An Expedition, Not a Pleasure Trip
It’s important to understand that Prayer Journey’s are not pleasure trips, but they are to be as pleasurable and uplifting non-the-less. Nor are they direct evangelism. They are a spiritual journey built around a specific assignment, target research, and focus. They are a pilgrimage of petition. They consist of a dedicated group of followers of Jesus who travel to different and sometimes remote and spiritually dark regions of the globe, calling upon God to bring real life transformation and change. As a team we plea for His healing presence to fall.
A CityHarvest /APN (Australian Prayer Network) prayer journey is an expedition carried out by a group of Christian Believers to a specific distant region and or location for the purposes of focused intercession. They usually last between one to two weeks and team members can come from right across the Body of Christ nationally and internationally. Each Prayer Journey is under the leadership of senior and mature Australian prayer leaders who have cross-cultural experience.
A prayer journey is basically what the name conveys, it’s about praying ‘on-site’ with ‘insight’ asking God, “May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”.
CityHarvest International Prayer Journeys are built around three basic components: Fun, Fellowship and strategic Focus concerning the assignment being undertaken.
Each Prayer Journey commences with an in-nation briefing carried out by either the team leader or a worker from the host nation in question, and consists of a time of individual sharing and prayer.
The Benefits
There are three benefits that stand out concerning Prayer Journeys:
- Strategic and research based intercession for people, cities, nations and regions.
- Increased personal vision and experience with other people groups, nations and were appropriate, local contacts working and ministering on the ground.
- Creating specific opportunities for each team member’s home church or mission, to engage in strategic intercession in the nations.
Prayer journeys are beneficial because… we ask God for breakthroughs and spiritual release where they are most needed. We seek to cleanse the past in a way that leads people out of darkness into the light of the kingdom, so that they can hear the word of God and be saved. It’s important to pray with eyes and heart open and pray into the things that are seen and which grab attention. Ask God to reveal those things that are most on His heart. Seek to find out some local news and strategic events happening in the host nation around the time before, during or after the Prayer Journey.
We seek to pray strategically, sometimes quietly, some times forcefully and persistently in warfare intercession, in light of Christ’s long-range purposes for the target people, cities, nations and regions. We seek wherever possible to audibly speak out the name of Jesus and read out loud the Word of God in places where it has never been spoken. At times this can be a fairly risky strategy but if it is right in God to do it, it is very exhilarating.
We seek to pray where people have never before prayed in the name of Jesus or called on His name for a specific group or geographical area. In this way, we seek to be bring the light of Christ to dark spheres in cities and regions that have never known the light of the Kingdom of God. It is beneficial to use scriptures as often as possible to remind ourselves and the Lord of His precious promises and to give thanks to God in places where He has never been thanked for the good He has already shown through basic provision and protection to the host nation and it’s peoples. It is also important at times to walk and drive silently, taking in the full scope of the surroundings.
Each Prayer Journey is filled with experiences never before encountered by those on the team as they walk, pray and interact with others on assignment in unfamiliar surroundings. In this, God will teach each person, if they allow Him, more about themselves, His Kingdom, peoples, nations. Don’t be surprised if God opens up your world view to face new questions about the part you might play in today’s global outreach.
Prayer Journey Research
We have our own Strategic Research Unit (SRU) that conducts extensive and in-depth research into each Prayer Journey assignment and prepares ‘on-sight’ profiles and collects other information as prayer fuel for intercession. This helps the team to discover and then understand what’s on God’s heart and what is His plan for the people, city or nation in question.
Can Prayer Journey’s help my home church?
The bottom line answer is YES!
Each home church supporting team members will be impacted because each person who participates in a Prayer Journey will be affected. In some ways the Prayer Journey will be like the spies that were sent into the promise land by Moses (Num 13: 3). They will bring back a report to their respective home fellowships that can influence it in many ways.
Affects like:
- to pray more effectively for different people groups and nations
- to increase the overall health in prayer and commitment within the each congregation and or small group
- to deepen personal devotion and prayer life
- an increased desire to prayer walk and be involved in more community outreach locally
- may become interested in serving God cross-culturally through short-term missions activity or in working cross-culturally as a full time Christian worker
- a change in hearts can reap huge dividends personally and corporately across the life and mission of the church
- seeing God answer team prayers, encourages others to adopt a prayerful heart towards all aspects of life.
Going On-site to Pray
You speak about going “on-site” to pray, why is this important?
Prayer teams will pray from an enhanced vantage point with strategic research to undergird their intercession. The sights, sounds, smells of Casablanca or Delhi, for example, are vastly different from your normal surrounds. This different perspective of place, people and culture, will enable us to draw a more realistic assessment of the needs of the people that are the focus of our intercession.
Are their appropriate ways of prayer walking in public?
Is loud praying acceptable? Quite praying out-loud? Loud Singing? Singing at all? What places might be possible for this to occur?
It is important not to draw attention to ourselves – for security reasons if nothing else. Westerners walking foreign streets stick out from the mass and draw enough unwanted attention in any event without behaving in a manner that may be considered a bit bizarre.
Always remember that our actions will have some kind of effect on those ministering locally long-term and who may be operating under the radar…whether we like it or not. Each nation is different, so much care needs to be expressed and an appropriate prayer strategy adopted for each place visited. In some nations this will change from city to city. Praying out loud and singing may only be appropriate behind closed doors away form the public in nations with restrictive religious and cultural laws and where Christians or being a Westerner is not welcomed. Therefore praying out loud and singing may only take place in hotel rooms or in vans or busses if driven by a secure driver.
On the other hand sometimes it’s best to pray in remote areas like mountains and open country areas that provide for more freedom. Wherever possible, seek the advise of the host nation workers on the ground for their advice and assistance. It is important to work within understood constraints and not to place individuals or the team in a potentially hostile or dangerous situation.
At certain periods of the year when different cultural or religious festivals occur at the same time as prayer journeys to those nations, a more secure prayer strategy will need to be implemented.
Praying in public at anytime needs to be actioned with much wisdom and understanding of the particular culture of the host nation.