Dear Members and Friends of Mt. Olive,

Mt. Olive’s Worship Committee was established for the obvious purpose of assisting in every way possible everyone who worships here. For the committee’s members that is not only the purpose but also their strong desire. One of the first things we realized is that if we are going to be of any real help, the Lord Himself will have to be involved, otherwise our efforts will be in vain. As in all the affairs of life, the way for us to have Him involved in our affairs, on our part anyway, is to invite Him to be a part of them, talk things over with Him, and seek His counsel and leading. Simply put, we call that prayer. So the first thing we want to focus on is to try to be of help to the congregation in its personal and corporate prayer life.

Most of us are of northern European descent. Some are not but even so we all often have the same tendencies. One of those tendencies is that we are somewhat hesitant to reveal our inner thoughts. A result of this is that we are reluctant to pray out loud with or in the company of others. That tendency is not necessarily wrong – but it can be wrong if we are reluctant because we are ashamed of our relationship with Jesus. Another downside of not praying with others is that very often it leads to not praying at all or at least very infrequently – and that also is not good.

So, what the Worship Committee would like to do this year is to encourage, help, and provide training if desired to all the members of Mt. Olive in their personal and corporate prayer life. This will be the main thrust of Pastor Henkel’s teaching and preaching also throughout the coming year.

We believe it is important not only to us as His children but also to the Lord that we become a praying congregation. Because of that we are committed to the goal of helping the members of our congregation to become a praying congregation. To help achieve that, we are thinking about initiating small group learning sessions of maybe just one or two hours at which every member would eventually attend. If it is not possible to attend one of the small group sessions, it could be done individually also in the home. As you can see, we would like to have everyone in the congregation involved in a healthy prayer life. This is not based on a whim, or on a desire for the committee merely to have something to do, but it is based on the both the desire and even the command of Jesus that we be a people of prayer.

Pastor Norb Meier, Worship Committee Chairman