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Prayer-walking

PRAYER-WALKING

What is prayer-walking?

Prayer-walking is simply praying in the very places we expect God to bring forth his answers. Prayer-walking is usually a low-profile affair: Friends or family stroll two-by-two through their own neighborhoods, schools and work places, praying as they go. Once in a while the prayers can be demonstrative, but most prayer-walking is fairly quiet. It's usually being on the scene without making one.

The purpose of prayer-walking is to seek God's guidance, mercy, and transforming power—both for the community, and for ourselves as God's servants in the community. It’s becoming more aware of the needs in your community so that specific prayers can be offered and sometimes met through you.

Guidelines for prayer-walking

Pray aloud in a quiet, conversational voice, if you feel comfortable doing so. Or pray silently, letting your prayer partner(s) know what you are praying about. Don't call attention to yourselves. As the Waymakers website puts it, "You can be on the scene without making one."

If anyone asks what you are doing, be prepared to respond: "We're praying God's blessing on this neighborhood. Is there any special way we can pray for you?"

Although it is not the primary purpose of prayer-walking, be open to opportunities to interact with and bless people that may grow out of your experience. The Waymakers website explains the connection between prayer-walking and faith in action:

As you pray God's promises with specific homes or worksites in view, you'll find that hope for those people begins to grow. You'll begin to see people as God might view them. You'll likely find yourself becoming more interested in the welfare of the people you are praying for. In other words, you might find yourself becoming the kind of neighbor that you always wanted to be. Watch for the ways God impresses you to display his love in practical acts of kindness. Be ready to offer to pray with your neighbors as opportunity may arise. Ask God to give you opportunity to explain clearly how people can enjoy friendship with God by the power of the gospel.

Plan to walk for about half an hour. If anyone in your group is not comfortable with walking, they can prayer-drive around the neighborhood instead.

Afterwards, talk about your observations and experiences. What did you learn about the neighborhood? How was God manifest in this experience?

Continue praying for your neighborhood during the week.

How do you pray?

Pray for discernment -- Seek the gift of seeing the community through Christ's "lens," and to discern what God is already doing there; ask God to show you how you can pray with greater insight for the people, events, and places in the community.

Pray for blessing – Pray over every person, home and business you encounter; for God's intervention in each life, so that each one can be fruitful in God's kingdom; for God's will to be done in this community "as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10).
– Pray over every person, home and business you encounter; for God's intervention in each life, so that each one can be fruitful in God's kingdom; for God's will to be done in this community "as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10).
Pray with empathy -- See and feel what residents live with every day; offer intercession for those things that express brokenness and grieve God's spirit, and give thanks to God for the blessings and gifts that exist in the community.
Pray from Scripture -- Prayers based directly on God's word can be especially powerful. You may want to bring a Bible with key passages highlighted, or copy verses onto note cards.
Pray in God's power -- allow times of silence for God's spirit to speak to you, or through you (Romans 8:26). Ask with confidence in the power of Jesus' name (John 14:12-14). Like the disciples sent out by Christ, we are empowered to push back the darkness (Luke 10:17-18).
-- Seek the gift of seeing the community through Christ's "lens," and to discern what God is already doing there; ask God to show you how you can pray with greater insight for the people, events, and places in the community. – Pray over every person, home and business you encounter; for God's intervention in each life, so that each one can be fruitful in God's kingdom; for God's will to be done in this community "as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10).

Above taken and edited from: www.waymakers.org www.putyourfaithinaction.org www.urbanministry.org

Additional thoughts when pray-walking is hard

“Why could I not just as well stay at home and intercede?” This is the oft asked question related to participation on a prayer journey. The answer is, “You can.” And God will as surely hear and respond to your prayer as He will to the prayers of those who go. While location” may or may not be important to everyone, it is of utmost value to the prayerwalker. To pray while seeing, feeling, touching, and hearing is to pray with more intensity. After the prayer journey is over, you will never pray the same way again for the location of your walk and the people you met there.

A valuable insight into the purpose of prayer-walking was offered by a missionary couple serving among an unreached people group in east Asia. They said, “We would like to see a spiritual harvest,but we are seeing none. We would like to say that we are busy watering seed that has been planted, but neither are we doing that. We’d like to tell you that we are faithfully planting seed for a future harvest, but this has not yet been our ministry. We wish we could share with you that we spend our time breaking up the soil for the planting of seeds. Not so. Quite honestly, ours is a ministry of rock moving.” “Rock moving” is the job of intercessors. A Prayer Journey allows you the privilege of walking and praying among the rocks.

An additional value of location-praying has to do with presence. Since Jesus lives within you and the Holy Spirit works through you, there is a sense in which your prayer-walking provides light in dark places and salt in unsavory places (Matthew 5:13-16). If your body really is a “temple of God” (I Corinthians 3:16) then where you go, you represent His presence.

During the prayer journey Satan will try to convince you that prayer-walking is not for you, that it does no good, that there is no visible result, that your team members are not as committed as you,

that you are using your time foolishly. He will try to disrupt team unity and bring in outside adversity. As a master of distraction he will try to distort your focus and defeat your spirit.

You cannot war with Satan inyour own strength and you certainly can’t single-handedly destroy his fortresses. James instructsbelievers to, “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7). You are not to command Satan, you are to resist him. Why would you want to talk to Satan, demanding that he refrain from some activity or remove himself from some place, when you have access to One infinitely more powerful and authoritative than Satan? So, don’t talk to Satan, talk to God about Satan. Don’t look for a demon behind every bush. Look for the evidences of God all around you. Don’t press the enemy, praise the victor.

So prepare yourself. As God’s people in an earlier day prepared themselves to cross into the promise land, Joshua said to them words that might well be said to you, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5).

Fear not. As God told Israel, God tells you, “I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you’” (Isaiah 41:13).

Trust God to do the work even when it seems your prayers are futile. Of a rebellious people, perhaps of your people, God said, “I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’ to a nation which did not call on My name” (Isaiah 65:1).

Stand back and be amazed. God told Habakkuk in response to his cry, “Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days - you would not believe if you were told” (Habakkuk 1:5)

From Prayer-walking: An Orientation Guide Dan R. Crawford International Board, Ltd., China Office (SBC)

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