2013: City Number One

The taxi stopped in the city square of a small town in a Muslim country. Six of us foreigners piled out, backpacks trailing. The first thing we were conscious of was the many eyes staring at us from tea houses surrounding the square. Silence was our greeting for a few awkward minutes until Mustafa stepped forward and motioned toward an outdoor table at his restaurant.

We came to this small unreached Muslim town of 6,000 with three assignments: Cover the city in prayer, look for people of peace, and then report back to the long-term workers who had sent us, handing off the city to them for the next phase of follow-up and seed planting.

Following the example of the disciples sent out in Luke 10, we arrived with no pre-arranged place to stay and found that the stories of legendary hospitality in this land were true! The townspeople took us in and cared for us—even having friendly arguments to see who would get to host us.

Jesus sent out his 12 disciples to towns where he was about to go; in the same way, long-term workers would also be coming to this city after our prayer assignment was completed—connecting with potential people of peace and looking for the plowed soil ready for the planting of the Word.

12 Years Later to City Number 150

“Welcome!” That wonderful word was the first thing we heard as we arrived in the city. We have come to treasure this greeting, noting that our Saviour said, “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” (Matt 10:40). As we prayer walked through the town, several townspeople told us we were the first foreigners they had ever seen visiting there. Warm invitations emerged to drink tea, attend a wedding, and visit a family in their home. As we came out of one home, having just prayed for the woman serving us coffee, the local police could no longer contain their curiosity about us and approached asking to inspect our passports. The police involvement must have spooked the townspeople, because our invitations quickly dried up and people seemed nervous to engage with us. Even so, we were able to completely cover the city in prayer, and soon after we left, someone texted us asking us to pray for them.

Origins

In 2012, in the heart of this Muslim country, a team of long-term workers were seeing very minimal fruit resulting from evangelism in their region. They said it was like there was a spiritual tarp covering the land, preventing seeds of the gospel from even reaching the soil. At the same time, the Lord gave them an enormous vision: a million people in their region affected by the gospel, and 100 healthy workers raised up.

“That’s too big, God… we can’t do that!” was the reasonable response to this overwhelming task. They sensed the Lord’s reply was, “I’m not asking you to do that. I’M going to do that! But I’m inviting you to be part of it. Begin by praying for pray-ers.”

Church history shows us that moves of God are preceded by seasons of extraordinary prayer. The decision was made to be pre-evangelistic, and aim for stepping into a season of extraordinary prayer.

Thus launched a strategy to invite prayer walking teams and send them on site into each of 172 district city centers in the region. By using prayer as our plow, we would aim to remove the tarp and break up the hard spiritual soil, preparing it for seed planting. Things started slowly, with just a few teams per year. Momentum was interrupted by an attempted coup, then by terror attacks, government warnings, civil war in a neighboring country, COVID, and most recently another nearby war.

But something changed after COVID. Prayer teams started appearing from all over, asking for the opportunity to participate. Our tiny network was pushed to its limits to coordinate and host sometimes several prayer teams each month, swiftly making progress praying through many cities per year. At the time of writing, in response to the invitation from long-term workers, 969 people from 45 countries have formed 144 teams to cover 151 prayer cities. This brings us to 88% of our goal of covering 172 cities in the target region, with 21 cities remaining.

Guiding Principles

Some of the keys and guiding principles that seem to have made this work are:

• Acknowledging that this is indeed too big for us. This is God’s thing and we can’t make it happen, neither can we control it. Instead, we need to give the vision away and give others the freedom to participate in their own style.
   
• This is a vision, not an organization. There is no address, no main office, no bank account, no titles, and no earthly owner. It’s simply a vision that has drawn the hearts of those in multiple nations, organizations, and many churches to say, “We believe the Lord is in this. Let us help carry the torch, and let’s do it together!”
   
• This is repeatable for the in-country workers. Many cross-cultural workers around the world have found hosting a visiting team to be exhausting. Instead, we prepare the teams to be self-led, intentionally telling the teams that there will be no one to hand-hold. The in-country long-term workers meet with the teams for an orientation at the beginning and a hand-off at the end. Other than that, the long-term workers can focus on their own ministries and on follow-up in the cities that the teams have covered in prayer.
   
