We made it! It's Christmas, and I know that your day is filled with gift-giving and family and food and fun. Let's make a little room for Him, perhaps at the beginning of the day as we remember and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas. Light your advent candles, ALL of them and do this devotion.

Read Luke 2:1-20.

Do you remember the song, the Little Drummer Boy?

This song is about a little shepherd boy who doesn't want to go see baby Jesus without a gift. Finally he decides he can give the baby Jesus a song, and he plays his little drum. 

Come, they told me, pa rum pa pum pum.

A newborn King to see, pa rum pa pum pum. 

Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pa pum pum.

To lay before the King, pa rum pa pum pum, rum pa pum pum, rum pum pum pum, 

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum. When we come.

Little baby, pa rum pa pum pum

I am a poor boy too pa rum pa pum pum

I have no gift to bring, pa rum pa pum pum

That's fit to give the King, pa rum pa pum pum rum pa pum pum rum...

I hope that you will finish out your advent season by lighting these final 2 candles; one on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas Day. We will light our Love candle after 4 Christmas Eve services at church on Christmas Eve. It's going to be good to all sit around the table together, enjoy our meal and spend a few minutes talking about LOVE.

Ask: How do you define love? Share a time when you especially felt loved.

How does the world define love? Do you think people feel loved? 

Invite everyone to quote John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." 

How did God express His love? (by sending Jesus)

What did Jesus do to demonstrate the love of God?

Did He come to judge the world? 

Invite someone to read the verses that follow John 3:16, John 3:17-18

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ ...

I love to collect seashells. I don't know why. We bring them home and pile them in old styrofoam coolers where they serve as nesting spaces for spiders. Nonetheless, I go to the beach, walk a bit, and before I know it, I'm gathering shells that simply seem to cry out for me to have them.

This afternoon I decided to collect some articles online that talk about prayer. I hope you enjoy reading them. Just click on the titles to go straight to the articles.

Great Things Happen When You Pray

by Norman Vincent Peale

Here are some of his quotable bits:

Often a person will complain, “I’ve prayed and prayed and didn’t get what I wanted.” Well who said you are supposed to get what you want? Prayer isn’t a device to get what you want.

Prayer is a means of bringing you to the point where you will accept what God wants. If you’re using prayer just for getting what you want, your engaging in an improper use of prayer.

To live a full and happy life is to learn...

I love summer! It's a great time to not only eat watermelon, but also to catch up on some great bucket list items.

Things like:

• Take an online course to strengthen my prayer life.
• Read fiction that will grow my faith.
• Listen to podcasts that equip me to share my faith.
• Grow my prayerlife with the classics

And if your bucket list looks like mine, you're going to love what I'm about to do. I'm going to give you links to some of my favorite books, podcasts and online courses in hopes that you might soak them in as you enjoy this season.

Take an online course: The Prayer Course 

We did this course together with our Prayer Clinic team during 2020 when we were separated from each other due to Covid. It was SO good! And, it's FREE!! Here's the link: 

The Prayer Course

Read Fiction that Will Grow Your Faith:

I love fiction but I'm picky about the books I read. I need characters that are unpredictable, and those that are both good and bad. I long for narratives that are set in...

I had the privilege of interviewing a pastor today; one who got saved after he graduated from seminary and pastored a few churches.

How cool is that?! Listen to my Leighann McCoy podcast and you'll get to hear Rick Nelson's story next week. This week I posted an interview with Dr. Chuck Lawless who shares with us a great definition of spiritual warfare and discusses the battle to believe. You will love this conversation as well.

Back to Rick. As he was sharing, I thought how hard it must have been for him to overcome the humility of admitting to his congregation that he'd been leading them all this time and he wasn't even saved. And then, I got to thinking about how hard it is to live our faith authentically as we lead ministry. 

I want to encourage you today with these 3 truths:

1. It's okay to struggle in your own prayer life while you urge others to pray.

One of my favorite Bible stories is the one that tells of Jacob's tussle with God near the Jabbok...

