Prayer the focus of slumber party slated at My Father’s House, Lubbock, next month_82304

Posted: 8/20/04

Prayer the focus of slumber party slated
at My Father's House, Lubbock, next month

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

LUBBOCK–Girls know slumber is the last thing that happens at slumber parties. Shirley Madden hopes prayer is the first thing that happens at the one she has planned.

Madden, executive director of My Father's House, Lubbock, is throwing a prayer slumber party Sept. 17-18 to encourage intercession for her ministry and its Living and Learning Center.

She hopes more than 100 women will participate in the on-site slumber party, and she is inviting women across the state who can't come to Lubbock to hold simultaneous prayer parties in their own communities.

“It's a girl thing,” Madden said, describing the reason for the prayer meeting's slumber party setting.

“We want to create a heart-to-heart connection to pray for the future of our ministry. We would love to have women across Texas praying that night–if they can't come–joining us in asking God's favor on this ministry to empower women to be obedient and submissive to his will for their lives, to train them for new employment and to draw them to choose him as Lord.”

The Living and Learning Center at My Father's House, Lubbock, houses one of the two Christian Women's Job Corps sites in Lubbock, where low-income or otherwise disadvantaged women learn life skills and receive job training in a Christian context.

By Oct. 1, Madden hopes to receive the first four or five women into the program's residential component–an aspect of the Lubbock facility that will set it apart from other Christian Women's Job Corps facilities.

Texas Baptist Men Builders led in constructing the center, which includes 18 two-bedroom apartments for women and their children, as well as classrooms, a commercial kitchen, a day care center and laundry facilities where women will gain hands-on job experience.

For the slumber party next month, the center will have 100 beds available for women who need them, and Madden is asking younger women to bring sleeping bags.

“We'll have prayer teams in each apartment and prayer team leaders assigned to different sections of the building,” she said. “We want every part of the building covered in prayer.”

Last December, My Father's House, Lubbock, moved its Christian Women's Job Corps classes to the Living and Learning Center from Iglesia Bautista Templo in Lubbock, after the classrooms and office space were completed.

Madden expects the last of the flooring and air conditioning to be installed in the center's apartments within the next few weeks. The commercial-grade kitchen equipment also should be in place.

“I'm still waiting for God to give me some laundry equipment,” she said, adding the center also still needs furnishings for its child care facility.

But Madden refuses to allow last-minute details to stand in the way of what she believes is God's plan.

And she is convinced practically everything will be completed around the time of the slumber party.

“We may end up having our open house the day after the slumber party,” she said. “I don't know how I'll get 100 beds made in time for an open house, but we'll figure that out later.”

For information about the on-site slumber party, or for a brochure detailing ministry needs that could be the focus of a local prayer slumber party, call (806) 799-0990, e-mail smadden@mfhlcenter.org or visit the website at www. myfathershouselubbock.org.