Jennifer Weed's Posts

Why I Love Prayer Summits/A Chance to Come Join us for One in Birmingham

Posted by Jennifer Weed on November 1, 2013 at 18:38

I am so excited to tell you about this fantastic opportunity to connect with others who have a heart to pray and a heart for our city in order to seek God together for our city. On Saturday, November 9 from 9am – noon, Mission Birmingham is hosting an Intercessors’ Prayer Summit at Shades Mountain Independent Church! If you are in the area, we would love to have you!

Mission Birmingham has been hosting and facilitating prayer summits all over the metro-B’ham area for years now, from the annual Pastors’ Prayer Summit held every November at Shocco Springs, to individual church prayer summits, and even prayer journeys through the city. A prayer summit is not a time of teaching about prayer, or listening to a sermon on prayer. It is Scripture-fed, Spirit-led corporate prayer, facilitated by someone who is sensitive to the leading of the Spirit, and who will help guide the participants into united, dynamic prayer.

Dennis Fuqua, executive director of International Renewal Ministries, and author of two books on prayer (“Living Prayer” and “United and Ignited”), will be our facilitator for that morning. His heart for the Lord, his love for people, and his sense of humor make him a wonderful facilitator.

I love prayer summits because of how one can see the Holy Spirit moving through the room. There have been countless times where I was about to pray something, but someone across the room started to pray the exact same thing! I love how it connects everyone at the event. It brings a powerful sense of the unity of the Spirit that I just don’t feel all the time. Prayer summits also connect me to the heart of God as I am stirred by the prayers of those around me. They cause me to think higher thoughts, and pray deeper prayers than I would on my own. My view of God is magnified, and my faith in Him is strengthened. And then there’s the answers we see to corporate prayer. God moves mightily when His people come together for the purpose of seeking Him because He is worthy to be sought, and because we are desperate for Him.

So please join us for our first Intercessors’ Prayer Summit on Saturday, November 9 from 9-12. There is no cost for this event, but we do need you to register so that we can plan for seating and refreshments. Click here to register. Bring your prayer teams, prayer partners, friends….anyone who has a heart to pray and a heart for the metro-Birmingham area!

On Sunday evening, we will also be having a time of praying for the Persecuted Church from 5:30-9pm. Feel free to join us for that as well.

How to Pray for the Fallen

Posted by Jennifer Weed on August 23, 2013 at 11:47

I am copying this from my original post over at www.cityonitsknees.com.

This past week, a local youth leader of a ministry called The Basement here in Birmingham, AL was arrested a second time for impersonating a police officer. The fallout from the arrest will most likely be messy. People are very divided in their opinions about the situation. I debated and prayed for several days about whether or not to post anything, and if so, if it should be a whole blog post or just a post on our Facebook page. I also wanted to be careful not to just post my opinion on the situation. See, I'm the wife of a Birmingham police officer, so I have strong feelings regarding the case.

One of the tragedies, though, in any situation where a well-known person gets into trouble, is the onslaught of public opinion that person, and their family, have to endure. No matter how deserving the person is of the arrest/trouble they've brought on themselves, the comments are horribly abusive. We forget it's a real person with real feelings, and that but for the grace of God, we could find ourselves in a very similar situation someday.

So how should we, as Christians who are called to pray, respond? I think one of the first things we must do is choose to fast from our opinion and emotions about the situation. I had to choose to set them aside, because otherwise, I was too angry at the pride that caused such wrong choices, at foolishness, at sin. I was too hurt for all the young people who are very hurt and confused because of these events by someone they greatly admired. I feared for the direct harm he may have caused some of those young people, if they got sucked into his bad choices. I could not hear how the Holy Spirit wanted me to pray with all of those emotions and opinions drowning out His voice. It doesn't mean I shouldn't feel those things, but that I need to choose to lay them at the feet of Jesus.

