Prayer Walking

Below is a note I wrote for our church's newsletter.  If you read this blog but do not attend or live near our church, I encourage you to become involved in prayer walking efforts where you live.  The wonderful thing about this practice is it works everywhere and Christians of every stripe can do it.

Adopt a Street – A 2014 Prayer Initiative

HillSong Church

            In 2013 our church sought to live out of the love of Christ in our own neighborhood by partnering with the Culbreth Park home owners in a neighborhood cleanup.  Since then, we have been back in the neighborhood to build a ramp for a home owner that needed it.  On May 31, we will help with another neighborhood cleanup.  Through these acts of service we try to embody the New Testament spirit of generosity.  We want the world to know of Christ’s love and we want to show that love by helping in practical ways.

            Before we began those efforts, we prayed for our neighborhood, for the homes in closest proximity to our church property.  We have continued our relationship with the neighborhood and will continue it into the future.  We pray as a way of seeking guidance for every work we do in Jesus’ name.

            In 2014, prayer itself will become another way we come alongside the communities closest to our church property.  As our church prays for the neighborhood, we will join a movement that is spreading throughout Chapel Hill.  It is an Adopt-a-Street Prayer movement.  There are 53 streets in Southern Village and in the neighborhoods off of Culbreth Road.  We need HillSong members to commit to sign up to pray for the people who live (and work and play) on specific streets.

            As a part of this effort, we will organize church prayer walks.  We will pray for peace and blessing for these communities.  We will pray that the future Kingdom of God that broke into the world in the coming, dying, and rising of Jesus will break into the lives of people who live around us.  Service projects, worship services at our church, small group, youth, and children’s ministries – these are all meaningful ways we testify to the Gospel and invite people to come to Jesus.  The most significant practice available to us is prayer.

            What is your role as someone is part of the HillSong church family?  We need you to commit to pray.  Sign up for one or two or three streets and pray for the people who live, work, and play on those streets.  Pray weekly, pray daily.  Participate in prayer walks.  Pray so often and so intensely that this matters in your life.  We are one of the churches God has set here.  We have a spiritual responsibility to enter the throne room of Heaven (Hebrews 4:16) on behalf of those who need God.  Please commit by signing up to pray for specific streets and then live out that commitment in your prayer life.  And make prayer in this and in all matters essential throughout your life.