“Of all things, guard against neglecting God in the secret place of prayer.”
William Wilberforce
"Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus."
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
There are two things that are foundational to our ministry, whether it is interceding, worshiping, or ministering through acts of mercy and love. These pillars of what we do are: 1) Prayer and intimacy with Christ (first and foremost), and 2) we must be ready, willing, and available to go where God leads and to minister where there is a need.
Read more about our why we do what we do:
Prayer
So what is prayer? Put simply, prayer is conversation with God; however, many times prayer is approached as a “means to an end.” Crying out, clenched fists full of carpet and tears watering the floor. We often cry out for things essential to life, or sometimes it’s a longing to experience and know God more. But when a feeling is achieved, a need is met or an experience is attained…the prayer faucet is turned off. While God loves us and loves us coming to Him, the interaction He invites us to is one of intimacy. In other words, He didn’t create us for the happenstances that can so easily shake the resolve of our prayer life. Rather, He made us for a relationship with Him that thrives in the secret place, regardless of the uneven terrains of human existence. In other words, prayer (intimacy with God) is the end.
When we say that we are a prayer-based ministry, we mean that first and foremost we are dedicated to the place of intimacy with God. Any training or evangelism that we do, is done out of the place of prayer. We are very involved with 24-7 prayer (click here to learn more), and are dedicated to forming Christ-like community in life and ministry.
When we say that we are a prayer-based ministry, we mean that first and foremost we are dedicated to the place of intimacy with God. Any training or evangelism that we do, is done out of the place of prayer. We are very involved with 24-7 prayer (click here to learn more), and are dedicated to forming Christ-like community in life and ministry.
Sharing the Love of Jesus Christ
We believe that prayer changes a person, and the natural overflow of a heart abandoned to God in the secret place is a person passionately reaching out to the Lost, broken, outcast and poor. Working in Native America we have experienced the effects of generational poverty. Our passion is to not only disciple the teens we work with, but to help them dream about what they want to do in life, and walk the steps to actualize those dreams with them.
Having been born and raised in western (United States) culture, I’ve witnessed many attitudes toward the poor. This resulted in stereotypes that were engrained into my mind, leading me to think that most poor were either: lazy, alcoholic (or druggies), or criminal. God overhauled my mind when I went to La Paz, Bolivia, on a mission trip in my late teens. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the emotion of seeing whole families begging on the main streets of the city, people with just stumps for limbs, and a level of poverty so much closer to absolute than I had ever experience before. It is safe to say that I have never been the same; I never recovered. While a portion of my twenties was spent trying to figure out who I was, all of it was spent trying to understand, both, poverty itself, as well as God’s heart for the poor.
From having a homeless man camped in my yard for a year, to working with Native American (First Nations) youth, I have grown more and more hungry to understand poverty (specifically generational poverty) because the more I have encountered it, experienced it, and ministered in it, the more I have been changed by the love of God. The more passionate I have been to invest in building bridges out of poverty - not unto seeing poor people with more money, or their immersion into another class via upward mobility (those are just temporary benefits) - but unto the life abundantly found in Jesus Christ (John 10:10). ~ Joel Bidderman
Having been born and raised in western (United States) culture, I’ve witnessed many attitudes toward the poor. This resulted in stereotypes that were engrained into my mind, leading me to think that most poor were either: lazy, alcoholic (or druggies), or criminal. God overhauled my mind when I went to La Paz, Bolivia, on a mission trip in my late teens. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by the emotion of seeing whole families begging on the main streets of the city, people with just stumps for limbs, and a level of poverty so much closer to absolute than I had ever experience before. It is safe to say that I have never been the same; I never recovered. While a portion of my twenties was spent trying to figure out who I was, all of it was spent trying to understand, both, poverty itself, as well as God’s heart for the poor.
From having a homeless man camped in my yard for a year, to working with Native American (First Nations) youth, I have grown more and more hungry to understand poverty (specifically generational poverty) because the more I have encountered it, experienced it, and ministered in it, the more I have been changed by the love of God. The more passionate I have been to invest in building bridges out of poverty - not unto seeing poor people with more money, or their immersion into another class via upward mobility (those are just temporary benefits) - but unto the life abundantly found in Jesus Christ (John 10:10). ~ Joel Bidderman
