Please pray with us and pass it on!

^{Dear Wonderful friends,  This is not a typical blog post for me, but so many have written to us this summer asking how they can help in our ministry and so I thought I would include a prayer letter that we are sending out to friends of Whole Heart/Mom Heart Ministries. I just wanted to include my blog readers in what is on my heart.  I know this letter is long, but I would humbly ask you to finish it, as I think we are about to see the Lord do amazing things and we would love you to be a part of it.  I just wanted to write to you to ask you to keep us in your prayers. I reread a book this summer called "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire." Prayer is the central focus of the book and the story is told of how a tiny church in New York began prayer meetings and as a result, saw a mini-revival take place in their church, which grew from less than 20 people to thousands, with multiple congregations. Clay and I have talked often this summer of how revivals seem to take place. The all seem to start with people praying--looking to God to establish his work in and through His people who are dependent on Him.  That is why I am writing to you. So many of you were kind enough to pray for Whole Heart for the month of June and I do think the Lord heard your prayers. But for those of you who are willing to keep going, I think we may see amazing things ahead. The more I meet with families and youth, the more I see a need for God's Spirit to sweep through our nation and bring a revival amongst our nation. I meet so many who come from broken families, children whose lives are scared, youth who are immoral--even though raised in Christian homes. We so desperately need the power of God and the movement of His spirit to bring about the change we long to see. We need Christ to be the center of all the work that we attempt in His name.  Would you join Clay and me in praying daily for forgiveness for the sin of complacency, for compromise, for idols, and for ignoring God's voice in our lives and priorities? Would you challenge another friend to be your prayer partner in this? Also, as I have been praying, I am asking God to raise up godly leaders who are willing to give sacrificially of their time to minister to others, to have people in their homes, to teach them the word of God and to lead them to Christ. We believe God is so prepared to bless and empower those of us who are humbly dependent on Him, as Daniel was, as the first century church was as they gathered to pray and saw a movement of God in response to their humble dependence on Him.  I was talking to my son, Joel,my son who lives in Boston, recently, and he told me that he often brings up Christianity in conversations at the international house where he is living in Boston. He says there almost seems to be no interest at all. As I have been thinking about it, I feel that he needs to find another friend and spend time every day praying that the hearts of the people around him will become soft to the gospel. Only God's spirit can really open hearts and create a renewal of life. And so, too, I believe God wants us to pray for the seeming hard heartedness of those in our culture, media and political leadership--in every arena. God wants us to seek Him for revival and wait for it to happen.}

^{As to our own ministry, we are focussing on women, mothers, families. Feminism in our lifetime has been used by Satan to destroy the family, to destroy Biblical femininity, to devalue children, and to break the strength of family and marriage. True feminism has perpetrated the idea that women deserve to be the center of their own lives, that they are more fulfilled by living for themselves, and finding identity in their jobs apart from family, marriage and children. Feminism has also perpetrated a lie that this will make them happy and fulfilled and yet this is so untrue.}

^{God, however, established the family as the centerpiece of life in Genesis 1, before the fall. We believe that the family is the place where righteousness was to be passed down from generation to generation. Clay and I really believe that the Lord wants us to pray to Him to lift up many women who are willing to seek God with their whole heart. to study His word, to pray and then to reach out in the spirit of Titus 2:2 to draw other women  to a Biblical commitment of creating a home for Christ, where Christian leaders can be made--to love their husbands and stay faithful, to love their children and to open their home as a place of ministry. But we really believe that we need your prayers as we seek the Lord to raise up such mature women. We really believe that women returning to their God-given role is such an important part of the puzzle of returning the hearts of children toward Christ and away from the pull of culture. God has given us great freedom in our lives to live out our commitments to our families within the limitations of our own lives. Yet so many women come from broken homes, and have a cultural perspective and values, that they need to be reached with the truth of the Word of God, and be trained and shown what a healthy family is like. Clay and I desire to be a part of God's redeeming families, fathers and mothers and children back to Himself, but writing, speaking, developing materials and training believers in these messages to take to new arenas.  Please join us in prayer, as we attempt our first leadership training in our home on August 5-8. Fifty-four women are coming to our home from all over the US, and China and Canada, to learn about ministry to moms. they will receive specific instruction in spiritual foundations, writing and speaking and ministry skills. We are praying that from this group, we can get our books and messages into the hands of more people, that the Holy Spirit would use these precious women to reach out to their regions, arenas, and churches to spread this message. Yet, unless the Lord "builds this house," so to speak, we will labor in vain. Please pray that each one who attends will have a heart to listen to the voice of God, and that in every message, the Lord will be lifted up. Please pray that God will speak through the speakers, through the times of fellowship and that His Holy Spirit will move while we are gathered in His name to start a movement of moms who will be a part of His hand to help bring revival all over the world. Please pray also for the many women all over the world who are leading and starting new Mom Heart Groups in their churches and homes, using our books as a beginning point for studying and sharing together in these Biblical messages. Pray for them to stay strong in their walk with the Lord, to understand His calling and to have His power and wisdom in each group. We pray these groups will reach the lives of many women who hunger for leadership. We would so appreciate your prayers, too, to pray that the Lord will raise up a staff person that He has been preparing to help coordinate this ministry amongst women, both online and to help us organize more conferences. We feel we need about $30,000 to come in to help us take care of a salary for this position as well as to help pay for some work we need to outsource in media, printing, and publishing. Clay and I have so much on our plate to do, since we have so little staff. But both of us would really like to be able to write more discipleship Bible studies and resources for families and spread our blogs and conferences to the far ends of the earth. But we are not able to get to these projects as we are working on so much administration. But we need to see it come from the hand of the Lord and we believe it will all happen in His time. Let us all praise Him for what He has done, and then humble ourselves before His throne to ask Him to open doors for ministry, to bring His spirit's power and truth to bear in our lives and to open the hearts of people that many many repent and accept Him as Lord and savior. I so appreciate all that you have meant to us in helping us get these messages all over the world.  May He bless you with faith, love and hope in Him today.  Clay and Sally PS If you would join us with your family and friends, please let us know!  For those who have would like to donate online to help support this part of the ministry, please go to: www.wholeheart.org and scroll down to the bottom and press on the donate button.   Many thanks for being our partner in this movement of the Lord.}

^{The following verses in Daniel 9 have been a model to me in how the Lord wants us to pray.}

¹⁵ "Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong. ¹⁶ O Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

 ¹⁷ "Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. ¹⁸ Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. ¹⁹ O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name."