Stories of Transformation in Process
By Dennis Fuqua
When a hurricane blew through Bartow County, GA, community officials were so impressed with the way believers assisted in the clean up that they changed their official Emergency Management Plan. Based on what emergency leaders called “the finest disaster response in the history of the state,” the county emergency plan now includes “the vital involvement of houses of worship.”
Schools in Corvallis, OR, have benefited from strategic prayer and involvement by pastors and local churches. One district has invited pastors and youth pastors to be trained and used as crisis counselors.
When realtors in the Branson, MO, area ask people why they are moving into the community, common answers include, “This place is like a breath of fresh air,” and “Our family feels safe here.” Pastors can trace the changes in their community back to the 1990s when an intentional prayer movement started. Typically about ten percent of the population turns out for National Day of Prayer events.
When hopelessness pervaded Tucson, AZ, some Christian leaders noticed race issues escalating and teen suicides on the rise. A group of Anglo pastors met regularly to talk and pray about matters affecting relationships in their city, and they developed a growing sensitivity to race and other issues. Through prayer for the schools, they began seeing an impact. Attendance and academic scores have increased dramatically. School administrators point to specific answers in response to the church rallying around their schools in prayer.
Many similar Kingdom-advancing stories play out in communities around the U.S. And they all have one thing in common: prayer. Lots of prayer. United prayer. Strategic prayer. Believing prayer. Relational prayer. Persistent prayer.
Telling the Stories
I interviewed pastors and ministry leaders in these cities and asked them to tell me about their growing transformation movement.
Though none would say their cities are transformed, neither would they deny that significant Kingdom progress has taken place in recent years. As David Franklin of Bartow County puts it, “We are about at the five-mile mark of a 100-mile journey.”
As I listened to their stories, I identified four specific prayer traits consistent with a city transformation movement:
- developing a prayer rhythm for their city
- praying consistent with their history and spiritual heritage
- letting prayer flow from trust and relationship
- praying with specific purpose.
The following stories capture a portion of what God is doing in each city—and how these prayer traits are specifically manifested in their midst.
Corvallis, OR
Corvallis is a university town of about 50,000 people, more than half of whom are college students. Three ministers shared their stories with me: Tom White, veteran city leader and director of Frontline Ministries, who has lived and ministered there for decades; Ron Johnson, former pastor of Corvallis Evangelical Church who recently retired after nearly 30 years of ministry, and Bryson Lewis, director of the Heart of the Valley House of Prayer.
Over the years Corvallis pastors have developed a prayer rhythm for their city. They began praying in unity in 1981. And from 1991 on, their prayer rhythm has included an annual Pastors’ Prayer Summit. In recent years they have added a simultaneous women’s summit. Typically, 100 people set aside these three days each year to go away for a time of Spirit-led, worship-based, Scripture-fed, corporate prayer. The Sunday night following their summit, all the believers in the city are invited to enjoy Adoration, a time of corporate worship and prayer.
In addition, each Thursday morning the pastors and other ministry leaders gather for prayer. They often invite significant city leaders, such as the mayor, superintendent of schools, and university leaders, to join them. This gathering has become the fountainhead of all the other prayer activities in the city.
The most recent addition to this rhythm has been something called Light Corvallis—26 hours of continuous prayer and worship. Light Corvallis’s intentional merging of the city’s various prayer streams and styles helps all pray-ers find ways they can contribute to the vision for their community.
Branson, MO
Branson influences far more people than the average city of its size. Its population, about 10,000, hosts between six and seven million visitors each year. But the influx of tourists also brings some unique ministry challenges. John Baltes, president of the Silver Dollar City Foundation, and Howard Boyd, who has pastored in the city for more than 30 years, told me some of their story.
In Branson, the prayer leaders understand their community’s spiritual heritage and pray consistent with that history. They can point to key events that have shaped Branson’s spiritual history, including the founding of the College of the Ozarks (1906), the publishing of the popular novel Shepherds of the Hills (1907), the opening of a premier Christian camp (1926), an autobiography of Guy Howard titled The Walking Preacher of the Ozarks (1944), and the purchase of land that has been turned into Silver Dollar City (1949).
