Walking the Prayer Talk

**I posted this story a few weeks ago on our webpage: http://www.reallifeministries.com/current-stories#prayerwalk

I have a confession to make: Praying with complete strangers is not an environment I jump into head first. 

In fact, praying out loud in general can still get my heart palpitating a bit with anxiety…worrying I’ll say the wrong thing.  We started attending Real Life as baby Christians in 2004, and it took me two years before I finally would pray out loud with friends at home group, let alone praying in front of complete strangers.   

But this past weekend, I was asked to help lead a small group of individuals on the Prayer Walk.  Even now, thinking of experiencing my private prayer time with new people still sets me on edge, and I feel self-conscious.  We had prayer walkers all over campus during all five services, and I ended up volunteering for the 10:00am service on Sunday morning.

The Upper Room of RLM 1 had a scattering of 20 people, Will Hoffman and Kevin Howard were welcoming and engaging, setting the scene for what our morning prayer journey would entail.  I picked a seat in the back, kind of hoping I wouldn’t be picked on to do too much too fast out of my comfort zone.   

We opened up with a brief discussion on the passage of Acts 2:42-47; how the believers in the early church were devoted to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  One point stuck with me throughout the discussion, the comment was, “When I pray with someone, I begin to know them on a whole new level, I know more of their relationship with God and I experience relationship with that individual in a deeper way.”

I took that statement to heart, and was introduced to Melissa, Dale and Becky.  Three people I had seen around church, but had never formally met and whose names I didn’t know.  We were each handed a booklet, containing information on all of the ministries on campus, a map, and verses to read through at each location.

We started simple and awkward, joining together in the Elder Room upstairs, praying over the elders, staff and leaders of our church.  Soon we moved downstairs and prayed over everything from the nursery rooms, to the people in service and connecting the people to relationships in small groups.  As we prayed we could hear Jim beginning the service praying at the same time, with thousands of others. In the midst of last minute stragglers, visitors chatting in the lobby and folks rocking fussy babies, the Holy Spirit moved and soon the four of us were praying for more and more ministry needs.

We moved outside and prayed over the Youth Ministries, and all of the events that happen in the smaller auditorium.  The hour flew by and we finished our time sitting together at a picnic table in front of our newest campus addition, RLM 3.  By the end of the hour I found I had experienced four things:

1.  Prayer is unifying. Even though the three of us were in different seasons of life, and heavily involved in different ministries, we are all on the same mission.  We are striving to reach the world for Jesus, one person at a time, we want to make biblical disciples of Jesus and we are going to do it in relational environments.

2. God hears us.  Despite the chaos of the morning, people moving about, tv’s blaring in the lobby, fussy children, and thousands of other’s praying at the same moment – He hears us.  Every word, every thought, every condition of the heart is His to experience and walk through with us. 

3. We can hear God.  Again, with every distraction going on around us, the Holy Spirit was able to work among us, and as our hearts softened, the words poured forth.  There was no repetition of requests and the verbiage flowed specifically for every ministry.

4. Prayer makes friends out of strangers.  There is something about joining with our siblings in Christ, taking courage to open our hearts and together bring our prayers and petitions to our Heavenly Father. 

I began my morning a little anxious, mustering up the confidence to open up my private prayer relationship with my Father to others…and by the end God had given me a new experience to draw from, spurring me on to courageously move forward in ways I don’t always feel comfortable. 

The prayer walk brochure is attached here.  Feel free to look through it and take your own prayer walk, but consider taking someone with you.  Try reading through it with your home group and pray over it together, refer to it throughout the year, and we urge you to continue to mature in your prayer life with the Father and your relationships with others.