 Welcome to the August edition of Cornerstone Connect. We have a very special program planned just for you. Pastor Gary Mitrick shares with us how prayer is not only a powerful tool in our lives, but a weapon of our warfare as well. And then missionaries Doug and Deb Tunney share how Cornerstone Network and you aid in the impact they have in the city of brotherly love. And Crystal Tillman joins me to invite you to be a part of CTVN's 21 day prayer journey. All that and more coming up next. Amanda Brocker, your host for Cornerstone Connect. And we're so glad you've joined us for this month's edition. And I just have a quick question for you. I need to know, have you received your newsletter in the mail? We love to stay connected. So please give us a call at 888-665-4483 or go to ctvn.org and make sure you sign up to receive our newsletter. Well, it's an exciting time. And we just thank you during the summer that there are some of you who are writing in to let us know your thoughts and we greatly appreciate it. This letter comes from, let me see, Tom and Marge. We truly enjoy your show origins. The episodes are so clearly presented by your experts. They make a convincing case for the universe in all of life being created by God and not through the big bang theory or evolution. This particular episode is fascinating from the standpoint of other civilizations using the Bible stories in their communications. Wow, I can't wait to share this DVD. Just goes to show how God's word will be known to all for his glory. Thanks so much and keep the episodes coming. Well, we bless you, Tom and Marge. Thank you so much for writing in. It is so important that we know that our making was not just evolved or appeared or anyhow, big bang, what? It takes more faith to believe that than to believe in a design, divine designer who made us and molded us for purpose. And this is from another friend. She said, hello, just recently, I saw your station with at home with Arlene who reminded me of my mom. I watched her every day along with many others. God bless you all for your time. Thank you so much for writing in. We're all loving what Joe Ligo's done with at home with Arlene. And she really just does make us feel all at home. This comes from Carol. She said, thank you for your programs. I loved the movie Pilgrims Progress. My favorite shows are Origins, Hard Questions, The 700 Club and Superbook. Please pray for good health for my family and God bless you. Well, Carol, we do pray for your family and for your health. God, I ask that you administer to her father, God, and just let her know that you are there in the midst of everything in her life. And we give you glory, Father, for that great peace that only you provide, Father. And this comes from Myring, who's an Elizabeth PA. She said, dear Pastor Gary Mitrick, I just had to write and share the wonderful blessing I received during your Pentecost broadcast. I watched you on channel five, Cornerstone. I am an 80-year-old widow. When I was watching one of your programs on Pentecost, I am on a limited income, but I still was led by God to give a sacrificial gift of $50. A week later, I received a letter in the mail about a payout of $800 from a settlement with my husband's workplace by August 1st. Praise God. He is so loving and kind. I just kept praising God for the gift. God provides and watches over us widows. I love him so much. He also provided a way for my sins to be forgiven through his beloved son, Jesus Christ. I have been a Christian for many years now since childhood. Thank you for your wonderful programs. They're bringing peace and happiness to my soul. Myring, thank you so much for writing into us. And that's why we exist, to be present for you. And we could not do this apart from our faithful donors, just like yourself. So just know how grateful we are to be present and in people's life, always giving them hope. Well, coming up next, we have Pastor Gary as he shares with us how prayer, it's not only a powerful tool in our lives, but it is a weapon of warfare as well. Stay tuned. Well, I'm so honored to be sitting with Pastor Gary Mitrick, the chairman of the board here for many years at Cornerstone Television. And Pastor Gary, today we get to talk all about the power of prayer because Cornerstone Television is starting a 21 day prayer challenge on August 29th. And we're just so excited to have you share from your personal experience about the power of prayer. Why should we pray? That is one of my favorite, favorite subjects, Anna. I believe everything God does in the earth, he does in answer to somebody's prayer. Prayer is such a powerful, powerful gift and tool that the Lord has given to us. First of all, it gives us the ability to communicate. Think about that. We get to talk to the Father in Jesus Christ's name. When we use the name of Jesus, it's like the doors are open, we have access and it gets us into His presence. You know, a while ago this past year, I started to get up, the Lord started to get me up at two o'clock every morning. I get up two o'clock, I don't need an alarm clock. God wakes me up and I just, I get into the word for a while, then I spend hours and hours in prayer before I go out into my day and I tell you what, and it has changed my life because you cannot spend time in His presence without it actually transforming and changing your life. Yeah, I believe that. And so you talk about when you're there, when you're in the presence of the Lord and you're able to communicate with Him how our prayers are powerful and effective. Like the word talks about the prayers of the righteous being powerful. That's right. Well, there's a lot of different kinds of prayer. You know, there's warfare prayers. I mean, we're in a battle against the enemy. We have an adversary, the devil, who goes about as a roaring lion. And we need to resist him. We need to battle against him. