Prayer Pods

We have been members of FBC Waco for one year. It is hard to believe that I am able to type that sentence. Time has flown by. In a strange way we also feel like we have been here much longer than 365 days. We joined a story already being told and we feel it. Thank you so much for allowing us the privilege of serving along side you in the cause of Christ. You words and deeds of encouragement feed our soul. Thank you.




My hope for last year was to see significant change in congregational attitude. I wanted church to be fun in the holiest sense. It has been said that laughter is carbonated holiness. We have laughed together. We’ve wept together and we have developed as sense of expectancy. God blessed us last year and we should be grateful.



I sense that this year needs to be about a few simple things. We must continue to address the alignment of ministries and systems. We need to critically appraise all that we do. Above all we need a revival of prayer. My prayer about our prayer (better than a meeting about a meeting) is based on Zechariah 12:10. I’m asking God to pour out a , “spirit of compassion and supplication.” We are simply not enough but God is all sufficient. One simple thing we can do to foster this renewal is organize a collection of prayer pods.



Seed pods are little clusters of life. Prayer pods are to. Our Wednesday gatherings will be dedicated to three things this year. We will prepare for Sunday worship. 2. We will disciple children and students. 3. We will pray. I’d like to gather our congregation in small groups for prayer that will partner with each other during the year to encourage intercession and share concerns. These groups will pray around tables during the mid-week gathering. Following an encouraging devotional we will pray. It will take a few weeks to organize the pods so look for opportunities to sign up. You can sign up now by emailing me at msnowden@fbcwaco.org. I believe that God intends to do great things in and through us this year. Let’s be joyful participants in his mission.

Gifts From the Road

We recently took a trip to visit family in Mississippi. Our kids had a wonderful time and were more than a little sad when it came time to leave. To make matters worse, our daughter Molly Katherine discovered that she left something at my parents house when we had made it thirty minutes down the highway. It was not a turn around worthy item. It was one of those simple chunks of plastic that define a five year old's life for a few hours. I tried to console her by saying, "Molly Kat, the road gives us gifts." The road produced a gift a little bit later.

My parents gave the kids jars of coins when we left. They let them play with them and then handed them as gifts. A few hours into our trip we found a Coinstar machine at a grocery store. We let them feed their jars of filthy money into them.  We were surprised when the machine spit our coins from India, Israel, Russia and other countries.  These were coins that I had tossed into the big coin jar at my parent's house years ago - gifts from the road. The kids took their receipts and purchased more chunks of plastic. I pocketed the international loot and  remembered good times. The road really does offer us gifts.

Life is a journey and God wants us to receive his gracious gifts along the way.  We must develop a reflective attitude in order to appropriate this traveling mercy. I highly recommend Alister McGrath's wonderful introduction to Christian spirituality titled, The Journey: A Pilgrim in the Lands of the Spirit. He writes about the type of posture we need by summarizing it this way: Remember, Anticipate, Resolve to deepen the quality of our Christian faith and life in the present. He is a sound traveler and we'd be wise to hitch a ride with him. Check out the book and enjoy the gifts of the road.