COVID-19 Update – March 19, 2020

March 19, 2020
 
Dear Abundant Life Family,
 
In light of the new Solano County Health Department requirements to “shelter at home” to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) over the next few weeks, ALWC will be moving our Sunday Worship Service online. We will continue to monitor the situation week-by-week and hope to resume normal weekly services as soon as we are able. Our desire is to please God in our response by using wisdom and compassion for the vulnerable and operate in faith and not fear.
 
God has called us as the Body of Christ to BE THE CHURCH during these uncertain times. ALWC is mandated to love and serve our community in the Name of Jesus!We know that in times like these, fear tries to creep in and control our perspective. Remember, God is greater than our circumstances and holds the key to our peace. Though we cannot meet as we normally do, we are here for you and will still provide ministry to you and your family. Our goal during this season is to SHOWCASE JESUS, our faith and trust in Him and our love for people. We want to see GOD receive all of the GLORY when (COVID-19) is eradicated.
 
Psalm 91:9–10 says, “Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling.”
 
We choose FAITH in Jesus Christ – faith over fear, faith over anxiety, faith over depression, faith over worry! We will counter the spirit of fear with the POWER OF GOD, HIS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and a SOUND MIND through His Word!
 
2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
 

Church Wide Prayer and Fasting

According to God’s Plan for us, this week we begin our 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. During this season of prayer we will be focused on praying for God’s covering, His healing, salvation and the end of (COVID-19). During the 21 days, we will also have opportunities for group prayer.
 

 

How You Can Help:

  • Pray for your Oikos, the community, and those directly affected by COVID-19. Pray for the health care workers who are treating the sick and those public health administrators making difficult decisions. Pray that God would protect our community from further spread of the virus.
  • Reflect Christ. In these anxious days, the church (WE) can shine as a light of hope, care, faith, patience, and wisdom. We can demonstrate to the world how our faith provides true assurance against worry and fear.
  • Practice recommended personal hygiene. Wash your hands frequently.

 

Steps to Take According to the CDC:

  • If you are high risk, such as older adults and those with underlying chronic medical conditions, stay home.
  • Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
  • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
  • Stay home when you are sick.
  • Cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue in the trash.
  • Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a regular household cleaning spray or wipe. Chemicals That Work Against Coronavirus
  • Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
 
Blessings family and remember that you are the light in this dark season.
 


ALWC 40 Days of Prayer

Welcome to 40 Days of Prayer with Abundant Life Worship Center

Over the next 40 days, we will put our focus totally on being a people of prayer and praying together on one accord.  To help you with this process, we will be posting a weekly blog, and on each blog you will find a daily meditation to add to your prayers. We also ask that you make use of the monthly prayer calendar found on your Abundant 7 Announcements.  Prayer Journal Week 1

What is Prayer?

Prayer in its simplest form is “talking with God, listening to God, and moving with God.”  It is a divine conversation that results in guidance and direction to bring God’s will to pass on earth as it is in heaven.  Prayer should become more than just words.  It should become a deeper expression of the soul and spirit and communication with our creator.  Because of its spiritual expression, prayer should become a lifestyle.


Your Seeds

We live in communities where we being taught that the concept of God is antiquated, that there are no moral standards, and that there is no need to teach our children to pray and no space for that type of activity in our schools. We being sold the flawed ideology that no one has the right to judge, that we can do what we please, that we can have freedom without accountability or responsibility. That is, until someone violates us, at which point we demand their accountability and that they take responsibility.

We are being influenced to believe that we are free to be irresponsible as long as we don’t hurt anyone else.  We are being bombarded everyday with entertainment that appeals to our lowest common denominators.  We celebrate deception, survival at the cost of others, we applaud lawlessness, we gather to view ignorance and senseless violence.  But it’s not hurting anyone, right?

Over the past several years, our eyes have been opened to deeply troubling issues, and most recently our hearts have been revealed in the range of emotion or lack thereof regarding unexplainably vile actions of a handful of individuals. But in the middle of all of the unfolding horror and drama, is a very inconvenient and uncomfortable set of truths that we must all deal with at some point.  In our current situation fear and ignorance are multiplying at exponential rates and the magnification of the internal biases that we all hold are being exposed. The temptation for all of us is to blame someone else for our current condition, but that is just our escape back into our failures to take responsibility for our abuse of our freedoms. The reality is that we only harvest what has been sown, but we are one society and culture, and we all live within each other’s harvests.

