Crosspoint Prayer Gathering Presentation
Below you will find the script from a presentation that was shared by Love Akron's Executive Director, Mark Ford, at the quarterly prayer gathering held at Crosspoint Alliance Fellowship.
We have just witnessed the powerful positive impact the transforming gospel of Jesus can have on the culture when Christ’s Church unites as one to pray and co-labor with the other influencing sectors of the community to address the needs of a county or a city. The catalyst for Clay County’s success was their commitment to come together to pray for God’s wisdom, guidance, protection and blessing and then by working with the other influencing sectors of the community.
Quietly, yet methodically, Love Akron is serving as a catalyst on behalf of Christ’s
Here are a few illustrations of how Love Akron serves as a catalyst to CONNECT us together as One Church to address a need in our cities and county. One great need that is too often politely ignored or in some cases denied is the division that exists between the colors, cultures and congregations in our society. Since one value of Love Akron’s mission is unity, we chose to acknowledge the need for someone to “step up to the plate” and bring together gatekeepers in Christ’s Church to tear down walls, destroy divisions and build bridges of understanding.
Perhaps some of you may not know that Love Akron served as a catalyst to birth as well as heavily fund an organization called Imagine Unity. A task force of your peers meet monthly to build bridges of trust and to tear down walls that keep us apart. Their role and goal is to lead Christ’s Church in creative ways of understanding and communication. Monthly I meet with this team and represent you, because I know that unity is one of your values as well. Imagine Unity is but one ministerial fellowship I gather with monthly and you are there, because you make it possible for me to represent and connect us to a multitude of civic and Christian alliances.
Love Akron also serves as a catalyst of coordinating lines of COMMUNICATION between us and the larger community as well. Many of us are aware of the horrible tragedies that occur all over the world. All I need to do is to say words like, Haiti, Louisiana, Katrina or Mississippi and we all know the devastation that can occur in a region be it natural disasters or otherwise. I personally have pondered the question; “is the church of greater Akron ready to rise to the occasion should a tragedy occur?” So one of my objectives as Executive Director of Love Akron is to position the local church and para-church ministries as a resource that communities can turn to during catastrophic times, because we have a plan and we are prepared and ready to serve.
Captain James Betts, an officer in the Salvation Army and I have set in the family restaurant to discuss this very subject. I just met with Toby Ann Weber, the Chief Executive Officer for the Red Cross of Summit and Portage Counties to discuss how Love Akron could partner with them in this kind of crisis. We are working together to construct multiple ways the Church can assist in the time of need.
I am happy to tell you that we are more ready today than we were yesterday because of our relationship with SUMMA. Due to the hard work of people who serve with us in ministry such as Chaplain Deborah Demore and Robert DeJournett we are establishing an emergency response communications system that will be utilized should a crisis occur.
One of the projects in motion to assist Love Akron to serve as a catalyst of communication is the redesign of our new website which will serve as a communication center for the Christian community. We will link with other Christian organizations locally, regionally and nationally to bring you up to speed with things that will better equip you to do what God has called you to do and for us to do together. Each value of our mission; prayer, unity and collaborative ministry, will have a page dedicated to featuring the news, information and resources of each unique area.
One of the key pages will be prayer and I have asked the pastor of prayer at The House of the Lord, Delphine Allen to serve with me in coordinating the prayer mission of Love Akron. We have an aggressive vision for prayer in Summit County and you may be contacted in the near future by Pastor Allen and members of her task force. Delphine along with the website and other communication outlets will be there to both serve you and to serve with you.
This brings me to the last core value – COLLABORATING MINISTRY. Love Akron serves as a catalyst in bridging COLLABORATING ministry, ministries and ministers as team members in the Greater Akron Community.
Many of you received an e-blast from my office a few days ago, asking you to respond to a request from the Clerk of Council for the city of Akron, Bob Keith, to pray publicly before the start of the weekly City Council meeting. The city approached Love Akron to fill this need because they are aware of our ministry relationships and our respected history. I told Bob Keith before I would accept his invitation for Love Akron to provide ministers or ministries to pray, that unless we could stand and pray in Jesus Name, we were not interested. He assured me that we did not need to leave Jesus at the door and that they were not going to tell us how to pray; so I said count us in.
I want to say how proud you made me when Bob Keith, the Clerk of Council shared with me the wonderful response he has received due to your involvement. Love Akron was the Christian Ministerial coalition that the city approached to meet this need. Love
I want to express that I am humbled to represent you to the church at large and the larger Akron community. I often say, Love Akron is not me, rather it is we. It is my personal conviction that we are living in an incredibly exciting, yet critical time in history where the need for Christ’s Church to unite in prayer and to work together has never been greater.
Therefore, I as well as the board of directors, who are your peers, have taken some bold steps of faith in order to ratchet up the ministry of Love Akron. One of the boldest steps of faith we have taken occurred in January of 2009, when the decision was made that in order for Love Akron to successfully accomplish its goals and objectives for our city, it needed someone who was willing to commit full time to the ministry. So the board of directors asked if I would assume the responsibility of being the Executive Director of Love Akron. Allow me to cite a few examples why many believe this decision was not just a good idea, but a God idea.
1. Because of the generosity of a wonderful Christian business man Love Akron has been provided office space located strategically in the heart of the city on the corner of Market and Main streets, next door to our Congresswoman Betty Sutton’s Akron headquarters.
2. Because of the generosity of another Christian business man, Larry Riley, a layman from St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Akron, this beautiful office was prepared and painted without cost.
