An invite to be generous hides behind every door in your neighbourhood. The first step is to go and find it. Today, we’re prayer walking around our community, choosing to focus on those nearest us. Walk, think about who’s behind each door, and pray. Lay some groundwork for extraordinary moments of kindness.
Green: Prayer walk. If you’ve not done this before, it’s as simple as just walking, slowly, around your neighbourhood, noticing what’s around you, and praying: for peace, for problems in the community, for community relationships. If you’re feeling bold, pop a card through a neighbour’s door to let them know you’re praying for them.
Amber: Print out one of our lamppost signs, asking what people in your neighbourhood need prayer for, and stick it up locally. Check back to see what people have taken and use it to guide your prayers over the next few weeks.
Red: After you prayer walk, draw up a ‘generosity map’ of ideas: a map of your neighbourhood, with notes pinned on specifying where and how you can be generous.
“The word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our eyes…”
(John 1:14 MSG)
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Last year all of us at the Greater Ontario House of Prayer (GOHOP) in Canada found ourselves having to vacate our usual basement prayer room – part of a busy community hub at 541 Eatery and Exchange. Some urgent repair issues came to light and we were told it was going to be messy.
So we packed up our stuff and asked God what he was doing. And God was quick to answer – and reveal he had a plan. The picture we got was of a dandelion gone to seed, and the breath of God blowing the seeds of prayer to new places in our neighbourhood. So we took this as an invitation to bring prayer in a focused way beyond the walls of our regular prayer room.
The new question became ‘Where would you like us to plant our seeds of prayer?’ We began going for prayer walks, and praying in neighbourhood parks. One staff member booked a study room at the local library and incarnated God’s prayers there. Others prayed in church sanctuaries, people’s living rooms, and the upstairs of our basement prayer room – a café full of people drinking coffee, grabbing some breakfast or on their lunch break.
The sense of God’s presence in each of our prayer meetings – whether on our own walking through the neighbourhood, or in a living room or church – was profound. The repairs to the prayer room were completed and once again we can welcome people into our space. However, from our time outside of our usual basement, we’ve learnt that as Christ’s ambassadors, God invites us to incarnate his presence and our prayers everywhere we go. No matter how small we feel, our prayers bring light and life into every community we find ourselves in. So today, pray wherever you are: it makes a beautiful difference.
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