Prayer Items from the District Overseers

The District Board of Overseers met on February 21-22 in Omaha. While the Heartland District got hit with a blizzard, the overseers worked on ministry plans to see the district intentionally advance and grow over the next three years. As we worked, we all felt it necessary to get the Converge Heartland family of churches to pray about a few critical matters. And, as you join us in prayer, please feel free to communicate with us if the Lord has specifically laid anything on your heart regarding these requests. 

• Pray for increased ministry capacity: Our district covers ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, and the I-29/49 corridor of MO. This includes 13 million people residing in or near 2,500 towns and cities. Regarding district fieldwork, we have a full-time Regional President, a quarter-time Church Planting Director, and a part-time Office Manager working hard to facilitate cooperation and provide strengthening services to 58 Converge Heartland churches. We need an all-in effort to increase our district's capacity for ministry to this vast region. What skills and capabilities are possibly available through our family of district churches? Pray for wisdom, creativity, and resources to this end. 
• Pray for our recruitment efforts: We desire to see at least five more churches planted, 15 more residents placed, and at least ten more churches affiliated. We aim to grow a pipeline of prepared ministers fit for service in the Heartland and beyond. Though a portion of recruitment can be done online, much of it requires a boots-on-the-ground connection, and all of this requires relational effort. Who in your relational network is showing interest in the work of the ministry? What churches in your region are isolated and perhaps looking to join a theologically conservative district of churches? Let us know so we can help encourage and explore that leading in a person or a church. Pray with us for God to send laborers for his harvest!
• Pray for advancement into new regions: We have little or no district presence in western ND and SD, in northern NE, in much of Kansas, and none in Oklahoma. Though ours are not the only gospel-centered churches throughout the region, there is much work to be done! Cultivating new territory requires time and presence. How might our district's pastors, lay leaders, and existing Pastoral LEAD Teams play a role in this?