The next and real first thing we do is pray for Matt Pitt. If we still can't bring ourselves to pray as we ought, and are tempted to either pray for his complete downfall so that he "gets what he deserves", as some comments have said, or if we are tempted to pray for so much grace that he gets off scott-free, then we can turn to Scripture and pray the Scriptures.

We can pray out of Genesis 50:20 by praying, "God, what the devil and man have meant for evil, You meant it for good. We pray that You would cause Matt Pitt's present result to accomplish Your purposes, to bring many people to You."

We can pray out of the Lord's Prayer found in Matthew 6:9-13 - "Heavenly Father, You are holy and Your name is holy. Would you preserve and display Your holiness in the face of this public fall-out from a Christian leader's bad choices? Let Your kingdom come through Your people, and let it stand in stark contrast to the kingdom of darkness. We pray that Your will would be done for Matt Pitt and The Basement here on the earth, as it already is in Heaven. Cause Matt to feed daily on Your Word so that He can receive Your forgiveness that You freely grant to all who sin and have fallen. Deliver him from the evil that has gotten a hold of his life right now. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Those are just two examples of how we can use Scripture to pray for Matt Pitt and any leader who lets us down by succumbing to sin. This kind of praying does not excuse their sin, nor does it condemn him. We have no right to do either of those things. This kind of praying lines us up with the heart of God for all of His children. May we all be so blessed to receive such prayers on our behalf in our time of need.

What are some other Scripture-based prayers the Lord has led you to pray for Matt Pitt or for The Basement ministry?

The Pain of Separation

Posted by Jennifer Weed on May 4, 2011 at 23:11

So we made it through our first "holiday" since Rusty died. For me, it had it's sad moments. It wasn't as hard as it could have been simply because I don't have a lot of recent memories of Rusty related to Easter. We just always ended up doing different things that day. However, there were several times, especially watching the kids hunt for eggs, that I got teary-eyed thinking how much he would have enjoyed watching them and how he would have added another whole level of fun. I kept hearing his voice run through my head, and picturing his awesome smile as if he had been there with us.

My mom had a much harder day. One reason is because at her church, they sang "Because He Lives". That was the song God gave her when Rusty was born with a brain hemorrhage, and we sang it at his funeral. I cannot imagine how heart-breaking that was for her. Poor Momma.

That night, Mom, Hugh (my step-dad), and I attended an Easter performance of "Saviour". It's a modern oratorio (lots of music). They had a full choir and orchestra, and ballet dancers. It was beautiful! I cried during the first song, called, "My Heart Belongs to You". It's basically a love song between God and Adam. One of the lines that stood out to me is of "God" singing: The message of My song will always be true: My heart belongs to you." By the end of the song, Adam is singing it in response back to God. It's gorgeous. And it made me see God's love for mankind in a fresh way. He created us so that He could give His heart to us. And then, when Adam and Eve chose sin, not only did we lose that intimate relationship with God, but He lost it with us. We always focus on what Man lost that day, but what about what God lost that day? He lost His love - the one He had given His heart to. That relationship was ripped away from Him, suddenly, violently - like losing someone to death.

You see, I've been listening to a lie recently. A lie that said that God doesn't really know how I feel. He hasn't really lost someone to death like I have. Yes, His Son suffered and died, and I know that was excruciating, but He knew that in 3 days, He would be alive again. Part of what makes losing Rusty so hard is just that thought of all the time it will probably take before I see him again. That not knowing a time reference is so frustrating to me (my worship pastor would tell me that's a control issue that I need to choose to surrender to God, and he would be right). And so I thought that God couldn't relate to that part of grief - the seemingly endless longing. But that song tonight made me realize how wrong I was. When sin came, God experienced profound loss. Us. And even though He already had a plan in place to redeem us, He knew it would be millennia before that redemption would be fully realized and He would once again enjoy intimate, unbroken relationship with the ones He had created to give His heart to. How heartbroken He must have been. How much must He long for us even now? Yes, once we are saved we have a relationship with Him, but it's not like it was in the Garden - walking side by side; talking face to face. Sin still gets in the way.

