Stop For the Prayer Stop
Last Sunday at St. Paul Baptist was such a great morning – wasn’t it? If you missed it, you missed out (but can check it out here)! It was lively, joyful, inspiring, and if I must say so, delicious (that brisket…). More than anything else, it was good to gather as one body of Christ, with unity in diversity. Towards the end of scripture, Revelation imagines a day where, standing before the throne of God and the Lamb worshipping, there is great multitude together from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue. It’s the ideal vision of the church: unity in diversity, and we’re not quite there yet. But Sunday was a small anticipation of that ultimate and final vision…a little taste of the life to come.
But now, we move on to this Sunday – back out at the harbor gazebo, back to 9:30. I’m excited for this Sunday too. Please pray for the service, pray that visitors and dog-walkers and playground-players and folks who might not come to church otherwise would hear the good news of Jesus and experience His body sharing his gracious loving reach this Sunday.
And so – I want to introduce to you a new (but actually old) innovation:
the Prayer Stop.
We launched the Prayer Stop at the first gazebo service, manned by Bob Talmage (thanks Bob!) – and it was a success. ‘What is the Prayer Stop?’, you ask….good question.
The idea was (re)birthed at a board of hospitality meeting where someone had mentioned that at past Central events down at the gazebo, there was a ‘prayer tree’ of some nature – with a sign on it that invited anyone who was walking by to pray with us. This sparked the idea of using the bus-stop type benches (in photo) as a ‘prayer-stop’ – where anyone who is walking the Hudson Trail, or just walking by, could stop in and be prayed with.
It might sound like a slightly weird idea to some, unfamiliar to others, improbable to many – and that makes sense – but don’t underestimate people’s desire to have their burdens prayed for, and hopefully lifted. Even for people who aren’t particularly spiritual, religious, or Christian, you never know…
sometimes they want prayer anyway.
So at the first gazebo service, we offered the Prayer Stop – and a few people stopped in with Bob to pray. Not many, but it’s not the quantity that matters. Or rather, God determines the quantity and He seems to always get it right! We’re just there to offer it. Bob reported that the prayer engagements that he had were ‘heaven-sent’ – and exactly what the people needed. So awesome how God works like that!
So why am I writing to you about this? 3 reasons.
First, so that you can pray for the Prayer Stop ministry. Please, this week – right now! – pray that people who are burdened, lost, wandering, scared, ashamed, thirsty, or whatever, would come and be prayed for, be engaged by God in that moment, and experience a little bit of his life-giving presence and power. Please pray for that this week.
Second, so that you know about it and so can point people to it. If someone is there on Sunday and seems like maybe they could use prayer – please feel free to point them towards it.
Third, we’re looking for a few ‘prayer-ful’ volunteers to serve at the Prayer Stop for the next few weeks. If you wouldn’t mind sitting there throughout the morning (you can still hear/participate in the service…just from afar), and feel like you’d be good at hearing someone’s (potentially) heavy burdens and then praying for/with them, please let me know and I’ll get you on the schedule!
I’m excited and thankful that we launched this, and I have hopes that people will encounter – and come & see – Jesus because of it.