Why bother with a regional prayer guide?
Aren't church ones enough? Won't people disagree too much?
And will anyone actually use it?
For people in churches Church congregations are where our lives are formed and shaped into the Gospel, and ideally, it is where we pray for each other, too. For personal prayer for specific things, nothing can beat real, dynamic relationships that grow in honesty and love (even if it is a lot more complicated than it looks on paper). Having individuals receive a prayer guide that is hitting the different perspectives of different communities can teach us to pray bigger and more beautifully together. It is amazing to think about college kids praying for the homebound, led by a 90-year old; corporate climbers praying about food insecurity led by a mom who experiences it; and shoppers or diners realizing that last week, they prayed for the local entrepreneur who rang up their bill. Maybe it will even bring us back into our own churches praying with a little more worship, heart, and wisdom.
For accessible prayer amongst Christians There is also room for praying between churches. The New Testament shows an early church with necessary differences in geography and practice but which networked in encouragement and support, praying for one another. We still do today, and Northwest Arkansas has several powerful examples of that incredible practice. This is an invitation into that ancient tradition through the simplest and most accessible means possible today—the devices we already access. That is not a replacement for joining together with incredible prayer events and nonprofits, and it is definitely not a church family, but it does give us a tiny, intentional connection right where we are each week.
For people who are not in churches It is also an invitation into prayer and healing for folks who are feeling church weary or wary or are afraid to pray. When we look at Scripture to learn about the life of faith, it is clear that there are moments of pain, confusion, and loss that can completely overwhelm us. God’s people don’t just float over the turmoil of our broken world. We experience loss, wrestle with God, cry out for rest, become apathetic, struggle with soul-silencing bitterness, run from God’s voice because we don’t like what we are hearing, and consider denying Jesus and walking away for good—and those examples are all from the lives of the biblical heroes of the faith. It can be hard to start those conversations honestly in a bustling church foyer, though, even under the best of circumstances. It can even be hard to start that conversation with oneself or God. This little weekly email is an open-handed gift—not from one or two people, but from a broken people, to a broken people, reminding one another that we have a Savior who has been broken for us, and who is strong enough and good enough to bring us into wholeness because of His love. Eventually, maybe it will even help open the doors for someone to be healed and hopeful enough to find safe places to worship, trust, and love.
For people new to Northwest Arkansas This prayer guide is also intended to welcome the many new arrivals to Northwest Arkansas. Moving is disorienting. After boxes are unpacked and before new rhythms are made, this little prayer guide can help in becoming grounded and invested. Reading from different community members leading in prayer can provide an entry point into the fabric of Northwest Arkansas. The Short and the Long of It may even introduce a new local favorite or two.
Why pray between different churches or kinds of believers at all? This simple little prayer guide can also be a web that invites people into local congregations and quietly binds individuals and church families with a strand of hope and trust in Jesus. When we pray amongst churches, we are crossing all kinds of barriers and divisions that arise naturally because of geography, culture, denomination, and background. In Ephesians, Paul displays the way that Jesus has broken down the “dividing wall of hostilities” between people who had been enemies as they are brought into family relationships in Jesus. When we trust Him and follow Him, we assert that we are part of that family. We also know it is complicated. Those divisions are real, and they have a lot behind them. Some steps seem too big, scary, or dangerous to know what to do. But what if the first step we take is the one that proclaims not who we are but who God is? What if our inherent motion is not first toward describing ourselves or analyzing whomever we think the other may be, but in gazing together at Jesus, our Savior? As we look at Him if we are also able to listen to one another, learning to pray and worship from each other’s story with God, we are foreshadowing the fulness of the Kingdom. It is how we will ultimately be perfectly unified, according to Revelation 7, when those who have been rescued by Jesus are assembled as “a great multitude… from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… crying out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God!’” We will not get there today (probably). But we can point to it. It isn’t going to be perfect right now. Honestly, everything here is messy—but because we know where this is going, we do not lose hope. Instead, we can act in faith today because we trust for tomorrow, because we know the God who is the Beginning and the End.