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against principalities, powers, the rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness in high and heavenly places. And then, you know, for a lot of people, maybe they're not even familiar with spiritual warfare kinds of prayers, but you know, we have authority. We have power in our prayers to shatter strongholds. Jesus said, whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven. So I love the translation that says, whatever you permit shall be permitted. Whatever you forbid shall be forbidden. And I always tell people, don't complain about what you permit. It's truly incredible to think about the authority that Christ has given us to come boldly to the throne of God in prayer. Can you just speak to that person who maybe just they desire a richer prayer life. They're not sure they're ready to get up at 2 a.m. and pray for hours, but how does someone begin to enter into the presence of God and talk to him? Well, I love the word because the Bible is filled with a lot of great prayers. Like go, go to Ephesians chapter three versus 14 down through 21. It's a prayer. Just, you know, start by maybe just quoting the word, praying the word. The Bible says that the word when it's prayed will not return void, but it's going to accomplish what you send it to perform. And I always tell people, God's will is in his word. You know, I don't have to pray, Lord heal me if it be your will. I know the Bible says at the same time, he took my sins, he took my sicknesses and diseases. So I believe the key, if you want to be a better prayer, Jesus was, he spent hours, he spent nights in prayer. You know, the disciples would go get something to eat. Jesus would go up on the mountain to spend the night with his father in prayer. You just got to just get in his presence. And you know, sometimes prayer is that you doing all the talking. It's just getting quiet before the Lord and letting him speak to your spirit as well. I love that. And that starts another question then. How do we hear from God? How do we discern his voice? It takes practice, it takes practice like anything. But I believe that the more you got to be still, sometimes it's not that God isn't speaking, it's you got to quiet all the other voices that sometimes are overshadowing God's voice because his voice, the Bible says is a still small voice. And so sometimes you just got to quiet yourself and you know, you could get silent, but your mind is still going, going, going, going, going, going, going. And sometimes it just takes discipline. It takes just, you know, practice to get before the Lord, get quiet in his presence. Sometimes I just begin with some praise and worship because that's where he lives. He lives in the praises of his people, get in his presence, get quiet before him. And sometimes it'll be an impression. It'll be a thought you'll feel or hear. You may not hear this audible voice. I've never heard God's audible voice, but I get an impression in my spirit and then you kind of just got to heed your hunches, go with what you feel those impressions are. Yeah, so in the final 45 seconds, can you encourage the person about the faithfulness of God to his word and his promises? Well, I would encourage you as Cornerstone Television is putting a 21 day prayer challenge out there. Why don't you get involved in it? That's a great way, I believe, to just enhance your prayer life. And you'll be praying for Cornerstone Television, but then many, many others will be praying for you. And again, get into his presence, get into his word, and just get a hold of the promises of God and pray the word because the word works. Amen. Well, Pastor Gary, thank you so much for sharing your heart about prayer. And we're just so excited to have you join along with us. You are our Cornerstone Television family. We want to pray with you and walk through this 21 day journey along with you. So check us out online, call us, we'll get you all the information you need to join along and get into God's presence. We're so thankful to have Crystal Tillman today on Cornerstone Connect. So Crystal, tell us about this event that we are planning for our Cornerstone family and it has to do with prayer. Absolutely, we're so excited for our 21 day prayer journey, 21 days of walking in God's power, God's presence and God's purpose. So we're looking at starting August 29th, going 21 days through September 18th and really getting our viewership family into the presence of God and doing that corporately together. One of the first things I want to encourage our viewers to do, if you could go right now to ctvn.org slash journey, that's where you can find the free download and discover more about this exciting progression. Okay, so what is our purpose? You know, why are we doing this 21 days of prayer? Well, I don't know if you've been watching the news lately, but there's a lot to be anxious and panicked and fearful about. And as I talk to Monica, who works faithfully in our prayer center, I'm finding or she's finding that more people are calling in, saying that they're dealing with anxiety, they're dealing with panic, they're dealing with oppression even, demonic oppression in their households. So we're responding to that and refocusing and resetting on the things of God. So we want our people to understand what the scripture promises us, which is that we can walk in God's power, there's victory in prayer. We can walk in God's presence if we stay in God's word and we commit to time with Him and we can find and discover our purpose in Him as well. So that's part of the purpose. And as they go through this prayer journey and they go to ctvn.org slash journey, they'll find all of the prayer prompts, they'll find action steps, ways to personalize this 21 days to where they are individually. So excited about that. We'll be praying through seven different prayer categories. Okay, and as a person participates, what might it look like personally for them? Well, they may wanna add a different element. So as they go through the download, they'll find a verse, they'll find an action step and they'll find the category for the day. But we also want you to, of course, pray before the Lord and ask, okay, should I be prayer walking with this? Or should I add a journaling element? Or do I wanna drive through my neighborhoods in prayer, bring in a family member or a friend? So those are some of the ways that you can