I've been promising stories and I finally have the first of hopefully many. This is from Ronnie Walker, the pastor of a local church. I hope you are challenged and encouraged by this story.
During the fall, 2008, First Baptist Church Belleview engaged in 40 days of prayer walking. An area within a five mile radius of the church campus was mapped out, with that large geographical “pie” divided into 8 pieces or zones. Eight zone leaders were enlisted, and they in turn were challenged to enlist 10 other people to join them in prayer walking their respective zone. The enlistment system worked well and 80+ people were enlisted.
The strategy involved prayer walking on at least two given dates with the intention being to pray solely for the purpose of asking God to show us how and where He might be working in the zones we were covering. We wanted to hear from Him by way of seeing things which might prompt us to recognize Him at work in the neighborhoods. Our teams came back with refreshing reports as to how God showed them some “indicators” where He was at work, or in many cases some “indicators” or “prompts” which He used to guide our intercession. For example, many empty homes were discovered, and many homes with for sale signs. The implication was that many people are in transition, and by that, in some sort of crisis due to relocation. There was a sense of heaviness in many neighborhoods. This all came from observations and impressions given by the Holy Spirit. In no case did we engage people in conversation on this phase of the prayer walking effort.
Then, in the spring we engaged in a 40 day period of prayer using a prayer guide titled “Seek God for the City” distributed by Waymakers ministry. This 40 day period ran from February 25-April 5. During this 40 day period we did a prayer walk (covering our respective zones again) with the intention to ask the Lord to let us engage people and pray with them as He provided the opportunity. Those in my zone had great experiences and several opportunities to pray with, and before, people. In our portion of our zone, Alice (my wife) and I had several occasions to pray with entire families. Several of these were families having yard sales for the purpose of just trying to “make ends meet” during the tough economic times. In one instance, the Lord directed us to stop and introduce ourselves to a man and his children. As we did we discovered that he directs a Christian recovery program for men being released from prison. It was a very definite Divine appointment!
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of our prayer walk however, was our asking God how He would use us to invest in the zone; how we might personally connect with a family for a longer period of time and disciple them toward the Lord. As we prayed for that, the Lord placed a young family on our hearts…a family living in the zone we were prayer walking, though we had not engaged them during any of the walks. We knew this family from prior contacts through the parents of the young man. With them on our hearts, we went to their home. We told them openly that the Lord had put them on our hearts as a result of praying in their neighborhood. We further asked them to join us for lunch on a given Sunday, and at lunch we asked if they would be interested in doing a seven week structured Bible study, offering to come to their home every two weeks in order to cover the seven sessions. They agreed. We began going, and to our blessed surprise they are soaking in our efforts to invest in them by way of very elementary Bible study and discipleship.
During our most recent time with them (Alice had baked them a cake…always a good way to “sweeten” a relationship) they were clearly attentive and appreciative, stating at the end of our session with them, “we recognize that God put you in our lives.” We acknowledged to them that we recognize that God had put them into our lives as well, and that it was all a direct result of prayer walking their neighborhood. Further, we have told them that they are now responsible for their entire neighborhood, and that we will walk with them in the effort to reach their neighbors for Christ. We expect to do some things with the neighborhood children during the summer, and perhaps just simple hamburger cookouts to assemble other families and connect with them In any case, the entire connection has come about as a result of simple prayer walking…walking with Jesus through a neighborhood asking Him to show us where He is working and allowing Him to make the connections.
Awesome! A great book on prayerwalking is called "Follow Me: Becoming a Lifestyle Prayerwalker" by Randy Sprinkle. Another free resource is this pamphlet called "Prayerwalking Made Simple" by Chris Scofield.
Blessings,
Shiloh
No comments:
Post a Comment