1. Pray for the Watkins family, as they prepare to move back to the USA on 1 May 2009.  Pray for good good-byes with them and the church.
2. Pray for Zolder50 leadership transitions (in light of Todd's departure).  Pray especially for Marc la Porte and Will Lafferty as new pastors-in-training for Zolder50.
3. Pray for a deeper hunger for God's Word; pray that we would become people who really know and love and study the Bible, both as individuals and as a community.
4. Pray for the development of home group leaders and the establishment of dozens (if not hundreds) of groups reaching out into every subculture of the city.
5. Pray for increased financial "ownership" among the members of Zolder50; pray specifically for €2200 per month in new monthly commitments, in order to reach our budget goals for 2009.

I thought it would be good to update you on a few of the items from our last set of prayer points... You're continued prayer in these areas would be greatly appreciated!

• Fire Safety Inspection - We're finally getting close to the end of our ministry center relocation!  There are still plenty of projects needing to be completed at the H88, but the majority of the major reconstructive work has been completed, and the two biggest rooms of the facility are more or less operational.  The most significant development in this area is that -- after eight weeks of waiting through back-orders and delivery delays -- our special fire-resistant doors finally arrived last Friday (9 February 2007) and are being installed this week!  The next step after installation is to set up an appointment with the fire marshal for securing official authorization to use the space for a maximum allowance of at least 120 people.  Please pray that this meeting could be set up sooner rather than later, and pray that everything will go smoothly so that we can start meeting in the H88 by the beginning of March (or as soon as possible).
• Home Group Alpha Course - Our home group recently decided to focus our outreach energies on hosting an Alpha Course, systematically presenting the basics of the Christian faith through times of dinner, teaching, and discussion.  We had great success with doing an Alpha Course about a year and a half ago, so we're looking forward to seeing what God will do through this round of things.  Right now, we're preparing and inviting non-believing friends that we hope will participate (we're excited to try and "populate" our course without announcing things to the church at large -- so that we can especially focus on bringing in people outside of Zolder50's existing sphere of influence).  We hope to start the course on 28 February 2007.

There's plenty of other things that you can be praying about, but I'll have to post about those some other time.  For now, we'd be very grateful for your prayer support in these projects.

Here are a few things for which you can currently be praying:

• Church Relocation - After a brief hang-up last week, renovation work is moving full-speed ahead.  We're hoping that we can finish the majority of the work on the two biggest rooms (the "Studio" and the "Lounge") by the end of this week.  Still, we need prayer for good cooperation with the contractors, a limited number of misunderstandings, and an efficient conclusion to the renovation process.
• Home Group Outreach Strategy - Our home group has recently felt burdened to more intentionally reach out to our neighbors and proactively share the Good News about Jesus with others.  Between now and the first of February, we're praying that God will give us a specific strategy for reaching out together as a home group (in addition to individual opportunities for daily "outreach" that God might give us).
• Spiritual Influence - For our Sunday worship gatherings, we're going through a series about Spiritual Influence.  The premise of these teachings is that one of the greatest needs in the world today is for people who can lead and influence the world for the Kingdom of God.  As we talk through different ways of influencing the world (through prayer, through the wisdom of the Bible, through evangelism, through strategic spiritual friendships), we're hoping that God will help to mobilize Amsterdammers to respond to the call for more workers to be sent into the harvest fields (see Matthew 9:38).