personalize this, customize it, and really make this 21 day prayer journey your own. Yeah, so what would you say for someone who they have a very busy schedule? Is this still doable, like the app? Like what time consumption, what would you say? Absolutely, it's gonna take just five minutes of your day. And one of the ways to make it easy is to follow us on social media. So if you go to our Facebook page at CornerstoneTV, you'll find reminders there. You'll see us praying along with you and it will help you on your journey. You can do it in the car, so it's really easy. And I know oftentimes we get frustrated in prayer because we feel, we see the setbacks. We've tried before, we've tried these challenges before, but we failed or we stopped five days through and it's like, oh no, it was day 21 and I haven't got caught up. But now's a good time to just jump up on that bandwagon and try again. Even before the 21 days, I ask for our Cornerstone family to be in prayer for those who will be joining in that God will give them the time and the motivation to be a part of this. This is so important and I feel like it's another way that we're responding to the needs of the people that God's called Cornerstone to minister to. And all this is made possible because we have donors that are so faithful to support our network and just I love to give that opportunity for you to speak to those people who they're 100% behind us, they're giving on a regular basis and now they're even equipping us for this prayer movement. Absolutely, so we say thank you to you for your ongoing support for all we do at Cornerstone Television, for bringing the Gottlie programs and then for bringing opportunities for campaigns like this to help people find practical ways to get closer to the Lord. One of the things I'm excited about too is our upcoming Hope Today programs. So you wanna stay tuned to Hope Today all the way from that August 29th and September 18th, we're gonna be starting with a special program and ending with a live program on September 18th at 8 p.m. So a special opportunity to join in through prayer, through praise and worship with us, so don't miss it. That's right, well, you've heard the dates, so make sure that you save that date, tell us again what it is. August 29th through September 18th, September 18th is that special closing program. Okay, and again, on their smartphone, tell us one more time, what was that? So we want you to go to ctvn.org slash journey, sign up, get the free download, let us know that you're committed to this, that you wanna be a part, begin to grab your family members to be involved, follow us on social media at Cornerstone TV. We'll probably even post some of them on our YouTube page which is slash cornerstone television, and so there's many ways, we'll send you reminders, so sign up now. Amen, well, I guess just to prepare for our prayer event, why don't you say a prayer? Absolutely, so dear God, we just thank you for this opportunity to come together as your people. God, we pray that you would give us a heart of commitment to be solid in this 21 days, God. We thank you for helping us to consecrate our hearts ahead of time with repentance and forgiveness, God, so that you would hear our prayers. But God, we pray that we just thank you that we'd recognize your faithfulness in this season to help us walk in power, to help us walk in your presence, and to help us walk in purpose in Jesus name. One of the great things about being involved with Cornerstone television is Cornerstone Cares where we get to partner with so many great ministries and one of the greatest is Youth of the Mission of Philadelphia and Deb and Doug Tunney are with us today to talk about that ministry. Hey guys, welcome and I want to ask you, Doug, right off the bat, tell me about the prayer station ministry because I know that Cornerstone has been able to give money towards prayer stations. Tell me what that is. So 1991, 1992, a friend of mine in New York City, his name is Nick Savoka, came up with the idea of Lord, how do I get to reach people for you? And Lord said, pray for them. He said, I do that all the time, what do you mean? He said, no, let it be the first thing you say is pray for them. So the words are, can I pray for you? That's the first five words. And so then this table was created with a big banner that says prayer station. And we'll show you a picture of that. So that's what it looks like. And so bring the table out to the people, give some Christian books on the table, free hot chocolate or free iced tea, stuff like this and just go for it. And so we did that. And then when the buildings collapsed in 9-11, we had 40 of these set up throughout the city. We ministered to hundreds of thousands of people and we had 3,000 received Christ during that time period. So when I moved to Philadelphia in September of 2019, I said, Philadelphia doesn't know about prayer stations. They don't have any in the city. And so about a year ago, I began to introduce it to the city of Philadelphia and churches can buy them from us from youth of the Mission Philadelphia. We have prayer stations, they can get them from us. And we've trained 37 churches that bought prayer stations. And so we have 47 zip codes. So I want two in each zip code because I want to get the church from the seats to the streets and it's such a, and it's a magnet. Once you set it up, people come to you, you don't have to run out to them. They come because they go, wow, free Christian books, free iced tea. And then you say, can I pray for you? And then after you say that, also I want to share the gospel with you. And they're always wide open to that. It's amazing. I've done the prayer station ministry and it's just like you stand there and people come up, they come up and they're like, hey, are you doing prayer? And I'm like, yeah, I just started praying for, it's awesome. It's so good. So Deb, what have you seen in the churches that you've trained like the change that it brings about? Yeah, we belong to a really awesome intercity church. In the first times we visited there, I thought these people are amazing. They're on fire for God. They love God. You can tell some of them have been serving the Lord for 40 years and yet there's a disconnect. They have a burden for the city. They want to make a difference. They don't know how to do it. They don't know what to do. So this was the perfect tool for them. We trained, what did you think? 