Since Rusty died, I've been pondering the story of Lazarus. In one of the verses, it says Jesus was very troubled. (It's a few verses before the famous "Jesus wept" verse.) I've always wondered why. I know people have taught that He was troubled because of how grieved Mary and Martha were, and I agree with that. But I've always thought there was more to it. Could it be that seeing them grieving the loss of their brother reminded Him of His own loss at the Fall? Could it be that He was very troubled because the God-head part of Him was missing us - grieving the loss of relationship He had so enjoyed in the Garden?

So that night, as I listened to that song, it's as if I heard God speak this to my heart: I do know how you feel, Daughter, because I have suffered loss like that. I lost you." God knows the pain of separation more profoundly than I can comprehend, and I can trust Him with this.

Waves of Grief

Posted by Jennifer Weed on April 18, 2011 at 23:34

Most of us have heard about the stages of grief. I think there's denial, anger, depression...and I can't remember the others. So far I've definitely experienced those three. I remember at my brother's funeral I kept telling people, "This is wrong. We are not supposed to be here. My brother is NOT supposed to be in that casket." The day after the funeral I went back to the grave and just stood there, staring at it, trying to make it sink in. But it wouldn't. That's denial. For me anyway.

The next day at church, anger hit me full force. I wasn't mad at Rusty. I was mad at God, not so much for allowing Rusty to die, but for allowing all the other stuff to happen that made it that much harder. (We had a couple of people show up behaving very inappropriately at the funeral, among other things.)I was angry for a lot of reasons. My pastor talked to me that morning, and I said everything one should probably not say to one's pastor: "I'm angry at God; I'm angry at all the stupid people that come out of the woodwork during something like this; I don't care if my anger hurts them. And, just to top it all off: I can't pray." (That last one I probably shouldn't include in a post on a network about prayer, either.) He was very loving, but also helped me understand why you can't stay in that place of anger. You have to choose to move from it.

Then there was depression. My least favorite stage. At least with anger you feel something. With depression, you just feel numb, listless, you don't care about anything. In the past, I had to be on medicine for depression, and so I recognized that stage as soon as I got there. I didn't care what I looked like. I didn't care about getting the kids' school work done. I just didn't care about anything. And I couldn't cry. That was the worst part. I wanted to cry, and I knew I needed to, but I couldn't. It was like a dam was holding back the tears.

But what I'm discovering is that they're not stages that are set in order. And just because I was angry 2 weeks ago doesn't mean I'm done with it. In fact, yesterday I had to deal with anger all over again. Just because I seem to be doing well this week does not mean I'm on the uphill path from now on. No, what I have discovered is that grief comes in waves.

The initial wave hits you at the moment of impact. For me, the moment my mom's words sunk in over the phone "Rusty's dead." was my moment of impact. For a moment, it loomed up in front of me, very large and terrifying, and then it crashed down over me and all around me, engulfing everything near and dear to me. In those first few days, that initial wave was all-consuming. I couldn't find my footing in the aftermath of that wave. If it had not been for the support of our friends and church families in those first days, we would not have been able to keep our heads above water.

The waves right after that all hit you with a cold, sharp impact that can take your breath away. But then, the waters ebb. The waves seem to stop. You're still standing in waist-deep water that you have to slog through, but at least you're able to gain your footing. You can take a deep breath. Maybe you're going to make it after all.

But now, 4 weeks later (gosh, can it really already be 4 weeks? How is that possible?), what I'm learning is that the waves still come. Sometimes they come one right after another. Sometimes they are spread out. Some of the waves are small and gently wash over you - you feel it's presence, but it's almost a comforting grief. (There's an oxymoron. But really, if you've lost a loved one, in those moments of acceptance of what's happened, you want to be sad. They are worth grieving over, and knowing that you're still feeling that is, in a way, comforting. It's sort of like a reassurance of the bond you had with them.) Other waves are strong and hit hard, knocking you off your feet all over again.

