Prayer Walking 2022

We are so excited to be going out Prayer Walking again and we hope that you will join us! Check out below for the details.

When: See Prayer Walking Calendar: Prayer Walking Calendar

Where: Gold Avenue Church sanctuary

What: Our shared vision at Gold Avenue Church is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ transform our lives, our neighborhood, and the world. Prayer Walking is one way that we engage our neighborhood and see that transformation come. We’ve been going out and prayer walking regularly in our neighborhood for quite a number of years and have seen much fruit as we pray for the neighborhood, interact and pray with neighbors, and so much more.

Who: We would like to invite everyone to participate in prayer walking, as now is a time when our neighborhood and world need prayer more than ever! Prayer walking is for everyone and we encourage everyone to come! Even young children have come and sometimes we’re surprised at how they hear from the Lord, and we’ve seen much fruit from their participation.

How: We practice staying in step with the Holy Spirit and welcome His leading and His gifts. So even though it is called Prayer Walking, we expect God to work in numerous and varied ways. We go out without an agenda or a script, and we start by praying together before asking for the Lord’s guidance and wisdom. We partner up, often forming pairs of people with more experience with someone with less, so that we can model and teach this approach. There are several different ways that you might engage in prayer for our neighborhood, and it’s all about following the Lord’s leading in each moment. Depending on that, you might do one or a combo of the following, knowing that they are all equally valuable as we embody, proclaim and advance the Kingdom of God:

  • You may pray from home if you’re not able to come, or come to church and stay in and pray. This is called intercession, and it may involve praying for the teams that go out, for the Lord’s guidance for them, their interactions, and so on.
  • You may walk around, praying and interceding for neighbors and the neighborhood, asking the Lord to guide you and your prayers.
  • You may be led to talk to someone who is outside or to knock on a door, getting to know them, listening to them with care and sharing the love of Jesus with them. While you are talking with them you’ll be listening for promptings from the Holy Spirit as to how to engage and respond; perhaps they need to hear about Jesus for the first time or maybe they need encouragement or a fresh infilling from the Lord.
  • You may be led to go into a local business, market or coffee shop, and ask the Lord if there is anyone there He’d like you to talk to and pray with.

Prayer Walking at Gold Avenue Church is all about being led by the Lord each time we go out, and seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ transform us and our neighborhood. It is a place for those who participate to grow in gifts of the Spirit, and a place of grace as we are humbly learning. We hope that as each person becomes more familiar and comfortable prayer walking, that it will become a normal and natural part of each person’s life, to the point where prayer walking occurs any time, not just when we get together as a group.

We hope to see you here on Saturday. Please prayerfully consider if the Lord is calling you to participate. If you have any questions, please contact Mark Essenburg to find out more.

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Prayer Walking Restarting

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Is anyone excited to go prayer walking as a group again?!? If so then we have good news: This Saturday, October 31 from 10am-12pm we’re starting back up after a long hiatus due to Covid-19. In our previous post about Prayer Walking, we encouraged everyone to be prayer walking their neighborhoods regularly so hopefully doing that has been life giving and fruitful for everyone. Going out as a group is very special and so we are looking forward to praying and worshiping together as we share in the joy of the Lord.

A small group of us went out to try it out before officially launching, and it was such a joyous occasion! Read on below:

We went out with the guidance that we were to pave the way for more prayer walking and for God to move in preparing hearts of people that we’ll interact with on future occasions. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and we were able to pray in unity as we listened to what the Holy Spirit was saying and followed His leading. Even as we prayed, we met neighbors and blessed them and were blessed in return. Just with our small group we talked and prayed with a dozen people around the neighborhood.

Prayer walking is for everyone and we encourage everyone to come! If you haven’t done this kind of outreach before, this group is a great way to try it out. We go out without an agenda or a script, sometimes we are led to pray for the neighborhood, sometimes we meet neighbors and get to know them, and we always pray for people, whether directly or not. It’s a wonderful way to practice gifts that the Lord gives, it’s great because we all need practice and the world needs what we have to offer from the Lord. People are always blessed by God when we go out and so are we. So come and we’ll enjoy working for the Lord together!