Despite this rich history, leaders discovered a multidecade gap in significant prayer and cooperation between believers. That changed in 1994 when, through the leadership of the Christian Businessmen’s Committee, intentional prayer returned. Two years later the first of their annual Pastors’ Prayer Summits took place. In addition, since April 21, 1999 (the day after the Columbine tragedy) pastors have prayed weekly, one Wednesday morning each month in the high school, the other Wednesday mornings at the Old Stone church, the first church built in the area.
Since 2002 the Uninterrupted Prayer Team (the UP Team) has been praying for the “seven mountains” of business, education, entertainment, government, medicine, ministry, and social services. For the past ten years Pastor Howard has rallied the community to take the first seven days of each year to pray at, and for, groups representing the seven mountains.
These times of prayer have led to the most recent development that will undoubtedly impact the future: the Ozark Mountain Legacy (OML). This group resulted from the input of about 400 community leaders. They concluded that the five key values of Branson are family, faith, friends, flag, and future. The OML is tracking how these five values are being lived out. And it is encouraging more people to embrace them. Believers in Branson are aware of their history, and they are shaping their future.
Bartow County, GA
Bartow County has tripled in population in the past 40 years (currently about 102,000 people). Cartersville, about an hour northwest of Atlanta on I-75, is Bartow County’s largest city, population: 20,000. Keith Wood has been a bivocational pastor since the early ‘90s. David Franklin, the denominational district overseer for the Southern Baptists, has lived there since 2007. These two and about ten other pastors form an informal “Jerusalem Council,” from which much of the activity there flows.
God’s work is moving forward with the building of trust and relationship. In 2009 about 135 pastors from across the county gathered together to pray prior to the National Day of Prayer rally. Then they walked together to an outside location where hundreds of people were waiting. When the crowd saw the pastors come around the corner together, many wept openly because they never thought this unity could happen.
In 2014 about 3,500 believers participated in reading the entire Bible out loud in every city in the county. In one small town—the one where General Sherman developed his famous March to the Sea—the mayor was so moved that he invited a denominational evangelistic team to minister in their city. Where doors were once closed, they now stood wide open.
Even the county commissioners asked the pastors to pray for a specific city in their county because it was very needy. These events all came about because of the relational connection between pastors and then between pastors and government leaders.
Tucson, AZ
Dave Drum and Matt Merrill both grew up in Tucson, AZ. Dave pastored there for 20 years and now serves as the Church Domain director of a ministry called 4Tucson. Matt is the Transformations coordinator for Gap Ministries, which focuses primarily on assisting foster kids. They offer this background:
Tucson (population 526,000) is a desert metro area where immigration is on the front burner. The three major ethnic groups are Anglos, Hispanics, and African-Americans. 4Tucson, an organization birthed by ministry and business entrepreneur Mark Harris, states their mission is to “transform our community by mobilizing the Body of Christ.” They have identified, and work with, 12 domains—or areas of cultural influence—in their city.
A lack of hope characterized Tucson schools. Many Christian leaders began praying with specific purpose. Matt saw the hopelessness and suicides in the schools and was heartbroken. His brokenness and burden turned into prayer—specific, purposeful prayer to bless everything related to the schools: attendance, academics, students, finances, administration—everything. He rallied intergenerational prayer at, and for, the schools. To date there have been extended times of prayer at about 150 schools. Some of these times lasted four hours. Some lasted 26 hours. Specific answers to prayer were recorded.
Some kids mentioned they have stopped thinking about suicide. Some administrators said things changed “the day you prayed.” Other changes include greater attendance, finances, and hope—as well as fewer actual suicides. Fear between the schools and the church has diminished. Christians in the schools are bolder and better equipped to live godly lives. One administrator states, “I have never seen such a sense of hopefulness here.”
Among the pastors and racial groups in Tucson, real fellowship is replacing isolation and ignorance. The pastors not only pray with each other in large groups (up to 100 at times) but in smaller pockets as well. Those participating conclude these things are happening because they prayed with purpose.
It’s Working
There is “good” traction and “God” traction in each of these cities. The people behind these stories would agree with this paraphrased quote from John Bunyan: “We must do more than pray. But we can’t do more than pray until we have prayed.”
By developing rhythms of prayer, praying consistent with their history, letting prayer flow from trust and relationship, and praying with purpose, leaders testify that the Church is working. And because of that, God is working.
DENNIS FUQUA pastored for 25 years in Gig Harbor, WA. He is the director of International Renewal Ministries and the director of Clark County Prayer Connect. His three books on prayer are available at lppress.net.
