Week of Gratitude at The Potter's House

Gratitude and praise is rising up in SouthWest Grand Rapids during the month of Thanksgiving!

The Potter’s House Elementary and Middle School did a Week of Gratitude and Prayer to kick off the month of November. Each day teachers led their students in a Thankful Theme through class devotions, writing prompts, and grateful games. At the same time, a team of 6th and 7th grade students gave up their recess time to set up a space for students and staff to enter God’s gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. In two days Thankful Trees grew out of the floor and leafed out with thanksgiving, the cross of Christ was filled with vibrant declarations of freedom, and letters of encouragement were written, drawn, and given away. 

“We’re not just fighting the enemy this week, we’re building a throne for Jesus in our school through praise and thanksgiving.”  
~ Middle School Discipleship Coordinator 

A kindergarten student watching the trees being created said, “It looks like the burning bush from the Moses story!”  For those who took time to turn and look, these fun creative stations became holy ground and a place of encounter with the living God. One of the 2nd/3rd grade teachers said “My kiddos are so excited to go to the prayer space this afternoon!”

The following week, a 6th grade boy from the prayer team said “My favorite part of this week was working together as a team on the thankful trees.”  A 6th grade girl from the team said her highlight was “writing encouraging suggestions for what God says about us on the You Say mirror.”

As the week ended and the month comes to a close, the staff are still focusing on the power of praise and gratitude.  On Monday before Thanksgiving break, the school’s staff were commissioned by a K/1 teacher to go into four different rooms around the building and praise Jesus for that room and what He’s provided!  Even the students on the prayer team are thinking ahead to what can be done for the National Day of Prayer in the Spring.

Click the link to learn more about The Potter’s House

Current Prayer Rhythm: Prayer Walking Grand Rapids Neighborhoods

Over the years, there have been many different ways we’ve felt led to carry on different rhythms of prayer—and each different way of engaging in prayer opens us up in unique ways to the presence of God and what he is doing around and among us. This year we are excited to engage in a rhythm of PRAYER-WALKING weekly onsite in all the neighborhoods of our city.

This came about through a prayer station and a partnership. Earlier this year, we were asking ourselves what we would do with the big back wall of the prayer garage. We knew we wanted to feature prayer for the city—and had the idea to use a puzzle-like map of the city with color-coded neighborhoods of the city cut out and placed near one another. The idea is that the city as a whole would be seen in the big picture, but the individual neighborhoods that make up the city would be emphasized visually. It was so much fun to make this station, and so invigorating to be praying for our city in this way. We thought, “What more can we do with this?” This question inspired the idea to make it an embodied weekly rhythm—to actually prioritize going to each of these neighborhoods over the next year, to give time to noticing what and who makes up these neighborhoods, with a listening ear to God in how we can pray alongside what he is up to in each.

We engage this prayer rhythm with the posture of a student, seeking to notice and learn, as well as sons and daughters of the King, participating in His intercession.

There is something about going to a place. IN PERSON. Getting your feet on the ground, FEELING the atmosphere of the place, becoming CURIOUS about the history of it and the ongoing story, and experiencing the reality that we are all CONNECTED to this place, this story, and each other through our Papa who made and sustains it all.

There is a BONDING WITH THE CITY that happens in a unique way and leads us to carry these prayers in our hearts throughout the week.

We are engaging this rhythm as a partnership with PLANT 616, which is a wonderful new ministry in our city focused on training young leaders to plant churches and fostering an environment of friendship and partnership among the churches in the city.

We’d LOVE for you to JOIN US! We are meeting each Thursday 4:15-4:45p. Send an email to tim.a.collier@gmail.com if you’d like to get on the info list for where we will be meeting each week!

Citywide Prayer in Madison during Holy Week

In Madison, Wisconsin, the proud capital of the Forward State (or Dairy State, if you like that nickname better!), there are plans afoot for city-wide prayer to take place among many churches and ministries this year during Holy Week, leading up to Easter. Wendy Porterfield, who has a long history with both the city of Madison and the 24-7 Prayer movement, including living as a 24-7 missionary in Hong Kong for several years, has found herself back in Madison, raising a family with her husband, Tad, and working part-time with a local grassroots organization seeking to foster unity and prayer among the churches in Madison. 

