40 Day Cleansing Guide
Introduction
This leader’s guide is designed to help you as a pastor or ministry leader direct your congregation or ministry group through a solemn assembly in preparation for The Call.
The program being provided here is simply a template for a gathering designed to spiritually prepare your group for The Call being convened in Nashville 07/07/07. To maximize our time that day, it is recommended that between now and July 7th churches sending groups walk their congregations through this solemn assembly.
This accomplishes two things: (1) It can tune up a group in advance to what the Spirit is wanting to accomplish at The Call. That way the many thousands who are coming will be on the same page much quicker so that we can be that more effective when we gather as one voice at Titan Stadium; (2) It allows those in your ministry organization or church who cannot come to Nashville to still feel connected to The Call by experiencing a ‘local’ solemn assembly.
The following program notes are meant as a guide only – feel free to customize this program as you follow the leading of the Lord.
Additional Documents
You will find, in addition to the actual program, documents entitled
- Backgrounder 1 (PDF)
- Backgrounder 2 (PDF)
- Backgrounder 3 (PDF)
At certain points in the program, you will be directed to one of these documents. These are meant to help you in your preparation to lead your solemn assembly. The other document
- Cleansing Your Home (PDF)
is a plan designed to help people ‘pray through their homes.’
Preparation For Your Solemn Assembly
We recommend that you as a pastor or leader teach on the idea of why calling solemn assemblies (or whatever name you want to use to name your event such as A Worship and Prayer Watch, or Called for the Call) and why encouraging believers to pray through their homes is important. You might do this one week ahead of your actual assembly.
Should you utilize this, the Cleansing Your Home prayer guide could be something that your people apply during the week before the assembly itself. Note: The document is formatted for you to be able to print it out two-sided and folded over, bulletin-style, so that your people can insert it in their Bibles for future reference.
Program Notes
Opening worship.
It is recommended that songs of majesty, such as Great is Our God or Here I am to Worship be used. Because this is a solemn assembly it is recommended that celebratory songs be used at the conclusion. This opening period of worship can be upbeat, but because we are preparing the people to go into a time of repentance, songs should be selected that focus on the Lord.
The explanation of the solemn assembly.
This section is intended to set the stage for what is to follow. The two reasons stated for The Call, are stated here. In order to focus your congregation on the rest of the gathering, you will need to briefly comment on these two themes. You want to be careful not to get lengthy here though, because more detailed exhortation will be given during the next part of the program.
Exhortation.
If your congregation does not understand ‘identificational repentance’, then you may need to spend a little bit of time explaining why it is important. Daniel 9 has been suggested as an example of how a righteous man can still identify with the sins of his people and come before the Lord in repentance.
The time allotted to this section should be no more than 10-15 minutes; otherwise the people may find themselves fatigued before they have a chance to respond in prayer – which is the primary reason for the assembly.
The worship response here should be songs of reflection such as Open the Eyes of my Heart.
Two Issues. We have provided two short essays that we have called Backgrounder 1 & 2. Read these for they will help you shape your thoughts about how to guide your congregation through this process. You may want to have two different people give three or four minute exhortations for each one of these issues. Again, the more people that can actually be involved in a solemn assembly the better.
Prayer Prep. The prayer preparation can be handled in different ways. We suggest that at this point it would be helpful if the congregation could stand and get into prayer huddles of three or four. Much as you might see at a Concert of Prayer, these prayer huddles would be instructed to respond to the pathway of prayer preparation that we have recommended here. You could, for example, select four different people who would each come to the microphone and lead one of these points of preparation. They could pray for a minute and then the prayer huddles would be instructed that they would have a minute to respond together. The worship response should be songs of confession or expressing dependence on God such as Breathe (This is the Air I Breath).
A Time of Confession.
This is the central reason for which you are gathering
First Repentance. Another paper entitled Backgrounder 3 is designed to help the leader walk through these seven areas of repentance. In order to stay focused, we would recommend that the pastor or leader actually lead the people through these seven issues. What the leader could do is give a brief explanation over what the issue is based on Jeremiah 2:1-13, and designate seven people to come up to the microphone and actually pray the prayer of repentance.
Second Repentance. This section of repentance – for opening the door of rebellion – can be handled somewhat differently. Referring back to Daniel 9, you could arrange for a responsive confessional in which the leader (or different leaders if you would designate) would state something to which the people would then respond. This could be arranged either as a power point or a handout.
You will note that we have used Daniel 9 as our roadmap, but have customized the reading to reflect the specific issue we’re addressing. That which is in regular type is taken directly from Daniel 9; that which is in green type is meant to focus on the issue of closing this specific door.
You will also notice that this section is designed as an interplay between all the generations, each generation responding specifically in different ways. The key, here, is that the responsive reading be expressed by the Baby Boom Generation (those born between 1946-1974), the 60’s generation who witnessed The Summer of Love in 1967, which most regard as the beginning of the Counter Culture Movement.
A Time of Declaration.
This section is designed to wrap up the evening. One way to do this is to have different prayer leaders come to the microphone and speak out these declarations to which the congregation can respond with an ‘Amen’ after each breakthrough is declared. The same could be done with the Covenant Points.
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