In this issue: activities to encourage spiritual growth as a family, including prayer and getting ready for school.

This issue brought to you by Sam Butler

In Home Prayer Walk

Your home matters. In Deuteronomy 6, we learn that the ancient Israelites understood the home as core to learning the heart of the godly life–to love Yahweh, our God, with all our heart, soul, and with everything left. During this season of quarantine, distancing, and working-from-home, many of us have experienced a re-orienting of some of our home spaces. As a family, discuss the most important spaces in your home. Why are they important to how your family lives? What are each of these spaces used for? What are the conversations and activities that most saturate these spaces? Take some time and walk through your home (and yard) praying for the activities and conversations that may take place there as we enter the Fall Semester. Walk the outside perimeter of your home, praying for the presence of God to continue to be felt there. Pray that your home may be a place of hope, safety, and joy.

What conversations and activities define your…?

• Living/Family Room
• Kitchen
• Dining Room
• Bedrooms
• Hallways/Staircases
• Deck/Porch
• Yard
• Garage/Driveway

What prayers need to be prayed over these spaces?

Encouragement for Teachers

As we continue to refine and plan for what education at FRCS will look like this year, take some time and pray for the teachers with whom you will partner this Fall. Our teachers are exercising creativity and confidence as they reimagine what education and discipleship needs to look like this year. I am confident that their education and love of our students will be excellent. But, as always, they need our prayers. They need encouragement. Know that we, even now, are praying for you and your families and what God may have in store for us this year!

As FRCS faculty and staff are returning to campus this week, take a moment and send an email, note, or card to the teachers that you/your students have this year, letting them know why you have confidence and pride in them. Your voice means so much to them as they continue to strive after what God has called them to do.

A Prayer and a Blessing for the Return to School

We cannot wait to see you in just a few weeks! We have missed you more than you know. Our desire always is to meet you and your families where you are–to know and love you with the love of Jesus. We have some great things planned for this year to continue to pursue the hearts and souls of our students.

People of God,

Our God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is the Only One.
Let us love Him with all our heart.
Let us love Him with all our soul.
Let us love Him with everything we have left.

Let the assurance of God’s love rest on you hearts.
Teach His love to your children with diligence.
Talk about His love when you sit in your home.
Think about His love when you rise in the morning,
walk in the day,
lie down at night,
and rise the next morning.

May our hands be a sign of the work of the Kingdom yet to be done.
May our eyes see every person anew, as Jesus sees them.
May our feet lead us in the way of Righteousness and Goodness.

O Lord, grant Wisdom to those that teach us and our children–
that they may be filled with the love, patience, and knowledge of God as they lead those in their
classrooms in the way of Truth.
that they may be faithful partners with the home that You, O Lord, so dearly cherish and value.
that they may continue to create an educational culture that promotes the Kingdom of Christ and
His eternal reign.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Keep us in new and unending faith.
Keep us close to you as we learn.
Keep us far from evil and at rest in your eternal Rest.

Amen.