I would like to talk this morning about why it is so important for us to pray together

as a people.

This is prayer week 87 at Bethlehem and we begin with concerted prayer because the things that matter most to us, the things that matter most to us, can't be done without God. The new birth, conviction for sin, forgiveness, faith in Christ, a warm love for the Savior and his cause, intense worship, passion for justice, commitment to frontier missions.

These are the essentials and the crucial things in life.

And it doesn't matter whether I am alive at the end of this year,

or whether I am accepted, or whether I am good looking,

or whether I am rich looking or whether I am rich or whether I have a home or clothes or a car or a VCR, these things are wholly secondary. They gain whatever value they have from how they attach to the

essentials and no matter how devout or strong or wise I or you are, we can't make the essentials happen without

God.

That's why we begin a week or a year with prayer. Because prayer

is just a grand church-wide admission.

I need you. We need you.

What matters isn't getting done?

Left to ourselves nothing but religious machinery goes on. Until the Holy Spirit is poured out on our church it's all farm and it may be

fun for a lot of people but it isn't glorifying to God.

No one is born again.

People are not convicted of sins. Families are not healed.

Missions are not healed, missions are not dynamically promoted until God comes and he comes

when we pray. We need God very much. Let me show you a little bit of why.

You'll hear more tonight from Peter about the survey that you filled out and that we took last Sunday night.

255 of you filled out the survey concerning the devotional life of the people in our church.

Here are three facts from the survey that I

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