September 2026 Prayer Letter

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Dear Ignite Prayer and Fasting Partners,

           

   I had a meeting today with a friend of mine who is a local church leader. His church is looking for a pastor, and he wanted to see if I knew anyone who would fit their context. His desire is to find someone who would focus on helping people know Jesus and follow his Word. I applauded his focus, because that is what is most important. My  encouragement: bathe the search process in prayer, from beginning to end. You understand the importance of our prayers each month. Thank you for making the time to lift these monthly requests before the Father. I know your prayer effort continues to lay the foundation for Ignite as we move forward.

Here are the items I would ask you to pray for during September:

• Church Planting Leaders Retreat, Sept 14-17: Andy Hamilton and I will be making our way to Colorado to meet with other church planting directors from across the country. This annual retreat is a time to share best practices, to learn what others are discovering and to be encouraged by friends. Please be praying for open hearts and ears to hear what God wants us to bring back to Chicagoland.

• Reaching a New People Group by a Daughter Church: At the CO retreat last year, I listened to one of the speakers talk about unreached people groups in America. One mentioned was the senior population (55+), which makes up 30% of our nation’s population. I felt the Spirit’s nudge during this session and realized that I am a senior and that I understand something about church planting. The elders at Adventure gave their okay to conduct a beta-test for a church plant to this people group. From September 13-November 29, I will lead an “experiment” focused on this people group in the area. Please be praying for this 12-week beta-test. The things we discover from this may lead to daughter churches for seniors being started across the region.

• Parent Churches: As we prayed, the focus of our annual Pentecost offering was to help potential parent churches have funding for a daughter church. We are looking for more churches, like Adventure, who have their eyes on a people group, have a person who could lead the daughter and a space to host the new church. Please ask the Father to bring us 5 parent churches (we have grants we want to give).

• Latino Church Planters: Darla and I had some friends come to Chicagoland last month to look over the harvest field of the region. They lead a church planting agency that raises up Latino leaders. John and Becky Bliffen went with us to the city where we visited the Little Village neighborhood. After our time together, John left with a vision to help us by looking for Spanish speaking leaders who could start churches to reach the 2 million Hispanics in Chicagoland. Please pray for this to happen.

One of our core values at Ignite is Possibilities, thank you for praying to the God who makes the impossible possible.                                                                      

                                                         I am grateful for you, have a great September, Lance

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