Anything can trigger these waves - whether it's a memory of the one you've lost, or suddenly realizing a particular dream has died with that person, or even just a disappointment that has nothing at all to do with your loss. From last Thursday through Sunday, I was having a succession of those hard waves that knock you off your feet. By Sunday, I was a wreck and cried more that day than any other day since Rusty died, I think. Then today, just as suddenly, those waves have subsided, and I'm trying to slog through just the "regular" grief.

But here's what I know. My Jesus has authority over these waves. He will not let them consume me when they wash over me. In fact, if I let Him, He may even teach me how to walk on them.

I Can't Fix This

Posted by Jennifer Weed on April 11, 2011 at 13:00

It will be 3 weeks ago tomorrow that my youngest brother took his life. I've blogged about the details of that night, but haven't been able to post it yet. I don't know that I ever will. It was just good for me to get it out of my head and down on "paper".

The week after it happened, I met with my worship pastor/friend Kevin Moore to help sort through some of my emotions and thoughts. One of the things he pointed out was that I was struggling with the fact that I couldn't control what happened, and I can't control the grief process. He talked about how an intercessor can fall into the delusion that they can control things through their prayers, and I especially thought I could protect my family by praying for them. He was exactly right. And it made me mad. On some level, though, the truth of what he said sunk in, and I have been pondering it ever since.

I keep playing through my mind the phone call where Mom told me Rusty was dead. It took a minute for it to sink in, but then the wave of heartbreak and grief flooded over me. I knew there had been some initial thought that hit me just before that wave did. As I've sorted through everything as best as I can, I remember what that thought was. "I can't fix this." Usually, when any family member called with a crisis, I would immediately start trying to figure out how to fix it. And I usually had good solutions. But this time, there was absolutely nothing I could do to fix it. Rusty was gone. My mom was experiencing the worst pain any parent could experience. And all I could do was cry with her.

But in recent days, I've heard the most wonderful thought being spoken into my spirit: "I've already fixed this." You see, Rusty's suicide did not take God by surprise. And He truly had made every provision for it. In Sept of 2009, Rusty had prayed with my pastor to receive Jesus as his Savior. Jesus "fixed this" when He died for Rusty on the cross, and defeated death and the grave when He rose from the dead on the third day! Jesus is the solution to my brother's death, and to our grief. And I can say with boldness: Death, where is your victory? Grave, where is your sting?

So, the fact is, I couldn't fix this. I can't fix this. But, the TRUTH is, I don't have to, because God already did. Praise the Lord!!

Who Needs a Hero?

Posted by Jennifer Weed on December 31, 2010 at 10:45

Who needs fake superheros? I have a real hero who gave up power andprivilege just to be with me. He came toe to toe with his enemy when hewas physically weakened from hunger and thirst and still came awayvictorious. He embraced pain and rejection, while weighed down by mysin, to face death - for me. He then conquered death when he rose fromthe grave. He loves me passionately. He delights in me and rejoices overme with singing. He quiets me with his love. He has no equal. There isno limit to his power! He has no rival. His name is Jesus, and He is myHero. I need no other. In this coming year, may every would-be competitor of my time and attention fall away as I gaze on my Beloved. My Hero. My Jesus.

An Act of Worship

Posted by Jennifer Weed on August 25, 2010 at 12:00

My husband had surgery in July to remove a
benign tumor from his thigh. It was outpatient surgery, and was a
complete success! We saw numerous answers to prayer in the process - from it being a benign tumor, to it not being in any muscle tissue, to it being encapsulated so they could get it all out! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! However, he had a 6" incision with staples in it,
which will take a little while to recover from.

