Hi friends & family,

As mentioned in our previous update, our church is hosting a Night of Prayer & Worship for Emma on 7/28. We’d love for you and others to join in.

We want to give you details in a format you can forward to any friends.

The basics:

7/28, 5-6:30p
CityScape Church
3617 Macon Rd Columbus, GA

Childcare for 4 and under will be available. Reception to follow.

All are welcome. More details below.

What is the Night of Prayer & Worship? What’s it for?

It will be a time of guided prayers and music to help us collectively connect with God.

We help each other pray. When we pray together things happen in our minds and hearts that don’t happen alone.

A few weeks ago, James, our eight-year-old son, prayed the below for Emma with me. His simple prayer clarified my own powerfully.

He helped me pray simply and faithfully. We can help each other pray — for Emma, yes, but also to generally connect with God.

What will we be praying for Emma?

• Gratitude. Emma’s life is a gift.

• Healing. It’s faithful to ask God to heal.

• Strength, courage, and faith. If God doesn’t heal, we will need greater strength to love her well daily and carry out the purposes God has ordained in her difficulty.

• Death would lack authority in our hearts. To live as if death doesn’t have the last word.

Is the whole evening about Emma?

Emma will be featured heavily as a prayer prompt, BUT!

All of the above prayers for Emma are for each of our lives, too: we all are living with incredible gifts from God, in need of healing, in need of greater courage & faith, and living with death in our future.

The prayers offered for Emma can inspire and direct prayers for other people and situations, too. We want to encourage this. So does our church leadership.

Ultimately, this is just about offering our hearts collectively and corporately to God. Emma’s situation is a prompt to do that.

What’s prayer and worship at CityScape like?

Our church is musically gifted and prayerful. The music and words offered throughout the evening will be enjoyable. You can get an impression of what our worship is like below:

Who’s welcome?

Anyone. This is open to the public.

Even if you’re not spiritually inclined (or not sure), we’d love to have you join in. There won’t be any required participation that would violate your conscience.

Can out-of-towners participate?

First, we’d be grateful for you to pray simultaneously, even if you’re far away. We’d be encouraged by that.

Second, if you’d like to come in from out of town, we’d love to help organize evening accommodations for you.

Reception to follow

We’ll have a casual gathering after the service. Details will be announced that night.

What’s our heart behind doing this? Why?

Simply put, we desire more of Christ, and scripture says in various places there’s more blessing in seeking Him together.

One example:

We pray that this cry of David’s heart would be ours,
both privately and publicly, all our lives.

When do we bless the Lord? At all times, even in the terminal.
How do we exalt Him? Together.
And where is blessing found? In Jesus, when the storms of life drive us to Him for refuge.

We would love to begin as we intend to go on, and we would love for you to be there to help us make good on the mandate of together.

We’re meant to praise the Lord alongside you. This is an intentional opportunity to do that.

We believe there’s blessing for all of us in this.

I got forwarded this. Why are we praying for Emma?

You can read background on Emma’s diagnosis and prognosis in our original post here.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

We hope to see you on 7/28 if not before.

In the deep Hope,

Katie & Stephen