What is it and
how do I get started?
Imagine you are
at home, down on your knees praying for the Miao or some other unreached people group God
has placed on your heart. You have researched the people, gathered photographs,
studied maps, and can pray intelligently for the needs of the people.
Now imagine
that you are standing in a Miao village in the mountains of China. As you stand at the
entrance to the village, you see Miao women on their hands and knees at the river's edge
washing their clothes in the polluted river, beating them with rocks to get the dirt out.
As you watch them lay the newly washed clothes on the dirty ground, you realize that
washing the clothes this way will never get all the dirt out. God prompts you to pray that
they would know Jesus, the only One who can truly cleanse them of their sin and order
their lives according to God's way.
Going further into the village, you notice an altar set up next to a pond.
Chicken blood and feathers are splattered all over the altar. You pray that they
would see the futility of offering these sacrifices, and that only one Sacrifice is
sufficient to free them from the hold evil spirits have on their lives. This prompts your
friend standing next to you to read Isaiah 46:5-13 "...I will bring near my
righteousness, it is not far off; And my salvation will not delay." You cry out
to God to quickly bring His salvation to this village.
Further up in
the village, you hear laughing and playing in the distance. As you search for where this
comes from, you see naked Miao children playing in the river, laughing and enjoying
themselves. God prompts you to pray that those young children would know the
salvation of God and raise them up to be evangelists, filled with His inexpressible joy.
You are
prayerwalking.
In hundreds of
cities across the globe, ordinary believers are prayerwalking through the streets of their
communities. They pray while walking, with
eyes open for the spiritual awakening God is bringing.
We define
prayerwalking as “praying on-site with insight.” There is no set pattern or proven formula. Prayerwalkers have set out with every imaginable
style. There’s nothing magic at all in
the footsteps. God’s Spirit is simply
helping us to pray with persistent spontaneity in the midst of the very settings in which
we expect Him to answer our prayers. We
instinctively draw near to those for whom we pray.
Getting up
close to the community focuses our prayer. We
sharpen our prayers by concentrating on specific homes and families. But we enlarge our praying as well, crying out for
entire communities to know God’s healing presence. When praying for unreached people
groups or cities, it is especially helpful to pray on-site. Not only are we changed,
but we bring the light of Christ into the area and impact the spiritual darkness just by
our presence as the children of light.
Prayerwalks
give us a simple way to continually fill the streets with prayer. Many are praying city-size prayers while ranging
throughout their towns with disciplined regularity in small bands of two or three. In limited access countries, thousands of
"tourists" walk the streets interceding for the lost in their own communities.
Thus prayerwalkers keep near the lost in order to touch them with the gospel and
transforming service. Quiet triumphs often follow
as God changes the city day by day and house by house.
Prayerwalking on a "prayer journey" in
another country should be preceded by consistent prayerwalking in your own community. You
can engage in prayerwalking with believers all over your city as you seek to have a
God-sized vision for the place you live. This will be a good training ground before you
travel halfway across the world to engage in hours of prayer.
How
to Get Started Prayerwalking
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Join with other believers. Join your faith with others to help prayer
flow in an engaging conversational style. Large groups
sometimes fail to give everyone a chance to participate. Pairs
and triplets work best. (For example, a group of 8 could naturally divide into pairs as
they walk, but be in sight of each other or meet back together at a certain location.)
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Set aside time. Allowing
one or two full hours gives prayerwalkers a good chance to manage preliminaries and
follow-up discussions, although much can be done in less time.
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Choose an area. Ask
God to guide you. It’s best by far to
learn the joys of prayerwalking in unfamiliar neighborhoods. You’ll return quickly to your own neighborhood with
fresh vision. Centers of commerce and religion
are fascinating, but there’s nothing like touching families, schools, and churches in
residential areas. Use elevated points to
pray over a panorama. Linger at specific sites
which seem to be key. When deciding where to go overseas, you may choose to link up with a
missionary working in that area so your prayers can be strategic to ministry plans that
are being implemented.
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Pray with insight.
Pray for the people you see. As
you do, you might find the Spirit of God recalibrating your heart with His own
sensitivities. Enhance these responsive insights
with research done beforehand. Use knowledge
of past events and current trends to enrich intercession. Above
all, pray Scripture. If you have no clear
place to begin praying, select just about any of the biblical prayers, and you will find
that they almost pray themselves.
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Focus on God. Make
God’s promises rather than Satan’s schemes the highlight of your prayer. Your discernment of evil powers may at times exceed
God’s specific guidance to engage them in direct combat. Consider the simplicity of first making direct
appeal to the throne of God before attempting to
pick street fights with demonic powers. Seek a
restraining order from heaven upon evil so that God’s empowered people may bring
forth God’s intended blessings on the city.
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Regather and report.
Share what you have experienced and prayed. Expressing something of your
insights and faith will encourage others – as well as yourself. Set plans for further prayerwalking.
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Coordinate efforts.
Enlist other praying people to join with friends to cover special areas. Give leadership by forming and mixing prayer bands. Seek to collect written notes recording which areas
have been covered and what kinds of prayers have been prayed. Pool your insights to ascertain whether God is
prompting a repeated focus on particular areas. Eventually
aim to cover your entire town or city, unless God guides otherwise.
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Themes
for Prayerwalking
Attempt to keep
every prayer pertinent to the specific community you pass through. As you do, you will find prayers naturally progress
to the nation and to the world.
Use a theme
passage of Scripture. Unless God guides you to
use another, try 1 Timothy 2:1-10. Many have
found it to be a useful launching point for prayerwalking. Verse
8 speaks of the important territorial dimension to prayer connected with God’s desire
that all people be saved. “I want the men
in every place to pray” (italics added).
Copy this and
other passages in a format easy to read aloud several times during your walk. Each of the following prayer points emerges from
this passage.
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Concerning Christ:
Proclaim Him afresh to be the one Mediator and the ransom for all. Name Him Lord of the neighborhood and of the lives
you see.
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Concerning leaders:
Pray for people responsible in any position of authority – for
teachers, police, administrators and parents.
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Concerning peace:
Cry out for the godliness and holiness of God’s people to increase
into substantial peace. Pray for new churches
to be established.
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Concerning truth:
Declare openly the bedrock reality that there is one God. Celebrate the faithful revelation of His truth to
all peoples through ordinary people (1 Tim. 2:8). Pray
that the eyes of minds would cease to be blinded by Satan so that they could come to a
knowledge of the truth.
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Concerning the gospel:
Praise God for His heart’s desire that all people be saved. Ask that heaven would designate this year as a
“proper time” for the testimony of Christ to be given afresh with simple power
(1 Tim. 2:6). Name specific people.
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Concerning the blessing of God: Thanksgivings are to be made on behalf of all
people. Give God the explicit thanks He
deserves for the goodness He constantly bestows on the homes you pass by. Ask to see the city with His eyes, that you might
sense what is good and pleasing in His sight as well as what things grieve Him deeply. Ask God to bring forth an enduring spiritual
awakening.
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Concerning the church:
Ask for healing in relationships, that there be no wrath or dissension
among God’s people. Ask that God would
make His people, men and women alike, expressive in worship with the substance of radiant,
relational holiness. Ask that our worship
would be adorned with the confirming power of saints doing good in our communities.
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