Collaboration Project is an organization that started about three years ago, after Jon and Mary Anderson, who had pastored youth and done community outreach with two different churches over the former few decades, sensed the Lord leading them into a season of stepping out to serve a significant need they saw in Madison—namely, a greater sense of unity in the churches in the city. They wanted to see stronger relationships among the churches as well as a greater missional impact in the city together, so they identified four ways that they could practically help make that a reality. Those four areas are sharing stories that celebrate and accelerate Kingdom work and the Gospel, hosting affinity groups to bring churches together practically around shared areas of common ground, caring for pastors through pastor retreats, and hosting collaborative events. 

This week of citywide prayer is one of those events that a collaboration of churches will host together. There are plans for three different prayer rooms to be hosted in different areas of the city, with day and night prayer happening simultaneously. 

There have been some significant united 24-7 prayer seasons in Madison over the last two decades, one of which happened in 2005 for 40 days on the campus of UW-Madison, and was a major catalyst in the lives of many people throughout the city. 

Let’s pray with Wendy, Jon, and the churches in Madison, Wisconsin this Holy Week for Jesus’ Kingdom to come throughout the neighborhoods and people of the city.

Learn more about Collaboration Project at: https://www.collaborationproject.us/

Learn more about the week of prayer here: https://www.collaborationproject.us/prayer

24-7 Prayer in Milwaukee: a Year in with MHOP and the Robinsons

Donna and Darnell Robinson share their story with other leaders during the night they were commissioned as Milwaukee City Coordinators in late 2019.

Toward the end of 2019 Darnell and Donna Robinson, with the help of their team, renovated and launched a permanent prayer house in the neighborhood they’d been investing their lives into for the last quarter century. Having freshly been commissioned as 24-7 Prayer city coordinators for Milwaukee that October they threw their full weight into setting up a place of retreat with God and prayer for the city. Individuals and groups began finding their way into the house and were inspired to spend hours there engaging God’s heart in fresh new ways. And then...2020 happened. 

Anyone reading this will know that this last year has brought challenges like few others, but Donna and Darnell have retained a nimble posture, responding creatively to the pandemic, the racial tension brought on by the death of George Floyd (among others), and an extremely dividing election season. 

Donna at Cup Foods in Minneapolis where she and her husband prayed with others and listened as they mourned, as well as helped host a prayer tent nearby.

In May, Donna and Darnell felt a leading to go to Minneapolis with a team of 24-7 Prayer leaders from several different cities the week after George Floyd was killed. As part of that team they were able to spend time listening and praying with other locals and people who were making their own personal pilgrimages to the site of his death, which had essentially become somewhat of a sacred site. They also helped host a 24-7 prayer tent nearby in a parking lot with stations to help folks spiritually process with the Lord and intercede for change. 

“City transformation must be measured in decades—not years.” -Jill Weber, Global Convenor for Order of the Mustard Seed and former urban missionary

As African American leaders who’ve been serving faithfully at the street level for 2.5 decades in one of the most racially segregated cities in America, Donna and Darnell carry both a spiritual perspective and authority that are rare and potent for anyone who receives the gift of spending time in their presence. They have deep hearts for the work of reconciliation and are uniquely graced to help see it manifested in their city and the relationships around them. Darnell is a man who goes out of his way to make space to be a listening ear for others and his joy can hardly be contained when he shares stories of individuals and families they’ve seen this last year who were broken apart initially by the sharp political division sweeping the country, but then reconciled after spending time either praying at the prayer house or just having a listening ear to process with there. Family members who’ve disowned each other have even found their way back into relationship. “I've seen a lot of people tiptoe-ing around each other, afraid of what to say. We’re trying to protect ourselves and others. It produces a spiritual anxiety. 2020 has been a breaking down in our society, and in 2021 we're sensing the Lord wanting to build us back up in a new way.“

The Robinsons in front of the house they turned into a permanent prayer house in a neighborhood they’ve been ministering in for 25 years.

Darnell also shared of new conversations and efforts working toward racial reconciliation and understanding happening around the city. Black and white pastors are doing more pulpit swaps, book studies, and having more transparent conversations about how we can understand and learn from one another as different racial experiences in the church. “There’s healing happening among the tribes. White churches are sincerely posturing themselves to listen and asking how they can learn.” 

