This list of things that I like to do is also the list of things that I intend to do even when I get very old and can’t do much else as a pastor. I can lead accountability groups even from a wheelchair if I had to. They are incredibly rewarding.

The second thing I love to do is to pray for God’s blessing on JBC and for all the families and individuals that are part of JBC. I am sure that my power and influence with God has gone up over the years because of the amount of time I have spent praying. God rewards faithfulness and over the last 30 years I have been devoted to prayer, and my faith in the power of prayer has grown steadily. I have come to the point in my ministry that I truly believe that what I am able to accomplish at JBC in prayer is greater than any other activity that I do including my teaching.

Over the years I have spent many hours praying for my sermons, pleading with God to guide me in my preparation and that He would grant me a special and powerful anointing while I preach so that the preaching time was a supernatural event with God changing every person’s heart who was listening. Now I pray with that same fervor and desire for Pastor Mike’s preaching pleading with God to do what He did for Elisha when He took over for Elijah and give him a double portion of what He gave to me.

I have a prayer journal on my IPad that is very complete. I have every person in JBC in it along with their picture and prayer needs that I have observed, also what I have cut and pasted out of the prayer letter each week and what they have communicated to me. If they have a ministry I pray for that to be very successful. I pray for marriages, kids, health, and many other things.

I also spend as much time as I can in our corporate prayer times, especially our “Five Day Prayer” events. I want to be like Anna in the Bible who was 84 years old and it says of her that she served the Lord night and day in the temple in prayer.