Our previous post has a live CALENDAR which can be viewed any time incase you’d like a reminder of when we’re going out as a group. We’ll gather no matter the weather, we love those sunny days but rain or snow aren’t a hinderance when the goal is to pray! You may sync this calendar on your favorite device using the instructions here: Prayer Walking Calendar

Lastly, you may wonder why we chose Halloween as our starting time. We’d like to walk around blessing the neighborhood with the light of Christ on a day that normally is dedicated to darkness. After this, we’ll plan on going out every other Saturday for the rest of 2020, and we’ll re-evaluate and let you know what the 2021 schedule will be toward the end of this year. We hope to see you at Prayer Walking!

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Prayer Walking – Let’s Go!

Our shared vision at Gold Avenue Church is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ transform our lives, our neighborhood, and the world. Prayer Walking is one way that we can engage our neighborhood(s) and see that transformation come. In an earlier post we encouraged continued prayer walking on an individual basis since meeting as a group was not possible. The Prayer Walking Leadership Team has discerned in conjunction with church leadership that now is a good time to start organized prayer walking again! We’ve been going out and prayer walking regularly in our neighborhood for quite a number of years and have seen much fruit as we pray for the neighborhood, interact and pray with neighbors, and so much more. We would like to invite everyone to participate in prayer walking, as now is a time when our neighborhood and world need prayer more than ever! (Note: this is a long post so please stick with it and read the entirety.  It may seem like a lot to take in at first but with practice it gets easier!)

Basics of Prayer Walking:

Prayer Walking at Gold Avenue Church is all about being led by the Lord each time you go out, and being open to different expressions of prayer and engagement, all of which are equally valuable in the Kingdom of God. We usually prayer walk in small groups of two or three. Pray together before going out and ask for the Lord’s guidance and wisdom. You may spend your walk praying and interceding for your neighbors and neighborhood, asking the Lord to guide you and your prayers. You may be led to talk to someone who is outside or to knock on a door, listening to them with care and sharing the love of Jesus with them. While you are talking with them be listening for promptings from the Holy Spirit as to how to engage and respond; perhaps they need to hear about Jesus for the first time or maybe they need encouragement or a fresh infilling from the Lord. There is no set formula, besides letting the Lord lead and work through a loving conversation. Pray with and for them before you go, blessing them and their family with the peace and joy of Jesus, and inviting a deeper relationship with Him.  Rejoice in what the Lord does in these conversations and pray for the person and their family as you leave, even if they didn’t engage or respond how you’d like. Perhaps invite them to engage with us at church (online for the time being, you can pass out cards with the church’s info, contact Mark Essenburg to get some connect cards). Please remember to practice social distancing while walking and talking with others.

How It Will work:

For the time being, there will be some differences from our normal structure.  We normally meet as a group, have a devotional and worship time, go out, then come back to share stories.  Instead, we’d like to encourage pairs or trios to meet up and prayer walk whenever works for them and wherever in their neighborhood that they choose. We’ll use a shared calendar to coordinate who is available and when.

To view available times that others would like to go prayer walking, check the calendar below or you can sync it to your own calendar (instructions at end). If you click on an event, you’ll see the details of the general area that person would like to walk, and their contact info. If you find an open time and approximate location that works for you, contact that person and set up your prayer walking time.  They will then update that entry in the calendar.  If you don’t find any time that works for you, you can add your own times for others to choose.  Even if you already have a partner without using the calendar, please put your time on the calendar so that intercessors can be praying for you while you’re out prayer walking.  If we all use this and have lots of participation it should work really well to help us coordinate and set up times to go prayer walking.

A note on forming teams – if you’re new to Prayer Walking, we often form teams with at least one person who has experience. We call them the “Confident Ones”.  This is so that they can help less experienced prayer walkers to learn and grow in their prayer walking.  They will identify themselves on the calendar with a “CO” after their name so that if you would like to partner with someone with more experience, you will be able to find them easily.

