Prayer Walk Your Town - October 11, 2022
This summer, while enjoying the recreation path that goes most of the way around Beamsville, an idea came to me. I thought it would work well to have the people in Beamsville do a prayer walk using this path. Then, of course, as the pastor of a church in Grimsby, I thought it would easy enough to find a similar route in Grimsby. And, since I am aware that we have a good number of people residing in Smithville, there too.
So, I am inviting you, on Saturday November 5, to participate in a prayer walk in your town. Maps of where you can walk in each town are linked below. The idea of the map is that you are more likely to see others on a prayer walk if we have some consistent routes. However, if there is a different route that works for you, feel free to go there. The given routes are designed to ensure that there are sidewalks available for you to walk on for safety (except the west end of Dorchester in Grimsby).
There are many ways to participate. Ideally as many as possible do this at the same time (9 AM, Saturday, November 5). However, since ideal situations don’t always work for everyone, please pick whichever of these strategies works best for you.
1. Meet at Mountainview’s property at 9 AM on November 5 and be guided and directed out. This way you will experience being part of something as it happens. (If there is a request for it, starting points and leadership for Beamsville and Smithville could also be arranged.)
2. Start at 9 AM on November 5 at the point of whichever route is closest to you home. This way your prayer walk is in or near your neighbourhood.
3. Do this with your small group. Figure out the details of time and place together.
4. Pick a starting point and route as well as a time that works for your schedule and availability.
As you may have seen from our regular advertising, there is a monthly prayer walk starting from a variety of places in Grimsby. With that group we have discussed a number of guiding thoughts for doing a prayer walk. Use these in the way that fits best for you.
1. Listen and observe and wonder. What do you see around you and what does it suggest you might pray for?
2. Let specific things you see be hints for prayer. Fire-hydrants suggest prayer for first responders; election signs suggest praying for politicians; stop signs suggest praying for police; a school suggests praying for students, teachers, staff; etc
3. Be open and creative. There is no right way to do this. The fact that you are going and thinking about prayer and your neighbourhood at the same time is the key.
4. Decide if you will pray out loud or not. Both are fine.
5. If you have children with you, discuss what you are doing as a teaching opportunity.
6. Feel free to greet and connect with anyone you meet along the way. Those connections are also often a suggestion of what you might pray about.
We are doing this as a practice that helps us experience the connection between our faith and our community. This one event may help you become more aware of praying for your neighbourhood or any place whenever you walk.
Finally, this is not meant to be a public display in which we are noticed. There are times for such things, but this is meant to help us have the experience of praying for the community around us. We won’t be carrying banners or chanting slogans. We will simply be people of the community who happen to be praying as they walk.
And maybe, if this works well, we might do a version in the spring or next fall where we invite people from other churches to join us. But for now, lets try this out, share stories, send in pictures, and see what we can learn together.
Pastor Erick
Beamsville
https://goo.gl/maps/yQEFEnFnRtNFxUvK8
Smithville
Grimsby