So, naturally, I was very busy taking care of 3 kids AND a
husband. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. (I was so thankful for our church family bringing us meals for those first several days.) I hadn't taken the time to be in the Word in the evenings because
I was so tired, and my time in the mornings - which isn't as consistent
as I would like it to be even on normal days - was rushed at best. Of
course, the enemy wasted no time in trying to condemn me for it. Once
again, I started falling for the lie that if I didn't spend time in God's
Word every day, God would. get mad at me.

I was delighted to get to go to church with the kids the Sunday morning after his surgery and let my husband get some peace and quiet at home. I walked into the sanctuary while the
first song was starting. I got in the pew and used that first song to
just soak - unwind from the week and get my heart right for worship.
(I'm usually a big advocate of getting your heart ready for worship
BEFORE you show up for church, but again, with the week I had had...) One
of the things I was "saying" to God was confessing that I had not made
time to worship Him in the last few days. And then, I had one of "those'
moments - the ones where the Holy Spirit speaks so clearly to your
heart that it seems audible. He said, "Dear One, don't you realize
you've been worshiping Me all day long every day this week? Everything
you've done to serve your husband and your children has been an act of
worship." WOW! What a huge weight of guilt that set me free from! I
immediately recognized the lies of the enemy that I had been listening
to, renounced those lies, and my heart was set free to soar in the
freedom of the grace of God!

Now, it certainly doesn't mean I did everything right. I got impatient
several times with the kids, and sometimes I didn't serve in the right
spirit. But God saw the intention of my heart. He heard my confessions
when I messed up. Our Heavenly Father chooses to look past our mistakes,
when we're covered in the blood of Jesus Christ, and receives our acts
of worship.

"The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He had made." Ps.
145:8,9

A Team Effort

Posted by Jennifer Weed on April 2, 2010 at 12:21

Kevin's comment to my last post touched on a point that I meant to include. This has to be a team effort of all the intercessors who are called to support the pastor in prayer. It cannot and should not be just about the team leader (I actually prefer the term point person) praying for the pastor. Our team is an invaluable asset to me, as well. I know that the requests I present to them on Kevin's behalf are faithfully lifted before the Lord on a regular basis.

Because we are a team connected primarily through email, it was sometimes easy to feel like I was the only one praying for the requests, after all, the lie of isolation is one of the key lies the enemy uses to discourage intercessors. Kevin is the one who suggested that they start hitting the "reply" button to the emails once they had received and prayed through the requests, and that has been such an encouragement to me - to know that my fellow prayer warriors are standing in the gap with me for Kevin and his family and ministries.

God has really knit my heart to this team. I am hoping to work out a way for us to meet in person to pray for this ministry on a regular basis - hopefully once a month or every other month. I love knowing we're praying in our prayer closets "together", but it would be such a joy to be able to pray together face to face, for God's glory.

More on Pastoral Prayer Support Teams

Posted by Jennifer Weed on April 1, 2010 at 23:45

One of the things I shared in my last post was about how the success of the prayer support team depended on a relationship between the pastor and the point person, or leader, of the prayer team. I feel the need to elaborate on that a bit. I'm going to share my personal experience, not because it's necessarily the right or best way, but because it's the way God showed me, and I hope something in it helps or encourages you if you are an intercessor trying to start a prayer support team, or if you are a pastor wanting this for your ministry.

First, the relationship does not nor cannot happen spontaneously, nor does the leader have to already be friends with the pastor. Like any relationship, it takes time to build. When I took on the role of team leader for our worship pastor, we were acquaintances at best. When we first started, getting prayer requests from him was rather difficult. I had to try and catch him before or after worship rehearsal, or try to get him to email me his requests (that didn't work at all). The time was always rushed and in the middle of everyone either getting ready for, or leaving from rehearsal, which made it hectic. The requests were mostly about the ministry, and it just felt...awkward. (Kevin, if you read this, sorry about that.)