3. Because of the kindness of another Christian layman, Scott Campbell, a member of Hope United Methodist Church in Kenmore donated his labor to construct in the Love Akron’s office beautifully crafted furniture and an administration assistant’s work station.
4. Because of Dr. Mark Ruppert, the paint and supplies were donated as a gift to the ministry by Sherwin Williams.
5. Because of the kindness of Perry Clark and the servants of Truly Reaching You, the office was moved free of charge.
6. Because of the generosity and vision of a couple who are ministry team members of Love Akron, today I am happy to introduce our new brochure, hot off the press. We are making available a t-shirt that spells out the true message of Love Akron, by adding an e to the end of our name. I am sure you get it that Love Akron is all about our unified oneness. One Church, One Cause, One Community and One Christ is our motto and mantra. Another way of saying it is One Community, One Savior, and One Purpose. Whether you say with alliteration or without the word that is common to both is ONE.
7. Because the generosity of some of you and the ministries & Churches you represent I am afforded the rare opportunity to focus full time on the mission and vision of Love Akron.
I could cite other confirming instances as well but for the sake of time, I will simply say each day God seems to reveal His blessing as a sign of approval.
Friends, we have journeyed a long way together but there is much more to do. I need your prayers most of all and your moral support. Many of you have expressed your appreciation for what Love Akron is doing together and I am thankful.
However, a few of you support this ministry financially and I am grateful for that as well. For you whose ministry you represent, who are not presently giving at this time, I would ask that you prayerfully consider supporting Love Akron financially. If 75 additional individuals and 75 Churches would give $20.00 a month toward the ministry of Love Akron, together we could generate $3,000.00 monthly toward the financial need. I was reluctant to even mention the subject of finances, because I did not want to cloud what I have just presented with any suspicion that this was a set up to talk about money. But, some of my colleagues persuaded me to swallow my pride and lay aside my fear and graciously ask for your help.
Because of our relationship some of you have made me aware of the financial challenges that you as well as all of us are facing personally and in our ministries as well. I feel your pain and I want to believe with you for financial miracles and supernatural provision.
One of the ways that a few of you are supporting Love Akron is by opening your pulpit for me to share my heart and then to receive a Love offering for Love Akron. Recently, Pastor Tom Badanjek, of Hope United Methodist Church in Kenmore, graciously extended that opportunity for me to speak to his wonderful church family. I was both surprised and overwhelmed with their generosity. I want to again offer myself to come to your church and share a message or a brief 7 minute presentation on the mission and ministry we do together here in the Greater Akron area.
As I have stated, some of you are not able to give financially, but you can give of you time and talent. I will not take the time to give you a menu of the myriad areas we need for individuals to get involved. You can go to the website and look at the list of involvement opportunities.
I will conclude this brief time of sharing my heart with you by relating an event that I experienced a few months ago while attending the Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration at the Akron Urban League. This annual event is co-sponsored by Akron General Hospital and the Urban League, so Mike Rindler, the Interim CEO of Akron General was present. I was afforded the opportunity to meet him for the first time. He was interested in what I did, so I briefly shared with him the mission of Love Akron. Mr. Rindler then asked me a favor. He said, “Mark I want to get acquainted with the faith community in the Greater Akron area, would you be willing to invite some of your colleagues on my behalf and allow me to host a luncheon and brief them on some of the good things that are happening within the Akron General community?” I told him that I would be happy to do this.
Some of you were present at that luncheon and heard him share an idea he has for the Greater Akron area. Mr. Rindler said, “I have been thinking about bringing together the CEO’S of the three major medical institutions of Akron to consider an idea.” Mike asked, “what if the three institutions made a commitment to select a particular disease and for the next five years pool their resources together, to attack this malady with one major goal, if possible, to stamp it out or at the very least to significantly reduces its presence in Summit County?”
Right now, some of you are thinking the same thing that came to my mind when Mike raised this challenge for the medical community. “What if, the pastors and para-church leaders of Summit County would make the same kind of commitment to the Greater Akron area?” “What if we chose just one spiritual cancer that plagues our cities and said together we are going to pool our time, talents and treasures together and devise a noble goal to significantly attack this spiritual malady?” There are cities that are seeking to some degree to address this valiant dream. Clay County Kentucky is but one example.
I wished I had the time to share with you what God is doing in Knoxville, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas, Fresno, California, Houston, Texas and scores of other cities. I can assure you, although many of their stories are different; one common denominator that is consistent in all of their stories is this. God is honoring the prayers, unity and collaborative efforts of
Some of you have heard me share this allegory before, and I do it once again by crediting Darrell Brake, the Director of Because He Cares Ministry here in Akron for the inspiration. I heard Darrell and Dewayne Crabbs speak to a group of Civic leaders some years ago, at the AES Building regarding the vision that Love Akron seeks to carry out. Although, I can’t recall if Love Akron was in existence at that time, already the seed of the vision and mission of this ministry was being planted in the hearts of these city and county leaders. Darrel put it all together for me that night with this statement, “all we are trying to do is connect the dots of the ministries and churches in the Greater Akron area.” All at once I had an epiphany or aha moment.
This is what I saw in my minds eye. I saw a dot to dot picture where the dots were not connected. We all know that until the dots are connected the image is indistinguishable. But, once you connect the dots an image emerges that had been clouded in mystery. I think that is Love Akron is all about. Love
My brothers and sisters, together we are writing our chapter in history. I am excited about our future in spite of all of the challenges that are before us. As God uses us to partner with Him, by God’s grace, I am convinced that the best is yet to come!!
Thank you for listening to my heart and my prayer is that God will abundantly bless each of us as we remain faithful to the high calling we have in Christ Jesus. Amen!!