Why Northwest Arkansas? Well, first off, it is where we live. NWA is a pretty special place, too. It is incredibly diverse. Northwest Arkansas has urban, suburban, and rural living experiences. It has residents drawn from every corner of the globe as well as historic folk cultures that remain tied deeply to the land. Northwest Arkansas has a lot of religious (and non-religious) diversity. In the midst of that broad landscape, it has very many kinds of Christians. We have bald headed, ripped jeans, goateed Bible shakers and gold-robed, incense-waving Orthodox; we have God’s Trombones calling God’s people up to praise like they mean it, and we have the frozen chosen shaking hands tidily in time to beat the Baptists to lunch. And, oh, we have got our share of Baptists! We have far more than just those few traditions, and many of us have a foot in more than one of those doors. Sometimes that can be confusing or threatening. Sometimes we need to have really meaningful discussions on our differences, because they really do matter. But here is the thing—all of those traditions, all of those kinds of worshippers—the thing that unites them was never about them. It is all about who they trust to rescue them. This story is about Jesus. You can see that play out here in this place. You can see it in people shoulder to shoulder serving food through nonprofits to our whole community, in summer camps that make sure everyone can go, in church-based grief programming that is open to everyone of every stripe, and a thousand other examples that surround us. You can see it in the way that people here often do choose civility and kindness in little moments. That is not to say this place is perfect (far from it). It is not to say that people aren’t sometimes every kind of awful (they are); and, sadly, sometimes churches are the worst (they definitely can be). It is not to say all of NWA is Christian (it isn’t) or that we should go verbally beating people until they want to be Christians (doesn’t sound persuasive, nor does it sound like Jesus). It is to say that we have an opportunity, a little window to reach out toward each other in hope, trusting not in each other nor in our own cleverness or kindness, but instead, trusting in Jesus, who is a steady Foundation even when we feel like we are on shaky ground.
Why NWA Prays Together? Our world right now is bitter and divisive. So too, sometimes, are our news cycles, life stories, churches, relationships, and souls. But we can choose this tiny, simple step that helps us remember each week what the truest story is. When we do, we do it so that together, we can ask Jesus, like the disciples did, “Teach us to pray.” We can do it so we can pray for each other and see hope start in our own lives, homes, and communities. We do it so that we can intercede for this little region as it grows by leaps and bounds—because, just like anything else, we can’t keep it from growing up, but we can invest in the kind of grown up we want it to be. We do it because we know we can’t trust the world to do what we want, but we can trust the God who holds the world. It is so that in the good days, we can meet each other knowing that we share something deeper than what holds us apart; so that in the hard days, we can intercede for one another; and so that on the hardest days of all, when we cannot whisper our own prayers, we can know that others are wrapping us in theirs. We need Christians praying for each other—praying for each other’s churches—praying for each other’s neighborhoods, homes, families, lives, jobs, and stories. We need Christians carrying each other to Jesus, singing or sobbing or both. Here. In one actual place. With the people who run big companies and the ones who rock tiny babies, the ones who jog past you on the sidewalk and the ones who brush past you in the grocery store, so that as you drive through any part of this region, glance at any oblivious driver in any BMW or beater, you recognize that you might be praying for each other, and that it changes us and how we love God and other people. That is why I think it might be worth the risk and the effort. NWA praying—together.
Will people actually use it? I do not know yet. Statistically, we have an email open rate right around 73%, which is far higher than the optimistic 20% that many similar emails often aim for. That is exciting! But statistics are never the whole story, especially when you are talking about hearts and lives. For me, the image of a web of prayer criss-crossing our homes, businesses, roads, public spaces, and most private moments is one that fills me with hope and trust in Jesus. There is a loud and bitter world that tells us that there is no hope and that we should be angry and afraid. But that is not the truest thing. I do not know where this goes from here, but I do know that our prayers are not wasted, that our lives are not aimless, that our stories are not voiceless, and that our King is not powerless. So wherever it goes from here, it will be worth it. Will you share and pray with me? Let’s see what God does here in our days and in our midst.