How To Start A Prayer Walking Ministry

Here is what I would do (and have done!):

1) Start a Prayer Walker Team.

2) Pick a consistent day and time (Sunday afternoons and/or evenings in the Summer often work well) and begin to Prayer Walk. (If at first you can't get anyone interested then you go ahead and start, take and show pictures, and talk about the people you met and talked to and the experiences you had each week at church.)

3) After each organized prayer walk have a mission debrief: "What did you see?" / "Who did you see/interact with?" / "How did God speak to you?" (You will get tons of data and info from these debrief sessions, and what you are revealing through them are the needs in your community/area that God can use you to incarnationally begin to meet.  (When I lead the "iWalk" trainings I talk the folks who show up for the training through this process.)

4) Plan on setting a goal of covering a specific area or areas that are of significance to your church and congregation.  Hang up a map and highlight the streets walked until the map is completely highlighted.  Once you achieve that goal, celebrate the accomplishment with a worship and celebration time but also use it to begin to envision and plan ministry outreaches to that area based on the "What? Who? and How?" questions above.

5) The next step is the surveying of that specific area so you can find out who you are being called to reach and what their real-life needs are.  As you collect the hard data from your target area (which you have already covered in prayer) crunch the info and follow up with incarnational ministry and outreaches to that area that you have prayed for and surveyed.  The key here is that you are letting God speak to you from and through your mission field and you are responding now in relevant ministry to these needs that have been revealed. (I can provide you a survey that is adaptable to your church or community.)

6) God will begin bringing you people through this process, and now you have got to be prepared to and begin to welcome them and help them find real connections and to help facilitate the building of relationships with others who can help them grow in their faith and their relationship with Jesus.  The real people you will be reaching truly want the church to be both relevant, and a place where they can make real connections and have real relationships.  Having and starting Small groups and Home groups that you can plug them Into is key here.

7) As your prayer walkers begin to rediscover their community through walking through it and feeling the burden of the Lord for specific areas of need or ministry possibilities, it is also important to empower them and help them begin to get involved in real ministry in these area.  This is the point where I would always start a "SWAT (Servants With Angelic Tendencies) Team."  Which was a charted breakdown of areas of ministry and need revealed through prayer walking that you can organize specific teams made up of persons with a heart for that area of need or ministry.  Then, turn them loose to be the Church through these teams.  It's a "High Trust, Low Control, with High Accountability" empowerment and I can answers specific questions about how to do this.

SWAT TEAM (team examples)

1) The Prayer Walker Team

2) Community Disaster Response Team (aka DRT or "Dirt" Team)

3) Community Crisis or Critical Incident Intervention Team

4) School & Community Outreach Team

5) Community Survey Team

6) Hospital & Home  Visitation Team

7) Addiction & Recovery Team

Etc. (The idea here is that you identify and empower teams of people to work together to meet the revealed needs in your mission field)

Then...

You repeat the process.  I have found prayer walking to be a tremendous source of inspiration, interaction and information regarding real "Jesus With Skin On" (incarnational) ministry.  And, as you empower your SWAT teams, you create a leadership factory that helps produce real people in real ministry in real ways in their community.

If I can be of any help to you or your church in any aspect of this process, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Keep on Keepin' on IN Jesus!

- Rob Schmutz

Jeremiah 29:11-13

Forward Progress?

Forward Progress?

2 John 1:9 "Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son."

There seem to be a whole lot of folks out there today running forward as fast as they can and calling themselves "progressives" as they do.  Progressive... man, that really is a great word isn't it?

But, when someone calls themselves progressive today, it seems naturally to imply that anyone who is in disagreement with whatever they themselves might be intent about progressing forward, then... well... that person must be a... regressive, or uninformed, or unenlightened...

Personally speaking, I'm all for progress.  I love moving things forward, especially if... ultimately it involves reaching new and more people with the good news of the transformational message of the gospel.  And, if the reality of the progress involves introducing people to the power of God's Spirit and helping them find freedom from Sin, Compulsion, Addiction and whatever other kinds of bondage our world so readily offers today, then I'm all for it!

The Scripture above is a reminder to all of us who are followers of Jesus, that it's okay to run ahead, to make and to push forward for progress, if...  If we continue forward with the Word and in the teachings of Christ.  If, however, we run forward, and in so doing... abandon the teachings... we do so... without God.  But, whoever (runs forward or progresses ahead and) "...continues in the teaching, has both the Father and the Son."

And, truly, that's the progress we need as the Church as we all keep on keepin' on in Jesus!

For Tomorrow, Now

This just came to me this AM and I felt like someone might need to hear it today:

"Joshua told the people, 'Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.'" Joshua 3:5

"for tomorrow..."  How easy it is to fall into the trap of forgetting that tomorrow, through faith, is designed by God to be an amazing day.  It can so easily become our default reality to subconsciously assume that "yesterday" was a better day, and that years ago was when things were as they should be.  Sadly, we can choose to live in the false or faithless reality of believing that our best days are behind us.

Faith, however, suggests something far different.  Faith, and the reality it calls me to live in, reminds me that today I can prepare for the best that God has prepared for me in my tomorrow with Him.

Help me, Lord, to live today as a means of consecrating myself, in faith, believing that my tomorrow with You is going to bless my socks off!

"...Things which eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, nor has ever entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him."  1 Corinthians 2:9