Prayer Walking Calendar

Instructions for syncing this calendar to your calendar can be found here: Prayer Walking 2020

Adding or modifying Your Own Prayer Walking Time Slot, or “Event”:
  1. Login to the Prayer Walking shared calendar:
    1. https://goldavenuechurch.breezechms.com/events/overview#/?view=month
    2. User: prayerwalking
    3. PW: GACpw1
  2. Click “Add Event” button or click on the day you’d like to schedule
  3. Uncheck “All Day (under event name)” and and click “show more options (lower left)”
  4. Add in the time and details of when you’d like to put your prayer walking time in
    1. Name your event as follows: Your first name – Open
    2. If you already have a partner name it as follows: Your first name – Closed
    3. If you are a “Confident One” as mentioned above, add a “-CO” after your name
  5. Add a description that gives an approximate location you’d like to walk and your contact info
  6. Click the blue “Save” button
  7. Your entry will show up (or be updated) on the shared calendar for others to view!

Other Important Info

If you aren’t comfortable or able to go outside and prayer walk, but would like to continue to engage in prayer, we’d love for you to pray for teams that are going out.  Having people interceding for prayer walking teams is critical, prayers for God’s guidance and leading, protection, and safety.  

Whether going out or not, you could pray for your neighborhood using a map; look up your address on google or Apple maps and zoom in to see and pray for houses around you.  Another possibility is to use an app like Bless Every Home (video link).  This helps you keep track of who and where you’ve prayed.  It can be a great tool to help to get to know your neighbors as well.

Testimonies

Please share your stories from Prayer Walking, without names, to Mark Essenburg, Director of Outreach & Enfolding. The story may be featured on the blog as a way to hear about how the Lord has worked through Prayer Walking, so please indicate if the story can be shared publicly (leadership may edit for space and clarity).  We’d like to encourage one another during this time with how the Lord is working in our midst and bringing about the transformation we’re praying for.

Closing

We hope that this system makes it easy to connect and pray together for our neighbors and neighborhood.  If you have any questions, please contact Mark Essenburg. Prayer Walking not only blesses those we pray for, it also blesses you as you pray, strengthening your faith and relationship with the Lord.  It’s also a place to practice using gifts that God has given, so be open to how He wants to use you and be discerning of when and how He leads to use your gifts. Be blessed as you go and may the Lord make His face to shine upon you!

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Prayer Walking

At Gold Avenue Church, we’ve been going out and prayer walking regularly in our neighborhood for quite a number of years. We have seen so much fruit as we pray for the neighborhood, interact and pray for and with neighbors, and so much more. We want to say thank you for all who have been participating in prayer walking, and want to let everyone know that with the current situation we are not able to go prayer walking as a group. We would like to take a moment, however, to encourage you to continue to pray for your neighbors and neighborhood, even if you hadn’t previously been able to officially participate in Prayer Walking, aka everyone!

Now is a time when our world needs prayer more than ever! There are many ways you can continue to pray and interceed… You could to go out to prayer walk your neighborhood and to pray as God leads for your neighbors and your neighborhood. Perhaps ask the Holy Spirit to put someone in your path that you could pray for or say hello to respecting social distance, or ask Him to highlight houses and pray for families there.

If you aren’t able to go outside and walk around, you could pray for your neighborhood using a map, look up your address on google or Apple maps and zoom in to see and pray for houses around you. Or you perhaps you might think of encouraging things to do for passers by and then praying for them, again respecting social distancing… we’ll have more ideas posted soon. This is a really difficult time for people and it’s a time where the harvest is plentiful as people are longing for hope, peace and joy. Let’s cover our neighborhood and world in an unprecedented wave of unceasing prayer!

Feel free to share your stories without names to Mark Essenburg, Director of Outreach & Enfolding at mark.goldkids@gmail.com so we can share and encourage one another during this time, keeping our eyes on how God is working in and through us. Here are some pictures of our prayer walking group during the summer:

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