#Neighborhood: Lifting up our Neighbors in Prayer
Week 5 Practice: Prayer Walking
“God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.”
“One form of prayer moves us particularly to take up the task of evangelization and to seek the good of others: it is the prayer of intercession. Let us peer for a moment into the heart of Saint Paul, to see what his prayer was like. It was full of people: “...I constantly pray with you in every one of my prayers for all of you... because I hold you in my heart” (Phil 1:4, 7). Here we see that intercessory prayer does not divert us from true contemplation, since authentic contemplation always has a place for others.”
“None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience.”
What is Prayer Walking?
In yesterday’s interview, Pastor Dennis Beausejour spoke about his practice of prayer walking with another pastor in Madisonville, and he also mentioned his first meeting with Fr. William was prayer walking around Evanston! Prayer walking (which is exactly what it sounds like it is: walking while praying) is such a powerful practice, and as you know, each Summer, our community gathers a couple of times to prayer walk around our local neighborhoods. Prayer walking, however, is not just something we can do in church community. We can do it on our own or with friends, families, and neighbors.
As Adele Calhoun says, “prayer walking is a way of saturating a particular place and people with prayer. This discipline draws us out of prayers that are limited to our immediate concerns and into a larger circle of God’s loving attention.” In other words, prayer walking is a way of participating in God’s Kingdom work in our neighborhoods as we begin to lovingly pay attention to our neighbor’s needs, cares, and desires and to pray specifically for our neighbors’ flourishing. Often, when we pray this way, we are drawn into relationships and acts of service that we wouldn’t have otherwise anticipated.
So in this time of Covid-19, we may not be able to gather as much with our church community or neighbors as much as we are used to, but we can still walk and pray. So take time this week to walk through your neighborhood, stopping at various locations along the way and being attentive to the people and places there (click here for a review of the practice of attentiveness). Then pray. Below, you will find some guidance on how to pray.
Some Ideas for Prayer Walking
1). Check out the video below from the assistant pastor of First Presbyterian Church Kingwood for some ideas.
2). Click this link to use the prayer resources/tools from WayMakers (including a printable prayer walking guide): Tools and Resources for Prayer Walking.
3). Try out some of the suggestions/tips in the text below.
Prayer Walking Tips
1) Set out on your walk knowing that you are in the company of Jesus and that the Holy Spirit intercedes within you.
2) Pray that your neighbors would experience God’s great love and that God would awaken His love in you for your neighbors.
3) Pray for the peace and prosperity of your neighborhood.
4) As you go by each home, pray for the people in those homes and in very specific ways. If you do not know the people, pray for them more generally, knowing that God knows their needs. Pray also that you many have an opportunity to get to know them.
5) If there are schools, playgrounds, recreation centers, gyms, or parks near you, spend some time at these places, praying for those who study, work, and play there.
6) Pray for any local businesses, churches, hospitals, fire departments, police stations, etc. in your neighborhood.