Prayer Walking

There has never been a mighty movement of God where He did not call His people to pray. Prayer revives the hearts of God’s people as it prepares our communities for God’s Word to be spread. As we pray for our communities, we can begin to see a spiritual awakening around us prompted by God, not our programs. Prayer allows us to tap into God’s power. Realizing this, we can know that concentrated prayer has the power to literally change the world around us. A great way to put our prayers into motion is through prayer-walking our communities and neighborhoods.

Prayer-walking involves taking our prayers to the very places where we desire to see God’s presence manifested and our prayers an-swered. It is the powerful dynamic of prayer on-site with insight from God’s sight.

As you pray, you will find that God opens your eyes and prepares your heart to see the city from His perspective. Your sorrow may deepen for the plight of the city while your hope grows for what God desires and is able to do through your prayers. You may discover a new appreciation for people as God sees them and so become more interested in their welfare. Prayer walking is “Ordinary believers stepping into the streets to pray effectively for their neighbors. With eyes wide open to real needs and with ears open to the promptings of God’s Spirit, intercession becomes an adventure”

“Why can’t I just stay at home or gather at church to inter-cede?” The answer is… “you can”. And God will hear and re-spond to your prayer as He will to the prayers of those who go. Praying “on location” while seeing, feeling, touching, smelling and hearing is to pray with more intensity. After the prayer journey is over, you will never pray the same way again for the location of your walk and the people you met there.

An additional value of location-praying has to do with pres-ence. Since Jesus lives within you and the Holy Spirit works through you, there is a sense that your prayer-walking pro-vides light in dark places and salt in unsavory places (Matthew 5:13-16). If your body really is a “temple of God” (I Corinthians 3:16) then where you go, you represent His pres-ence.

Prayer-walking is intentional. Jesus says of His Church that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” When believers pray on the offensive against the work of her enemy, the devil begins to tremble, the darkness is penetrated, and the Holy Spirit is unleashed in people, families and communities (see Acts 4:23-33). Spiritual strongholds of sin and bondage in people’s lives come down as believers intercede for salvation, spiritual and physical health, spiritual and physical needs. (See Ephesians 6:10.)

Know you are sent by God. Don’t make this commitment for any other reason than you are following God’s leading.

Know you are clean and covered. Be sure you’re in good relation-ship with God. Prepare your heart by praying and studying His word. Confess your sins to allow him to use you and work through you. (See Psalm 66:18; Psalm 51:10-13.)

• Pray in repentance and faith (Mark 1:15)
• Pray for God’s Spirit to search your heart (Psalm 139:24-25)
• Confess and forsake all known sin (1 John 1:9)
• Pray for a sensitivity to God’s work (John 17:24)
• Pray for open doors to share Jesus with others (Col. 4:2; Acts 4:31)
• Pray for spiritual eyes to pray strategically (Eph. 1:1)

Know God’s Guidance. Ask God to guide, direct, lead and im-press you with His agenda for His people.

Know Your Mission. Prayer-walking is an act of worship and obedi-ence. God wants to use you to advance his Kingdom. Expect that He will help you see the true spiritual needs and battles to be won for people who need breakthrough. Expect that He will act. Expect that He will hear your prayers. Expect that He will use you to love His people.

For the Location: If you are prayer-walking as a group or family, take time to pray for God’s guidance for where, when and what to pray. It may be helpful to do some historical or demographical re-search on the area. The key is to do what you can to familiarize yourself with the area. Ask some basic questions relating to the area and the people who live there: what kind of people live in the area (e.g., ethnicity, religions, ages, interests, socio-economic sta-tus)?

For Divine Encounters: As Christ sent the disciples out two by two, He expected them to engage and encounter people who need-ed to hear the Gospel (see Luke 10:16). He instructed them to pray and go with the intention of sharing the life-changing power of Christ. Prayer-walking teams need to be prepared to share a Gospel witness with those they encounter. There is a simple layout of the gospel in the back of this guide, but add your story of how Jesus, in your life, is Good News (Gospel)!

As you prepare for the actual prayer-walk, decide who, where, and when of your prayer-walk. Write your commitment down in the front of this guide.

Pre-gather: Prayerfully determine whether you will target a specific area and how long the walk will be. Set a time to return to a central location for a brief follow-up prayer and reporting time. If any members of your group have physical limitations, plan to “prayer-drive” and/or intercede as others walk.

Gather: Discuss the area/route to be walked. Divide into small teams (three seems to work really well, or pairs or fours if neces-sary. Five is too many). Discuss any helpful information that relates to the area being walked. Pray specifically for protection, divine appointments, boldness to share with people as led by the Holy Spirit and wisdom to know how to pray as you prayer-walk. Review practical tips related to prayer walking.

Prayer-Walk: (See the practical tips on the next page).

Re-gather: At the appointed time and place, reconvene to share ways the Holy Spirit led you to pray, what you saw, learned, and any spiritual challenges you encountered. Pray for specific peo-ple and strategic points of concern raised by the teams. Commit to continue to pray for these people and this area. Celebrate what God is doing and will continue to do as a result of your prayers.

• Record in this guide any impressions, celebrations or promptings for further prayer.
• Make a commitment to be a part of the answer to your prayers. 
• Don’t let this be a one-time thing. You did it! Try it again.
  

As you walk, keep your eyes open and be observant. Ask God to let you see through His eyes and pray His agen-da for people.

• Take your Bible and pray scripture as a base for strategic prayer.
• Remain open to the thoughts and ideas God may be speaking to your heart about what you see, scriptures which come to mind, insights about the people in the area.
• Pray aloud and agree with one another’s prayers. Verbalizing your prayers helps you to focus on the objective of prayer.
• Make it a prayer conversation with the Lord and your team.
• You can also pray silently at times.
• Walk slowly to allow time to observe and cover the community in prayer. The key is intercession for people.
• If the process gets awkward or uncomfortable, admit it to your team and ask them to pray.
• Claim God’s love and compassion to remove spiritual blinders and remove barriers that hinder people from Jesus
• Pray for people, marriages, families, businesses, government, leaders, husbands & wives, children, civic leaders, senior adults, churches, revival and spiritual awakening, God’s word to spread, people to accept Jesus as Savior and whatever the Spirit prompts you to pray.
• To make prayer-walking an act of worship, practice… 1) thanksgiving, 2) praise, 3) repentance.
• Pray blessings over the area. (see suggestions in this guide).
• You can be on the scene without making a scene. Be sensitive – if you are led by the Holy Spirit to stop and pray or to make friendly contact with someone, then do so. Otherwise assume you are to intercede in prayer and keep walking.
• An easy way to open a conversation is to say “We are out praying for the community. Is there a special way we could pray for you?”
• Be super sensitive about taking pictures. You are there to pray.
• Wear appropriate clothing to comfortably walk and be relevant to the contextual surroundings.
• You may want to carry in-formation about the church if opportunity arises to invite someone.