fasting and prayer for our ministry, not just in Rockland but in Orleans, as well - A time to seek the Lord Himself not something from the Lord, and may we discover wonderful surprises in what God does in our midst.      

Blessings,
Dan