However, I knew that this was something God had called me to do, and I prayed and sought ways to make this a better experience for both of us. Over the course of time, God led us to the method that works for both of us, but more importantly, God has knit our hearts together in friendship. It has made it easier for both of us, because I can ask him things that help prompt him to think of the things he needs prayer for, and it helps him to know he can trust me with the ministry AND family/personal requests, whether it's how to word a request the "right way" or whether it's to keep a specific request unspoken for a time.

Even though the prayer support works best in the context of a relationship, it is crucial that that relationship is clearly defined and boundaries are put in place. The relationship is not just a friendship, because the boundaries of a friendship can too easily get blurry. It is that of a brother and sister in Christ, if we are talking about the male pastor and female prayer team leader, which is my frame of reference. A vital component is accountability. My husband is aware of every time I meet with the worship pastor, and is fully supportive of my ministry for him and his family and ministries, and I do my best to stay lined up under my husband's righteous authority. Even though Kevin and I meet in his office now, the door is always open. I have a couple of prayer partners that I stay accountable to in regard to my thought life, my walk with God, and how my husband and I are doing. I cannot speak specifically to how Kevin stays accountable, but I do know that our pastoral staff is all about accountability, and so there is a system in place for that.

The relationship cannot be an exclusive one, even though it is a unique relationship. It has to include bothspouses. My goal from the beginning was to build a relationship with Kevin and his family, and for our team's intercession to minister to the entire family. Like I said in my last post, if at any point it becomes a burden to the pastor or his wife/family, then something is not working. It's a bit of a challenge simply because our 2 families don't move in the same circles because their youngest child is several years older than our oldest child. So meeting outside of church activities is important, I think. We have their family in our home for dinner from time to time to continue building on that relationship between our families.

I hope that helps any of you reading this. Being a part of this prayer team for our worship pastor is one of my favorite ministries that God has let me be a part of. It is such an honor to stand in the gap for him and his family, and it has been a delight to see the hand of God move on their behalf in relation to the prayers He prompts us to pray.

Pastoral Prayer Support Teams

Posted by Jennifer Weed on March 27, 2010 at 1:30

Kevin Moore suggested I blog about praying for pastors, and this post actually started as a comment in a forum started by Phil Miglioratti (I hope I spelled that right. I did it without looking.), but it was getting so long that I turned it into the blog post that Kevin suggested. I think it is vital for pastors to have a prayer support team - more so than ever before, it seems to me, because of the times we're in and how the intensity of spiritual warfare has escalated.

When we started our pastoral prayer support teams at my church, some ministries tried doing it with the pastor emailing the prayer requests to the team, while other church ministries had a point person, or team leader, that sought them out to get the prayer requests from them. After about 2 years, the way that has worked best is clearly the ones who have a point person. Pastors are just too busy to try and remember to send out prayer requests to their team, and it's not something that they're accustomed to thinking about.

For the team that I lead for our worship pastor, Kevin Moore, I try to meet with him weekly to get prayer requests from him. I then email them to the team. There are some weeks that he just has to email me his requests because his schedule is just too full, and there are weeks that we skip all together. You have to find the schedule that works best for the pastor. The leader of the prayer team for our senior pastor meets once a month with him. Recently we have started having the team members hit "reply" to the email when they have prayed through the requests so that we can remain accountable to each other about our commitment to pray. It's been really cool to see how God has worked in the worship ministry and our worship pastor's life and family as a result of our prayers. Praise God!

One of the things that makes it safe, strong, and effective, is to remember that at no point is it about the intercessor. My mission, besides praying, is doing this intercession ministry in such a way that it actually ministers to the pastor and his family, and doing whatever I can to make his job easier. If it becomes a burden to him in any way, then it's not working. A verse that I think of for this is I Thess. 5:12, 13a - "But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction, and that you esteem them very highly in love because of their work."
But the other thing to remember is that this is very much about relationship. Only in relationship can there be that safe, confidential sharing of prayer needs.

I have a lot more thoughts on the matter, but don't want to overwhelm you with too much to read all at once. I will share more later.