Prayer Walking is walking around the place where you are trying to implement Neighborhood Transformation. Without prayer, no transformation takes place, therefore it is central to what we do.
Prayer walking is praying on site with insight. It is intercession on location. It is praying for what we see as we walk and while we are doing this God sometimes gives us specific things to pray about.
Why do Prayer Walking:
- To seek God’s blessing, mercy and transforming power for the neighborhood.
- To pray for the neighborhood we are working in to see it through God’s eyes.
- We will pray for ourselves to be servants in the neighborhood.
- We talk to God for others in the neighborhood.
- It’s done in the power of the Holy Spirit.
- To become in harmony with God’s agenda and not our own.
It is important to do Prayer Walking in your chosen neighborhood because: It allows us to see firsthand what the neighborhood is all about. We also get to see the neighborhood through God’s eyes. God will show us things we normally do not see when we are in the neighborhood. God will break our heart for the people and the neighborhood and the Holy Spirit will reveal things to us we never would have thought of alone.
In Neighborhood Transformation we like to do Prayer Walking at the very beginning of the program to get God’s view of the neighborhood and to set us off on the right path. But we don’t stop there, we do it multiple times during the Entering the Neighborhood phase. We also do it when the neighborhood association is in place and with interested people in the neighborhood
Here are some guidelines that help us see the impact from our prayer walking:
Join with other believers and meet at an assigned time. Start with group prayer and then walk in groups of 2s or 3s. Covers as much of the neighborhood as possible by having different teams do different segments of the neighborhood.
The key is to focus on God and pray aloud in a quiet conversational voice. Make sure you do not call attention to yourself. If anyone asks what you are doing be prepared to respond, “We are praying God’s blessing on this neighborhood.”
Be observant of what you see as you walk and pray. At the same time be open to anything God impresses on you as you walk. Also be open to interact with people in an informal way as opportunities arise. Walk for half hour to an hour. As you walk, reflect on your observations.
Afterwards, gather to share your prayers, observations and experiences with the others in the group. Make sure to encourage people to continue to pray for the neighborhood during the week on what they saw and their reflections.
We are in a battle and according to the Bible we are fighting against”
- In II Corinthians 10:3-4, we are in a fight with Satan
- In James 4:7, we are to resist the devil
- Habakkuk 1:5, says we are to be astonished and see God work
We are to pray more intensely:
- Outside meeting places where false worship is taking place
- Where spiritists and card readers perform
- Around jails, courts, and government offices
- On high places overlooking our neighborhood
- Outside bars, gambling places, and houses of prostitution
So you can see that Prayer Walking is critical to what we do in Neighborhood Transformation.
Call to Action
We challenge you to do prayer walking around your home. Do it around four square blocks of your place.
After you have done that reflect on what you saw, heard and were impressed by God about.
Stan