• This isn’t a typical mission trip. When the opportunity to join a “prayer team” is presented, the reality is most people are not attracted to it. Those who are attracted to a prayer team going to a Muslim country are almost always mature believers (of all ages).
   
• The focus is on actively praying. One church mission director said “We always SAY that prayer is the most important thing. The reason I want to send teams is that this vision is actually DOING it, actually making prayer the priority.”
   
• There is consistent praying on site for a church to be birthed in each city. We ask for apostles, evangelists, pastors, prophets, and teachers to be raised up. We declare the true identity of Jesus. We worship—conscious that in most places it’s been over a century, if ever, since worship has come before the throne from that city.
   
• Believing that churches will be born in these places, a report from each prayer walking team and a prayer walking map are kept as part of the permanent record. In addition to aiding in follow-up, these could become precious gifts to the future churches that emerge, testifying to God’s faithfulness to the people of that city.
   

Divine Appointments and Hospitality

Something that is consistent with most of these prayer teams is experiencing what we would call “divine appointments.” In an unreached land, the biggest factor in a divine appointment is a believer showing up. Westerners often express astonishment at the divine appointments the prayer teams describe, but I’ll let you in on a little secret… most of the time all we must do is show up! When there are no believers for hours around and a prayer team shows up with a “yes” in their hearts, the Lord doesn’t waste time. He uses them.

One of these divine appointments happened when a prayer walking team briefly stopped in front of City Hall to take a photo. At that moment, a man opened the door and said, “Follow me.” He ushered us unannounced into the mayor’s office, then turned and left us there. The mayor was in the middle of a meeting with his advisors. After an awkward greeting, we were cordially welcomed, and the mayor called for tea to be served. It didn’t take long before we explained our purpose for visiting his city. “We’re here to pray for blessings for your city. What do your people need?” His surprising response was, “Joy! We need joy! And we need more smiling faces like yours!”

Other divine appointments occur when teams deliberately don’t plan lodging ahead of time—giving opportunity for locals to offer the hospitality for which they are well known.

In one city as we prayer walked the snowy streets, a plumber pulled over in his van and invited us to the local tea house to get a hot drink. He ended up arranging for us to lodge in his grandfather’s house. After we covered the city in prayer, he and his friends followed us back to where our long-term hosts lived to ask them to explain the “energy” they felt from the team. A simple Discovery Bible Study followed, where they had the chance to read the Word of God for the first time in their own language!

Personally, I think the Lord gave these people a gift of hospitality to welcome carriers of the gospel. Usually, when it becomes known that a team is looking for a place to stay, someone steps forward to help them, either by welcoming them into a home or by helping them to find an appropriate place to stay. This approach has often led to deeper relationships and open doors in the city.

Sometimes, hospitality can actually become overwhelming. There are certain streets where prayer walkers can’t pass three or four houses without being invited for tea. It’s hard to decline, but at a certain point there is a need to gently pull aside from the social engagement in order to finish the spiritual task of covering the city in prayer.

First Fruits

The Lord has been gracious on this journey to give tastes of the coming harvest, including some new believers and increased requests for Bibles coming from some prayed-for cities. Several churches have now been planted in cities that had none before being covered by a prayer team.

Prayer Births Prayer

We’re in continual astonishment at the ongoing and incoming waves of on-site and off-site prayer. After returning home, one prayer team decided to continue praying together weekly for the region and have now prayed for an hour nearly every week for over 12 years!

Last year, someone who had been watching this prayer movement grow approached us with the desire to launch a new prayer effort based on our model in one of the least-reached, most under-served parts of the globe. We were able to spend some time with them, sharing what we had learned along the way and praying together. We joked that it was like a new baby was being born. After their launch season they said, “We have completed six on site prayer trips, and they have gone so well. There are dozens of prayer teams in the works for the future. This baby is thriving and taking off! God is good. Thank you so much for helping us get started. Now your prayer movement might also be having a grandbaby in Africa.”

Preparing a Welcome for Jesus

As we approach the goal of covering 172 cities in prayer, a phase two is being planned to the cities that have been the most receptive. The Lord himself has provided the momentum and done the recruiting. The prayer teams have far outpaced the follow-up work. This leaves us with the distinct sense that there can be no other reason for this massive outpouring of prayer than that the Lord plans to move and is raising the prayer level in preparation for that. He’s sending us ahead of him to help create a welcome for Jesus. He’s planning to show up!