Nehemia Chapter 1 - What happens when we pray?

1 - God gives us a tender heart as we weep, fast and pray in His presence

2 - God gives us a right perspective of Himself and ourselves

3 - We get a personified view of God and a personal experience with God

4 - We get a hightened sensitivity to sin...both personal and corporate

5 - We get assurance of forgiveness from God and a right relationship with God

6 - We get assurance that we are not alone in our prayers

7 - We get bold fresh new ideas to pray for success and favor

Nehemiah chapter 2 - What happens when we pray?

8 - We get courage to face our fears and speak the truth in love

9 - We learn to listen to God while we pray (prayer is a dialogue not a monologue)

10 - We receive boldness to pray in public when needed

11 - We learn to be specific in our prayers and God will be specific in His answers

12 - God moves the heart of even ungodly leaders.

13 - Opposition shows up.

14 - We learn to focus on our divine vision/mission and inspire others to follow us as we follow God

15 - Your trust and hope remains in God while you lead your followers and firmly confront your opposition.

2 Teaspoons of Trust: "Come to me, all who carry heavy loads, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for you souls.  For my yoke is easy and my load is light." Matthew 11:28-30

1 Cup of contentment: "...for I have learned that in whatever situation I find myself, I can be content." Philippians 4:11

3 Table Spoons of Gratitude: "...giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.  He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption thru His blood, the forgiveness of sins."  Col 1:12-14

1 Teaspoon of faith: "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God didnot send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world thru him might be saved." John 3:16, 17.

Does the average Christian know what it means to be a good follower of Jesus?  Do they know what it means to follow their god-given leaders?  To be sure, every organization and most organisms need a good leader.  A good leader is crucial to the success of every organization.  But every good leader must have good followers in order to carry out the mission of the organization.  Both are important...both are needed.  

We've all seen the problem of a sports team that's got lots of talent but poor coaching from the sidelines or perhaps you've seen the reverse where there is a great coaching staff who hasn't got the talent to pull off the win on the field.  The same can be true in the Church.  Who can forget Moses the great leader of God's people the Israelites.  He was charged with the responsibility to leads God people up out of bondage to Egypt and into the promised land.  And yet, the Bible says that many didn't make it because of the stubbornness of their hearts and unbelief.  Therefore, a whole generation were buried in the wilderness.  

So was Moses to blame?  We know he could not have been a perfect leader.  There is no such leader, but Moses did what God asked him to do...for the most part.  The problem with Israel was not poor leadership.  It was the stiff-neckedness of the followers i.e. poor followership.

So the next time someone recommends a good book on leadership or a great leadership conference...ask them, "To whom do the followers go?"  Followers, go to your leaders and ask them, how can I serve you?  How can I be a better follower?  How can I serve Christ under your leadership.  You'll be surprise to know the many ways you can work together with your leader to do some great thing in the Name of Jesus.

I am pastor at Uptown Baptist Church on Chicago's North Side. In this community, there is incredible diversity -- rich, poor and middle class, those with Ph.D's and those with no education, people of all colors and backgrounds. People live, work and worship next to one another. It's essential that they come together to fight crime, including the threat of gun violence.

We have seen here how a community can improve itself and deal with its problems.

For example, consider the murals that have gone up in Chicago's Uptown community. One that is intact at Sunnyside and Sheridan was done in the mid-1990's, before I got here. Before the mural went up, that area was called "Blood Alley," because of all the stabbings and rapes and shootings there. When the mural went up, crime took a nosedive in that area. There is still crime there, but it's way better than it was 8 to 10 years ago. A friend of mine has explained to me that where there is order and beauty, many criminals have been known to scatter.

Meanwhile, over the years our church has participated in Mayor Daley's gun turn-in events. At the first one, about 90 weapons were turned in; then, that number rose to about 100 or 115. Last time, about 230 weapons were turned in.

I have seen the impact of people getting involved in this community. One example is the city's CAPS program (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy), which encourages average citizens to be the eyes and ears of the police department and become part of the city's decision-making process on how to fight crime.

What happens? Churches, block clubs, businesses and others all say, "We live in this place. We worship here and we want to stay here. Let's see what we can do to work together to solve issues that affect us."

In 2004, there was a lot of prostitution, pimping and drug dealing in the area where this church is located. People came together to create positive responses to this problem and crime went down.

We learned that leaders around the world in countries hit by violence -- including England, France and Belgium -- found out about what we were doing. The BBC flew a team here to learn about our community and how we approached problems related to crime.

As we look to the future, we must focus on the youth in our communities and understand how our world has changed.

When I was a kid, children got in trouble in middle and elementary for chewing gum in class or throwing paper airplanes. Once in a while there was a fight. In high school, maybe someone pulled a knife once a year. Now, we are much more likely to see murder and guns.

In our communities, we also see who kids are turning to or not turning to — when they need someone. Most kids that perpetrate crimes do so because they don't know how to handle anger and express it in the wrong way.

The majority of these kids, of course, are boys, and many of them don't have a male role model. Unfortunately, they often find that role model in a gang.

Where can kids find role models? Well, it's important for us to hire more men as teachers. We also need to provide after school clubs for kids clubs that have some male mentors.

Let's face it, we can be more creative about how we use spaces in our community after school — it's time for the faith community to open up more of its buildings for after school programs. Organized activities that are fun can help children develop.

Overall, there are many ways to improve our community, and that will help us address the problem of gun violence. We need to use as many tools that we have in our toolbox as possible. That will mean bringing together people from all walks of life in our community and using the resources and assets we have to make a difference.

We are committed to the long haul, and pray for the eventual reality of making our community and other communities safer and more peaceful places.