Last night I attended a prayer walk hosted by the ministerial alliance in my small town of Newberry, Florida. The alliance included pastors who were female, male, black, white, fundamental and progressive. The roughly 75 walkers who showed up reflected the same. In a small town in the South with a dark history of racism, lynchings and division.
We divided up into groups of 20-25, most of us with pastors who were not from our home church. We took four different routes around the town, stopping occasionally, or as the Spirit led, to offer specific out-loud prayers and praying as we walked. We greeted a few people, prayed for them and also prayed for businesses and schools and leaders and places.
This was inspiring to me for many reasons but I want to share it today as we kick off a new week and focus on putting our words into action.
To read the news today, we are just absolutely falling apart as a nation. That’s not what I have been experiencing in our town. Remember friends, the news media from all “sides” makes money when you click, watch or share. They are not the enemy, but neither are they interested in your spiritual or emotional well-being, nor in casting a narrative that is primarily uplifting or uniting.
Of course there are plenty of awful things happening and many injustices and difficulties which must be faced. But we are called, as people of the Way, to see differently, and to live differently. To view the world with God’s ultimate narrative of redemption in mind. In this world there will be trouble. But take heart, he has overcome the world – and he’s calling us into that work!
We can live out the prayer of the kingdom coming to earth as in heaven. When we get up close, get to know one another and pray together as people of God from a variety of backgrounds, something powerful begins to happen. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. This week, make this kind of community prayer a reality wherever you are, however you can, and let’s bring God’s redemption narrative alive, carrying the love of Jesus into our communities.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Joel
Joel Searby
