Prayer Walk
Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. - Jeremiah 29:7
It all started with a prayer walk. It was 15 years ago this spring, and Stacey and I were praying about whether God was calling us to plant a church in the Old Town/Pfafftown area. I was unsure, a little bit apprehensive, bordering on scared, and lacking in clarity.
So, I decided to take a prayer walk, something I had heard about but had never tried. Not sure of where to start, I ended up going to the Food Lion in Pfafftown and leaving my car there, started off on Grandview, walked to Reynolda, turned right toward Winston and by mistake turned right on Leinbach. When I got to Shattalon, I was completely turned around. It took a couple of phone calls to figure out where I was and how to get to my car, but eventually I made it back. That’s the physical route I took.
Spiritually, it was a whole different thing. As I walked, I prayed. I prayed all kinds of things – to hear God speak, to know His will, for the people in the houses I passed and for the people in the cars that passed me. I prayed for the city. I prayed for clarity. I prayed for help and wisdom. I prayed for other people that would launch out with us; I prayed for the people who might someday be part of this church that did not yet exist.
I spent a lot of time just listening, being quiet in my spirit to hear if God might reveal something I needed to hear. Prayer walking is great because it gives your body something to do while your spirit is engaged in seeking God. Prayer walking is a metaphor in many ways for what it means to walk with Jesus – going step by step together in conversation and in silence, following His lead, expressing the needs of your heart, taking a journey together.
I cannot say I heard from Him that day, but I can say that in the days and weeks to come I gained greater and greater clarity of His calling. Within a few months, Bridges was born.
If I close my eyes, I can see certain parts of that walk, especially the time I stopped walking and looked out over the fields behind what used to be Leinbach Machinery and thought of and prayed for God to send out workers into the harvest fields of Winston-Salem.
If I close my eyes, I can see other prayer walks we have taken over the years including one through the neighborhood in Pfafftown where we live now. I had no idea then that I would be living here now. The Spirit is fascinating in that way. He knows what we do not, and yet later reveals that He knew all along what we are just discovering.
Today, if I open my eyes, I can see that Bridges is the answer to so many prayers prayed that season. God has been and continues to be faithful. We have seen Him at work and He continues to walk with us as we walk with Him. We have met so many wonderful people and our lives are the better for it. That prayer walk is still producing fruit all these years later.
This Saturday, March 26 from 9am-11am, we will be taking another prayer walk, this time in the neighborhoods surrounding the church, continuing the prayer walk started 15 years ago.
As we walk, we will pray for the people in the houses we pass and for the people in the cars that pass us. We will pray for God’s Spirit to move in the hearts of our neighbors we are called to love, that their hearts will be open to God and that their needs will be met by the God who loves them.
We will pray for the city we call home. We will pray for its peace and prosperity. We will pray for God’s presence to be evident. We will pray for new life and salvation to come to those who are lost. We will pray for God to move in ways only He can. We will pray and look for Him to act.
It takes faith to do a prayer walk. We may never see the fruit that comes from it. That’s up to God; not us. But we can walk by faith and not by sight and we can pray with open hearts. Prayer has the power to change lives – including our own.
So, join us this Saturday if you can and let God lead you. Come ready to pray and spend time with Him. Come with expectation and anticipation of what God will do.
You are an answer to prayer. May many more be the answer to the prayers we will pray this Saturday.
Prayer Walk
Saturday, March 26, 9:00 -11:00am
Meet at Bridges Church