I rarely ever, in fact, have never done this before but I'm doing it this week because this message is so important for us to embrace. In preparing for my podcast this week I came across a powerful message from Tony Evans titled, The Authority of Binding and Loosing. I encourage you to take a few minutes to go and listen to it.

What follows is the manuscript to my podcast. Feel free to go listen to me share it, and then enjoy having the notes for yourself. TEACH THIS!! It's important! And if you haven't already started a Prayer Clinic ministry at your church consider doing so. And let me help you succeed. It's what I'm here to do. :) 

Binding and Loosing...

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus said, “ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

Many times we hear this verse and take it terribly out of context. We go about binding in Jesus’...

In all my years as a Christian, I've never thought about it before Sunday when Sam mentioned it in his sermon. His 3rd point in a message based on the passage of Scripture in Numbers 14:5-10 was this: 

"I forgot the promise in the Promised Land." 

The Israelites sinned against God  by forgetting that He always...always...always keeps His promises! 

They followed a God who proved Himself faithful over and over again as they wandered in the desert and yet, when it came time to actually get. to where they were going, they forgot.

Aren't we like that too?

Don't we sing those great songs in our services on Sunday mornings, then crawl out of bed on Tuesday and face our struggles as if He's determined to let us down?

I think the problem is that we expected the "Promised Land" to be handed to us without a fight. We feel the spit of the giants we face and back down. We draw up in little balls and cry about being abandoned by the very God who brought us to this...

We are a prayer-powered church and we have a prayer team of 40+ people who are faithful to the task of praying for the needs of the people. We are most encouraged by answered prayer! But when those answers seem to take a long time to come; here are some facts that we embrace in order to keep our faith strong.

Share these with you praying team and be encouraged. You might text them a quote a day, a quote a week, or a quote and a song! Whatever you do, sit with, and soak in, the truth of these statements.

"To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing."

—Martin Luther

"We pray when there's nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all." —Oswald Chambers

"We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties." —Oswald Chambers

"Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but...

I love to collect seashells. I don't know why. We bring them home and pile them in old styrofoam coolers where they serve as nesting spaces for spiders. Nonetheless, I go to the beach, walk a bit, and before I know it, I'm gathering shells that simply seem to cry out for me to have them.

This afternoon I decided to collect some articles online that talk about prayer. I hope you enjoy reading them. Just click on the titles to go straight to the articles.

Great Things Happen When You Pray

by Norman Vincent Peale

Here are some of his quotable bits:

Often a person will complain, “I’ve prayed and prayed and didn’t get what I wanted.” Well who said you are supposed to get what you want? Prayer isn’t a device to get what you want.

Prayer is a means of bringing you to the point where you will accept what God wants. If you’re using prayer just for getting what you want, your engaging in an improper use of prayer.

To live a full and happy life is to learn...

I had the privilege of leading a class on prayer for Gateway Seminary last week and was reminded of my favorite prayer resource. It was inspired by the Navigator's prayer wheel that provided a tool for spending an hour in prayer. Through the years I've adapted that wheel and come up with this: (Please feel free to adapt, copy, share, share, share!)

How to Spend an Hour in Prayer

 Spending an hour in prayer is easier when you break it down into 5-minute segments. Here are 12 five-minute segments with Scripture guides. Read the Scripture and do the activity (praise, watching, confession, etc.) for the entire five minutes. Move on to the next activity when five minutes are done.

1^st 5 minutes: Praise God for His Attributes.

• Proverbs 18:10
• Psalm 7:17, 145:17 and 63:3

2^nd 5 minutes: Wait in silence.

• Psalm 46:10
• Psalm 27:14
• HINT: Keep a notepad handy, if your mind wanders to your “to do” list, just jot it down then concentrate on clearing your mind.

3^rd 5 minutes:...

I love summer! It's a great time to not only eat watermelon, but also to catch up on some great bucket list items.

Things like:

• Take an online course to strengthen my prayer life.
• Read fiction that will grow my faith.
• Listen to podcasts that equip me to share my faith.
• Grow my prayerlife with the classics

And if your bucket list looks like mine, you're going to love what I'm about to do. I'm going to give you links to some of my favorite books, podcasts and online courses in hopes that you might soak them in as you enjoy this season.

Take an online course: The Prayer Course 

We did this course together with our Prayer Clinic team during 2020 when we were separated from each other due to Covid. It was SO good! And, it's FREE!! Here's the link: 

The Prayer Course

Read Fiction that Will Grow Your Faith:

I love fiction but I'm picky about the books I read. I need characters that are unpredictable, and those that are both good and bad. I long for narratives that are set in...

The National Day of Prayer on the first Thursday in May is quickly becoming one of the most powerful evenings in our community. Last year we partnered with Mark and Lee Ann Rampulla, dear friends and pastor/wife who serve at Southview Church about 3 miles south of our campus. We gathered the area pastors and worship leaders together for a worship and prayer service focusing on the 7 pillars of society that are the theme of the National Day of Prayer (Government, Media and Entertainment, Military and First Responders, Education, Business, Family, Church). 

But before I share how powerfully God is working among us, let me first give you a little background. 

During Covid, in 2020, Mark partnered with other pastors in our community to gather the area churches together and we all got to be part of what turned out to be thousands of people participating in a drive-in worship and prayer event at our large "Ag Center." 

Fast forward to 2022, we got together again with the...

I had the privilege of interviewing a pastor today; one who got saved after he graduated from seminary and pastored a few churches.

How cool is that?! Listen to my Leighann McCoy podcast and you'll get to hear Rick Nelson's story next week. This week I posted an interview with Dr. Chuck Lawless who shares with us a great definition of spiritual warfare and discusses the battle to believe. You will love this conversation as well.

Back to Rick. As he was sharing, I thought how hard it must have been for him to overcome the humility of admitting to his congregation that he'd been leading them all this time and he wasn't even saved. And then, I got to thinking about how hard it is to live our faith authentically as we lead ministry. 

I want to encourage you today with these 3 truths:

1. It's okay to struggle in your own prayer life while you urge others to pray.

One of my favorite Bible stories is the one that tells of Jacob's tussle with God near the Jabbok...

This post comes from some Facebook messages that were exchanged many years ago. I'm sharing it with you now in hopes that it helps you wrestle with and explain to others how they respond to God when they're haunted by the challenge that their own faith might be causing them to miss out on His best in their lives.

The mother who wrote me the message was spending her days at Vanderbilt Children's hospital with her 2 year old hooked up to life-saving devices because she'd been diagnosed with leukemia. 

(Remember this was many years ago...)

A few weeks ago, I received this facebook message from a friend:

“Hey Leighann, I am struggling with all the Scripture that people teach about having enough "faith" and people will be healed. I feel so stuck, I feel like I am still processing most of what we went through…before my daughter was sick, I just thought being a Christian meant that God was just gonna bless my life and not have any bumps along the way. Especially...

This is the 3rd and final post in my series on "Why the Church Needs to Pray" be sure to scroll back and read the other 2 posts. In this article I want to introduce you to 3 Praying People Whose Lives are Living Proof of what happens when prayer is priority.

E.M. Bounds (1835-1913)

Edward McKendree Bounds died in 1913 and yet he has a facebook page and website today. I wonder if he knows that. E.M. Bounds lived his life from 1835-1913, serving in the ministry during the tumultuous years leading up to, during, and after the Civil War. He was a chaplain for the confederate army and even served time in prison (in Nashville, TN!). Fortunately for us, he spent much of his time writing. His books on prayer are CLASSICS because their words continue to bear fruit for the kingdom today. 

E.M. Bounds on the priority of prayer: 

"What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of...