Dear Holy Trinity Church,                                                                                                                                                                 On Monday, February 7^th we will have our second dedicated day of prayer in 2011 called “First Monday Prayer.” I’m writing to ask you to plan now to participate.  God is on the move and responds to his people’s prayers!  In history, God almost always used two main things to bring revival, and usually both together: 1) the preaching of the gospel and 2) the prayers of his people. And sometimes God brings renewal in such a way that fills a whole city with the glory of Christ and even spreads from city to city.                                                                                                                    In 1857 New York was in the midst of a financial disaster that ruined ‘many of its one million people.’[1]  Jeremiah Lanphier, a humble businessman began a simple prayer meeting that spread rapidly to other cities including Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and more.                                                                                                                                       Writing just two years after this revival, Samuel Prime claims, “In the day of adversity, men consider. When the hand of God is suddenly laid upon city and country, the sources of prosperity dried up, fortune taking to themselves wing; houses, venerable for years…tumbling into ruins; and names never tarnished by suspicion, becoming less than nothing in general bankruptcy, it is natural to believe that men will look away from themselves and say, ‘Verily, there is a God who reigns.’”[2]                                                                                                                                             Please join in prayer this Monday for our city: ourselves, our neighbors, colleagues, family and friends. In particular I would ask you to focus on 2 Corinthians 4:4 that: 1) God would help our church and communities to see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  2) God would fill our hearts, homes, neighborhoods and congregations with his glory.                                                                                                                              If you are willing to fast, begin fasting after dinner on Sunday, February 6^th and use breakfast and lunch as a time to pray on your own or with members of your community group.                                                                               May each of you see Christ’s glory in prayer!                                                                                                                    Jon                                                                                                                                                                                             P.S. If you are interested in books on fasting or revival try: John Piper’s A Hunger for God or Collin Hansen’s new book:A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir.                                                                                               [1] Samuel, Prime. The Power of Prayer: Illustrated in the Wonderful Displays of Divine Grace at the Fulton Street and Other Meetings in New York and Elsewhere, in 1857 and 1858. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991. Cover, p.1.            [2] ibid, p. 25.