220 just for that one church. Just one church. And so they began to come, these some older women, sometimes older men, young women, young men. And they experienced the thrill of their salvation from the beginning, right? Cause when you first say you're all excited, you tell everybody it's really exciting. And now they're getting to experience that. It changed the whole culture of the church. People stop me all the time and they say, what you're doing? Bring in prayer stations, giving us a way to bring the gospel, change me, change my family. And it gave us an expectation in our church. We're gonna make a difference. We can be an answer to the need of the city. And I think it's essential. It is a tool that ignites and empowers and makes a real difference. And just last week I found a man in the city. He says, Doug, I want to offer you something. I said, what, 50,000 free bibles. Yeah, we have a picture of the fella here. Yeah. He's getting one of the bibles. You see the smile on his face. And Saturday I was out and this boy come by and I said, do you want a Bible? He said, you give me a free Bible? I said, well, where are you going? He said, I'm going to see my dad for Father's Day. I said, take one for dad too. He said, nobody in our family has a Bible. And there's stickers when you open it up, there's stickers that if you want comfort, there's a verse for this. If you want ministry of some kind, so all these guides through these bibles, it's just beautiful. And so they're free to us. And so we're gonna give them out all throughout the city. We have 1.4 million. And the idea is that YWAM is gonna come together. The Youth of the Mission, all the YWAM bases in the Northeast is gonna come together in a few months to Philadelphia. And we're gonna distribute those throughout the whole city. That's the idea. That's fantastic. Let me ask you about if a church was seeing this, they say, hey, that's a great ministry. YWAM Pittsburgh can also train them. Of course. YWAM Philadelphia, wherever they happen to be, they can get ahold of your website. They'll probably contact you that way, right? Get through YWAMphilladelphia.org. They can just come to us and they can buy prayer stations. They can get the training through us. It's such a powerful program. I know. And again, there's that thing of, so many of us say, I know that my city needs something. I know my neighborhood needs something, but I just don't know what to do. And I think a lot of people, a lot of churches are in that frame of mind, but here's a perfect way that you can see something transform by a very simple process of just, can I, what's the five words? Can I pray for you? There you go. Simple. So, Dev and Doug, thank you so much for being with us today and take the time to make a difference in your neighborhood. I sure hope you enjoyed our time together. I know I always do. I love learning about what's happening and being on the forefront of everything here at Cornerstone Television. But talking about prayer and it's essential to our everyday life, there were some situations, my family's gone through and I can tell you that those moments that we had to just sit in the presence of God in order to be still and have peace in our mind, in our body, even in our spirit, because things in our household were not going perfect with our kids and it just seemed like, Lord, this is overwhelming. But I can tell you that those moments in our life have helped me to, I look at it like, well as being Doug within my own life of love for my child that was wayward and I can tell you today, those prayers have been answered. We're watching the fruit of those prayers. It didn't happen overnight. It happened over a course of time but I tell you that if you stand on God's word and you go to Him in prayer, God goes into action and He does what only He can do and I had to not be the Holy Spirit in those moments and trying to get my son, persuade him to change but I really had to go to God and let God do that work within His heart and it's been a blessing to our entire household to just see Him flourish with the Lord and growing and wanting more of God and being set free from addiction. But we just thank Jesus for that power in prayer. It truly is a weapon that we can use as a believer and just another instance we had recently happened with our ministry, we needed a new box truck. We had a gas leak. It was like one issue after another. We pick up thousands of pounds of food every month through the dream center to deliver to areas in need and the food bank was like, you can't bring that truck back here anymore because it was just, the problem was too great for their garage to handle and God blessed us with a brand new box truck that we didn't have to go out and buy. That was a miracle but that happened because we went to God in prayer. God knew our need. We didn't know how it was gonna come about but God provided and I can tell you if He does things like this for people like us we're ordinary or for Russ and Norma to open a television station and the 10 years of prayer that went in before this station ever went on air. God will surely move on your behalf and I wanna encourage you, those of you who support us we have a book available by Dr. David Jeremiah this month. It's called Forward and it's discovering God's presence and purpose in your tomorrow for your best gift of continuing to support our station. We would love to put this book in your hands just to help grow your faith and maybe even give you prayer points. You know, as you read and you sit with the Lord every day it is so important and we just want you to know the great love that God has for you individually. It is that love that we've received that we desire to give to those around us that they might come to know Jesus as their Lord and savior and all of this is only made possible by your love and support to our network. Thank you.