 I've written 19 books, and most of them are on the subject of prayer. I could write a book a week between now and the day I die and I'd never exhaust the subject, nor would I reveal the entire mystery of prayer. (That's not going to stop me from trying, though!) 

But perhaps the most useful tool I've had the opportunity to create is this 4-session study called, Teach My Heart to Pray. If you haven't already done so, take a minute to watch the attached video.

Teach My Heart to Pray is designed to teach anyone and everyone what prayer is; how prayer works; what answers you can expect to your prayers; what barriers there are to our prayers' answers; and how to pray through to a break through. The study is designed to be taught in a Sunday morning, Sunday evening or Wednesday night church setting. It could also be used in home groups.

The material can be taught by me (on video) with a facilitator who is good at turning the video on and off, and leading discussion. Or, it can...

I don't usually use this blog page to promote events, but today I'm doing just that because I believe that the

ABSOLUTE BEST THING YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR CHURCH THIS YEAR IS TO OPEN A PRAYER CLINIC!

There are a few things we can do that make a really big difference in LOTS of things we can do. And one of those is this...

Come to a Prayer Clinic Open House 

In fact, come to our next one! We are hosting a special Open House for people who serve on Sundays. That would include pastors, prayer leaders, associational missions directors, pastors' wives, women's ministry leaders and any one else who believes that God responds in power when His people pray.

The next Open House for the Prayer Clinic will be held at Thompson Station Church in Thompson Station, TN on Wednesday, August 3 from 10:30-1PM. 

The day includes: Teach My Heart to Pray book, meeting with the highly trained and amazing Prayer Clinic team at Thompson Station Church, some extra surprises, lunch and time with me...

We are so excited to be sharing our Prayer Clinic Virtual Open House! 

If you've been following me for very long you know that I am passionate about prayer. I'm even more passionate about mobilizing your church to pray.

As a leader in the ministry of prayer, I know what it's like to sincerely believe that when we pray, God answers. I also know what it's like to try to convince my brothers and sisters in the faith that this is true.

I know how it feels to plan a prayer meeting hoping for a great turnout, and ending up with a faithful few. I've been the only one to show up to pray in the prayer room. 

But I also know how easy it is to never find myself in those places again. I've discovered ways to get our people praying and I've also discovered it's not that hard to do! And I'm eager to show you how you can get your people praying too. 

The Prayer Clinic ministry is the new and improved version of the church's intercessory prayer ministry. Instead of a rolodex we...

We get together in our church buildings for a lot of different reasons.

We get together to read and discuss the Bible.

We get together to plan mission trips and ministry projects.

We get together to worship.

We get together to play! (My grandchildren especially enjoy this kind of getting together.) 

And, we get together to pray.

Oh, wait--do we do that?

Do you?

If you were to take a pie chart and fill in all the space that you get together at your church building specifically for prayer--how much of your pie would you fill in?

A sliver?

A solid piece?

Most of the plate?

When Jesus mentioned that He wanted His house to be a house of prayer (Matthew 21:13), it seems to me that He thought that the main thing we'd be doing at church would be praying.

After all, the main thing they serve at Chick Fil A is chicken and so it makes sense that if Jesus said His house would be called a house of prayer the main thing we should be doing at church is praying.

The fact that we don't...

This is a quick update for my personal community, but this one time you are welcome to read on...

Throughout my years of ministry I've had one agenda and this is it:

I want to teach you to pray in such a way that you experience God's presence and His power in your life daily.

And, I want to do that same thing for your church.

To do this, I'm relaunching my leighannmccoy.com website SOON... (like hours and minutes not days and months soon). When the website is up and running you will be the first to know! 

I'm also podcasting this month on a subject that is not discussed enough. I'm going to address the crisis of faith in our young adult children who are declaring their freedom from the bondage of their Christian upbringing as they "deconstruct their faith."

This is a subject that is raw for me. If you've got kids you'd like to give a piece of your mind for Christmas, you can let me do it for you by simply sharing the podcast with them. We will send you an email each week when...