A couple of summers ago, a pastor reached out to me, wondering if I had any teaching on prayer walking. He wanted to launch a new inter-church project to cover his town in united prayer. What a great idea!!
But sadly, I didn’t.
While I’ve done loads of teaching on prayer (of all shapes and sizes) and personally prayer walked a total of about 8,400 km over the years, I hadn’t put the two together and developed teaching to help others prayer walk. So as you could imagine, this started me thinking.
But perhaps that wheel has already been built!
So I asked around, searched the internet, and followed up on leads for resources from other prayer leaders, but truthfully, didn’t find much. It seems there are two popular approaches, one which is largely focused on spiritual warfare and trying to discern where the demonic is particularly active, then praying against that (which is problematic for all kinds of reasons). The second is oriented towards trying to hear what God is doing and/or wants to do in homes and apartments, schools, and businesses as you walk past them. A MUCH better approach, but still slightly problematic.
You see unless you are stunningly prophetic, it’s likely you won’t have full-blown revelation as you walk past each home, so what ends up happening is you either only pray when you get that glimpse of revelation (which might only be once or twice in your whole walk), or we guess, based on any faint impressions or thoughts that pop into our minds. Of course, the Holy Spirit could be in those thoughts, but I think we’d all readily admit He’s not the inspiration for every one of them.
I wondered if there was a better way.
Is there a way that makes room for all the nudges and revelations of the Spirit that might direct our prayers while—at the same time—giving us deeply biblical and gospel-centred guidance for how to pray as we walk past the homes, schools, and places of work in our community? Kind of a Word and Spirit approach?
A WORD AND SPIRIT APPROACH?
To find this approach I believe we need to start with a bit of a biblical foundation for prayer walking. And it seems to me that the best way to posture ourselves is to remember that all Christians are priests, and praying for our neighbourhood is a way of living out that priesthood.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 1 Pe 2:9
A priest stands between man and God, representing God to man, which means carrying His heart, His truth, His invitation of redemption— and bringing it to the people God has called us to serve. But then the opposite is true too, a priest also represents the people to God, as an intercessor, bringing their needs before the throne of grace, crying out for God’s mercy to be poured out on the people. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane modelled this, and because of that, His prayer in John 17 is called the High Priestly prayer. Moses’ intercession also gives us a beautiful example, I’m sure you can remember the stories of Moses interceding for Israel (Ex 32:30-32, Num 14:11-25). He took responsibility for his “tribe”, his people, the sheep that he had been called to shepherd. He loved them even though they were continually complaining and straying from the law of God. Being a priest isn’t about just pursuing holiness, prayer, and worship, cloistered in a monastery, it means serving people, the people God has assigned to you.
HOW DID THEY USED TO DO THIS?
The old parish model has some things to teach us. Historically, a parish priest was there for the whole community, he pastored the whole village (or district) by “proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light”, —evangelizing unbelievers and making disciples of the believers, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything Christ commanded them (Mt 28:19,20). He was connected to the land and thus, to the people that occupied it. He was like an Adam or Eve, who had been commissioned to “work and keep the garden”— a specific, defined territory— while being fruitful and multiplying (Gen 2:15, 1:28).
Over the years, as a society, we have become more and more individualistic and committed to the idol of personal freedom and fulfillment. This has led us to become much more disconnected from the physical spaces where we live. Our neighbourhoods facilitate us by providing us with housing and amenities— but these are just commodities for rootless people. We have affinity relationships with those who are like us even if they live thousands of kilometres away, yet at the same time, many of us protect ourselves from being accessible to the messiness and needs of our neighbourhoods. This is true for Christians as well as non-Christians, we may not think about it but it’s easy to be swept along with this trend. Now certainly, there is a blessing that comes with these long-distance relationships, equipping, evangelism, and encouragement from others who are walking in similar ways is invaluable.
Yet,
I think it’s important to remember and ponder the reality that God placed Adam and Eve in a specific place. When He called Abraham and Sarah, He gave them the promise of a specific land, with all the blessings AND responsibilities that that would bring. Like Adam, when Israel finally inherited that promised land, they were called to work and keep where they were planted.
Now here we are all these years later, yet Paul tells us that God has “determined the allotted periods and the boundaries of their [mankind’s] dwelling place that they should seek God…” (Act 17:26b, 27). It’s no accident that any of us are living where we are, at the very time that we are in. This has been ordained by God. So then as a kingdom of priests, where we live is a part of our calling. We are to represent God to our “land” and represent, in our intercession, the needs of our “land” to the Father.