Amidst a year that has been discouraging for many of us, the Robinsons are able to see plenty to be encouraged about, and they are pressing in all the more to see God’s Kingdom come. They’ve just purchased a new bus that is being customized to serve the purpose of a mobile food pantry, art therapy with kids, and prayer outreach in parts of the city where prostitution is prominent. Donna is currently pursuing a masters degree in counseling as they are seeing the need for aid in mental/spiritual health around them is only increasing. 

Getting the new bus ready for use as a mobile food pantry, art therapy, and prayer ministry in areas of high prostitution.

Let’s pray with Donna and Darnell as they continue to act as a bridge of relationship for Jesus Kingdom in the city of Milwaukee and seek true reconciliation and transformation. 

- Tim Collier

Meet Casey Tobik, the new 24-7 Cleveland City Coordinator

The 24-7 Cleveland Prayer Room, set to open early 2021, is in The Flats neighborhood in downtown Cleveland—a significant location where many diverse groups, businesses, churches, and welfare programs call home.

A new permanent 24-7 prayer room in the heart of downtown Cleveland is being birthed right now, and Casey Tobik the new Cleveland city coordinator is hard at work with her team to pull it together. 

Casey just recently discovered 24-7 Prayer when she picked up the book Dirty Glory by Pete Greig this summer after participating in 24-7’s national COVID-19 prayer initiative. As Dirty Glory chronicles the story of the 24-7 Prayer movement over the last decade, Casey read it furiously against the backdrop of the racial unrest that was sweeping our nation in the summer. 

Casey Tobik | 24-7 Prayer Cleveland City Coordinator

“It was the first time I had seen someone connect prayer, mission and justice seamlessly together…”

“It was the first time I had seen someone connect prayer, mission and justice seamlessly together—so clearly connecting how prayer and intimacy with Jesus flows into how you love others and live sacrificially. The further I got into the book, the more it felt like home...in terms of the way I live my life and experience God in my life.” 

Casey’s heart is for the city of Cleveland and the people in it, and she sees the prayer room they are planning to launch at the end of January is a tool they will be able to use to facilitate unity in the church of the city and a place where individuals and groups can encounter Jesus. 

The Flats neighborhood by day, where the Cleveland Prayer Room will be.

“The physical location of the prayer room…there are high-end condos and Section-8 housing, trendy restaurants and rehab facilities, strip clubs and hundred year-old catholic church buildings—all within a few blocks.”

“I see the prayer room as a neutral ground—a uniting place. Prayer is something that Christians can unilaterally unite around. The prayer room can serve that going forward. The physical location of the room plays a big part in that. Practically, it's in a section of the city that many socio-economic and ethnic groups converge. There are high-end condos and Section-8 housing, trendy restaurants and rehab facilities, strip clubs and hundred year-old catholic church buildings—all within a few blocks. I feel like even the physical location of the prayer room will play a huge role in providing a place anyone can feel comfortable coming to but experiencing God in a way they are familiar with.”

"God [is] building bridges between churches in Cleveland this year”

Progress on the Prayer Room project: The space consists of four rooms: 2 larger and 2 smaller with a corridor as well. Most work so far has been done on the renovation of the floors, walls and ceilings. Soon the creative work will be building out uniquely engaging prayer stations such as a missing and justice wall that will feature the work of different non-profits in the city.

Casey shared that they are witnessing God building bridges between churches in Cleveland this year like she hasn’t seen before. Black pastors in the city have been leading out and hosting events that are welcoming people from all backgrounds to grow in relationship and learn together around ideas like biblical justice. Local pastors are creating space for conversations where it hasn’t happened before. 

This coming year, the prayer room team is planning to use The Prayer Course as a way to help people learn more about prayer and discover new ways to engage with God’s heart, both with opportunities to gather in online video chats, and hopefully in person as the winter subsides. 

Casey with her husband Mark and children Eden and Asa

“When I think how I want the world to look when my children grow up, it includes a space where they can find refuge, peace, and the Presence of God…where this is the norm.”

Casey is a wife to her husband and they have two beautiful young children. When asked what motivates her to sacrifice her time and energy to mobilize prayer like this, she answered, “When I think how I want the world to look when my children grow up, it includes a space where they can find refuge, peace, and the Presence of God in a way that is not currently available. I want them to grow up in a world where this is the norm.”

by Tim Collier