Like it or not, we have raised a generation of people that have had tens of thousands of hours playing first person shooter games (Halo, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, etc.).  Some of them we sent them to war, some of them then we hired as police officers.  Yet all of them have been impacted in some way by the thousands of hours of training in high speed chases, killing, being killed, hitting the resent button, and starting over.  For some of those that have become police officers, it is now being manifested in a trivialization of human life and the resulting tendency to act swiftly with no remorse in any environment where they sense a loss of control.  The behaviors of a few have now tainted how the many are now perceived.

But it is most certainly not just the police officers.  Like it or not, we have raised communities of people that have no respect for authority, and believe they have the right to rebel, the right to refuse discipline, the right to their freedom, even when their freedom leads them to create unsafe situations for others.  We believe that it is our right to gentrify neighborhoods and displace those that can no longer afford to live there and never be concerned with where they are going, all because it is the most profitable thing to do.  We believe that it is our right to act like victims until we gain power and then set out to fiercely destroy all who have opposed us.  Our society has grown to hate those things which represent success in others if it reveals our own shortcomings.  

In reading the two paragraphs above, did you read them in with race in mind?  Did you default to creating a profile based on what you read?  In all of these issues; color, race, culture, ethnicity, make no difference at all. Race is a problem, but not the real problem.  We have a heart problem.  We have a problem with our spiritual condition which is being revealed as we watch our society unravel.

Our society is eating the fruit of the seeds that have been sown into us; and lets all admit to the reality, that it all feels good until tragedy strikes. Our individual actions of today are being driven by our own self-centeredness and are deeply carving the problems of tomorrow, just as our current problems have been etched through the irresponsibility of yesterday.  The problem is that we are products of that which is in our hearts and minds in abundance.  Whether we like it or not, those things that we mediate on or those things with which we are occupied shape us and change us.  But the changes are subtle and often unnoticed until they create an impact.  Everything produces more of what it is and our society has become the breeding ground for ignorance, stereotypes, selfishness, greed, injustice, and fear. 

Are we really surprised?  Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul warned his young protégé Timothy about the same thing.

2 Timothy 3: 1-5.  But understand this, that in the last days dangerous times [of great stress and trouble] will come [difficult days that will be hard to bear].For people will be lovers of self [narcissistic, self-focused], lovers of money [impelled by greed], boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane, [and they will be] unloving [devoid of natural human affection, calloused and inhumane], irreconcilable, malicious gossips, devoid of self-control [intemperate, immoral], brutal, haters of good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of [sensual] pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of [outward] godliness (religion), although they have denied its power [for their conduct nullifies their claim of faith]. Avoid such people and keep far away from them.  From theAmplified Version

Every great culture that has attempted to eliminate God from their consciousness follows the same pattern of internal destruction, and every great culture that attempts to use religion as a means to oppress people rather than free people, follows the same pattern as well. All the great cultures before us either learned or denied the simple solution.  Most of the time people choose to listen to those that will tell them what they want to hear.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold, and will turn their ears away from the truth and will wander off into myths and man-made fictions [and will accept the unacceptable].  From theAmplified Version

We are experiencing the outcomes of embracing humanism, and false religion that has been tainted with our human biases. The truth is that it is time for a mindset change on every level. 

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

It all begins with facing our mindset and the truth about ourselves.  I have to be willing to take my responsibility in this whole picture and deal with my stuff. I am flawed, I have biases, I am less than perfect, and I need help from my creator to be complete. My willingness to confess and be changed puts me in position for the next step and it will not be until we are willing to be changed that we can expect our society to be changed.  

Are you willing? 

If you are, then connect with us and together we will begin the journey of restoring the dignity that all people should enjoy.  We are committed to raising up and empowering 10,000 people that are willing to address these inconvenient realities and transform our world into an environment where the types of injustices that we see are only history.  We invite you to join us.  
 
What seeds will you sow towards the future of your life, your family, and your community?
 


Transform Our World Global Conference

Transform our world global confTransform Our World Global Conference

ALWC Family;
You are invited to join us for the 2015 Transform Our World Conference, October 13th-16th.  As part of the conference, the efforts of Transformation Vallejo will be highlighted.
For more conference information, click on the conference flier.