WE ASKED, “WHERE IS OUR PARISH?”
I remember when we were in the early stages of planting Via Langley, (the church my husband and I attend). One of the key things that our planting team had to discern was “Where is our parish?” We spent much time praying and listening to God before we came together corporately to thresh out what we had discerned. The Lord gave us a picture of a stone being thrown into a pool of water with ripples radiating out. We knew He was defining for us our primary place of ministry focus— our parish, the central ring, yet at the same time helping us to understand that our influence would extend beyond that epicentre.
In these days of remote, online work, online church, podcasts, YouTube, and even the “drive from wherever you are to attend that really cool church” phenomenon, being a priest is our neighbourhoods is an important counterbalance. Prayer walking helps with this. Adam, the first priest, walked in the cool of the day and met God in those walks, so this is a practice that has always been a place of blessing and fellowship between God and man.
All good, but still, this doesn't answer the question we were considering: is there a biblical prayer that is always relevant to guide us as we prayer walk? For that, we remember that the priests were also tasked with blessing the people. This was an important part of how they represented God, whose nature is one which constantly showers us with undeserved blessings.
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
‘Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,
The Lord bless you and keep you;the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’” Nu 6:22-26
This blessing contains six specific types of blessings that can be prayed for either Christians or for non-Christians. I looked at this in much more depth last summer and thoroughly expounded each of the six blessings. You can read that article here. But to do a quick summary, here’s the gist of each of the blessings:
The Lord bless you: a release of divine activity to cause something or someone to flourish
and keep you: protect from the works of darkness, sin, deception, the spirit of the world
the Lord make his face to shine upon you: “more Lord”, an intensification of the first blessing. Whatever the divine activity we have prayed for, now, Lord, bring more!
and be gracious to you: Grace! For repentance, for rescue, for redemption, for healing and restoration, for all that we need… Grace is the free gift of God to the underserving (which is all of us).
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you: “even more Lord!!” Here we are asking for the full measure of God’s divine activity that produces flourishing. This is the third request, reflecting the full blessing of the Trinity.
and give you peace: The final request, for shalom (nothing broken, nothing missing) is such a picture of God’s heart for all of us, believers or not. Think about Christ’s heart for Jerusalem:
“And when he drew near and saw the city [Jerusalem], he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’” (Lu 19:41,42)
These are prayers of blessing that we have been, in a sense, commissioned to pray over our communities, so they already have the “Amen” of heaven. They carry weight and align with God’s intent.
BLESSING IS FOR ALL
In our church, we have communion every Sunday and while we hold to the biblical instructions that the Lord’s Table is just for baptized believers, still, everyone is invited to come to the front for a blessing. So typically the whole church, row by row, comes to receive either the bread and wine or a beautiful, Spirit-led prayer of blessing from our priest and others who might be prophetically ministering. Because I am a part of this each week, I get to see the impact this blessing has on those who are not yet baptized believers or those who are just beginning to explore faith. As grace-filled prayers of blessing are prayed, for some, it’s almost like a wrecking ball of God’s love smashing against walls of self-protection, resistance, or shame. Life comes from those blessings. God hears and responds by pouring His Spirit into hearts, confirming His love and tenderness for each person with His manifest presence. (Now just so we are clear, the greatest blessing someone far from Christ could receive is to be drawn to Him, which might involve discomfort and will involve conviction, so blessing isn’t about endorsing sinful lifestyles.)
My favourite is when the kids come up to be blessed. Little ones and older ones, often closing their eyes to drink it in, savouring the sweetness of God’s love being declared over them. I’ve often thought about how powerful these moments are for forming a healthy image of God the Father in their hearts.
Yikes! I’m suddenly aware that article has gotten way too long and I’ve only just explored the idea of using the powerful priestly liturgy of blessing (which was originally given to Aaron) as a template for blessing our neighbourhoods as we walk. This is an excellent way to pray using the Word— but there is also the incredibly important dynamic of the Spirit. For that, I think we’ll need a second article.
So then to conclude:
To minister as priests to our neighbourhoods —be the people believers or not— we can use the blessing that Aaron, his sons, and successors were commissioned to pray, knowing that the Lord is eager to have us partner with Him in releasing His love and power into our communities. Then because of this, we can also be confident that these are prayers He delights to answer.
Watch for Part II - Prayer Walking in the Spirit - coming soon!
I like your blessing model Sara. If we receive prophetic revelation great, if not let's be found faithful with what He has already spoken - His word.