Prayer Walking

We’ve just hosted a mission team from Hunter Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Our good ongoing relationship with them helps us impact our post-Christian city. One of their activities is Prayer Walking – when I say this, I realise it’s often just sitting around, and praying silently, while they observe the spiritual dynamics around them. However, their Pastor, Spencer Knight, earths this, by asking them when they debrief, “What spiritual needs did you notice in that location?”

I also once led a team to Turkey, where the evangelistic opportunities were slight, largely because of we couldn’t speak the language! The trip, however, turned into a Prayer Mission, as we interceded for the nation, and the particular towns we were visiting.

In KCBC, a German intern Student, Marleen, has initiated a Prayer Walk on Tuesday evenings. Although only with us for a few months, she has taken on a significant mantle of ministry. But it can sometimes seem a waste of time to simply pray in the open air. What exactly are we accomplishing?

Spencer often compares Prayer Walking to moving rocks. In farming, to prepare the ground for sowing, it’s necessary to remove the stones which get in the way. This important stage in missional preparation is often lacking, as we swing immediately, unreflectively, and automatically, into activism. But Prayer Walking is a specific kind of intercession, by which we identify with, and pray for, particular areas.

As God promises, “I will give you every place were you set your foot” (Joshua 1.3). This may take naïve and triumphalist forms, but it nevertheless reveals an important territorial spiritual imperative. While there are no short-term, quick-fix, results, such interventionist spiritual practices lay a fundamental foundation for long-term cultural missional preparation.

In my twenties, I met a guy who led regular prayer teams each year to an African Muslim country, where they were forbidden by law to evangelise. They were also forced to pray secretly, in their hotels, and silently, as they walked the streets, never knowing for sure what effect they were having. I was highly sceptical, feeling that their efforts might be better employed conducting some economic development programme.

But, after ten years, they were able to conduct an outreach campaign, with an Evangelist from Nigeria. Through this, they planted a church in that country (I’m keeping its identity secret, because there are still dangers facing Christians, and converts, there). Their patient work prepared the soil for this initiative; for, although Jesus teaches, there are different kinds of soil, yielding different harvests, the quality of the soil can be improved by prayer.

This event changed my mind about intercession. We are invited by our sovereign God to participate with his work in the heavenly places. This overturns my naturalistic secular mindset. It’s strange to think, but when our prayer team meets on Monday mornings at 7am, although insignificant in the world’s eyes, we can touch nations. Read Acts 4.24-30, to see how we can join in God’s own providential operations.