Transformation Prayer Gathering

Oakland Transformation Prayer

Join us Monday October 5th from 7-9 PM

Sponsored by Transform Our World & the Bay Area Transformation Alliance

With Special Guests:

  • Lisa Gauthier, Mayor of East Palo Alto
  • Michael Brown, President and Founder of Michael’s Transportation service
  • Elmer Rodriguez, Senior Pastor, Ministerio International Maranatha
  • Worship led by Alfreda Lyons-Campbell
Now is God’s time for the Bay Area and our nation! Come be part of the launch of Transformation Oakland and help change the spiritual climate and adopting each of 1921 streets in Oakland in daily prayer!  This movement in Oakland is being modeled after the Transformation Vallejo model of which ALWC is a partner.
Hope to see you there.

Location:

  • East Oakland Faith Deliverance Center
  • 7425 International Blvd. Oakland, CA 94621
  • Bishop Raymond E. Mack – Pastor


Prayer Declarations and Resources

PRAY FIRST

ALWC Guiding Principle #4, “Prayer is the highest privilege and the greatest weapon in the life of the believer”.  Becaus3e of the truth of this principle, we want to dedicate ourselves to understanding and growing in the power of prayer.  We define prayer as: talking to God, listening to God, and moving with God.  Prayer is a dialogue and graceful interaction between the believer and God, and as such there is a unique and specific language that fuels this conversation.

It is the language of Faith.
In Hebrews 11:6, we are told that without faith, it is impossible to please God.  When the disciples were fearful for their lives in the storm, Jesus asked them “where is your faith”.   Faith is essential to our conversation with God. Romans 10:17, tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Hearing the Word increases our faith, which is powerful because Romans 12:3 tells us that each person has been given a measure of faith, and no matter what measure of faith you begin with, you can increase by giving heed to the Word.
Praying the Word not only increases our faith, but it brings to pass the will of God.  As we pray “thy Kingdom come”  from the Lord’s Prayer, we can use our authority in prayer to bring to pass the will of God by declaring the Word of God. When we pray the Word, all heaven gets behind our prayers.  Psalm 103:20 tells us that even the angles harken to the voice of the Word.
Keeping the Word as the focus point of our prayers increases our faith, brings to pass the will God, and gets heaven involved in bringing forth answers on our behalf of our words.

14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.  1 John 5:14-15  NKJV

We invite you to visit the ALWC Prayer Network page.  The prayer declarations and resources on that page are to help you enhance your prayer life and to be on one accord with the ALWC Prayer Network as we pray the Will of God.


Becoming a House of Prayer

ALWC Guiding Principle #4, Prayer is the highest privilege / weapon in the life of the believer. In our new series, Becoming a House of Prayer, we have been exploring the Word of God to receive His revelation of the role of prayer in our lives. Most people will agree that prayer is a critical ingredient to every person’s spiritual life, but rarely do we encounter people that feel that they really have a strong grasp of what it really means to pray.

Throughout the Bible, prayer is revealed as the key to God’s intervention into the lives of people, and the gateway to supernatural change.

Prayer is not…..

Prayer is not getting God’s attention or trying to get God to do something. Why would we need to get the attention of a God who reveals Himself to us as Jehovah Shamma (the Lord who is there: Ezekiel 48:35)? In Hebrews 4:12-16, we are told that the Word of God (Jesus), is alive and active and that all things are visible to Him. It tells us that He is a high priest to us that can sympathize with our weakness and that we can come boldly before the throne of grace to find help in our time of need. This passage expresses God’s availability to us and willingness to meet our needs as we remain in conversation with Him (prayer).

Prayer is…..

We define prayer as: “talking to, listening to, and moving with God”. Prayer is an ongoing conversation with God as modeled by Jesus. When asked about some of His parables and sayings, Jesus would respond with, “I only speak that which I hear the Father say“. In this Jesus was giving us a glimpse of the invisible conversation between He and the Father as way of living/praying.

We invite you to join us in this teaching on prayer and invite you to post your comments and revelations that God is giving you part of this teaching series on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/abundantlifeworship.net or share your testimony on our website.

To listen to the messages on this series check out our media center https://www.abundantlifeworship.net/media/sermons/

God Bless You.

Pastor Derry



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