Churches across northern Adelaide have banded together to pray for around 180,000 people in their community over the next year.
They plan to pray over every home in the multicultural cities of Playford and Salisbury and the town of Gawler by Pentecost next year.
One of the leaders of the initiative is Mike Hey from Operation Mobilisation (OM) who’s involved in church planting with Andrews Farm Community Church on Adelaide’s northside.
He explained to Vision Radio how it germinated at Pentecost.
“I have a regular personal prayer walk in the bush. And one morning I was just walking in Cobbler Creek and had the thought Pentecost is coming. What happened the day after Pentecost? The church appeared in the homes and the church appeared on the streets and the whole city was turned upside down. And I thought, well, maybe that’s what we need to give focus to: Pentecost! Great. Come together. Worship. Sing. Great to see everybody’s smiling face and being blessed. But how can we take that blessing back into the city?”
“The idea of this particular initiative in the north came when we’ve come together as one church [at Pentecost] and all the different churches come. We have the Africans and the Burmese and different groups. And we began to think that as we are in this city, we have followers of Jesus in every neighbourhood. Why don’t we challenge one another to bless every home.”
“We actually have a little background initiative. We call it Beautiful Feet. It’s almost like for Andrews Farm it’s been the pilot project where we’ve been walking streets and just being present. We get to know people. We’ve been knocking on about 200 homes, inviting them to a barbecue, 50 to 60 turn up. Mostly not followers of Jesus. And then we find they’ve been inviting us into their homes. So we’ve got these little discovery Bible studies happening in their homes. So we felt, well, we started this, but why can’t we all do this, the whole church, and see the whole city blessed in this way?”
“It’s from Isaiah 52:7: How beautiful are the feet of those on the mountain who bring good news. And then Paul quoting in Romans 10:15: How would they hear unless somebody’s sent and how beautiful are the feet of those. I actually didn’t like the term in the beginning, but people picked up on this word beautiful feet. Wow! We carry the presence of Jesus. Let’s do it with at least one other person. Let’s not do it alone, but let’s make a plan to meet each week, different ones, and just be present with Jesus. Pray and be blessed and see what He wants us to do.”
Mike Hey revealed to Vision Radio how he sees the prayer initiative playing out:
“It will be individuals intentionally saying I want to be a part of this blessing the city. Like last Friday I walked with two friends and we took 20 minutes out of our day and we just slowed down on one street and we prayed the Lord’s Prayer over 10 homes. Next week we’re going to do the same thing and we encourage people to do that. Then once a month we’ll actually invite people who want to learn how to do it but are nervous and want to be paired off with someone. Then we’ll break up into teams of two. And we’re just going to walk a block of 20 to 30 homes and bless them.”
“We speak out a scripture or a word, a simple word, but we also ask: Father, will you bless this home with your love in Jesus name? Then as we walk I encourage people to just speak peace. We speak the peace of Jesus in this home to break the hostility. We speak joy on this street to bring salvation to the neighbourhood. And we speak out a lot that God will show us how to bless people with love.”
Mr. Hey told how the initiative is already having a noticeable impact:
“We went to a market garden with about 98 workers from 12 countries. We walked through this business with the owner, blessing them and we blessed all 98 workers and their homes and their families and their friends and thought: Wow! That’s a good start to blessing the city.”
“Even the homeless are turning up at churches in this city as we’re getting out and we’re being present and we’re believing that there’s the presence of Jesus in every neighbourhood in this city because God’s people live there. As they get out and intentionally bless those homes, the atmosphere is changing. It changes their attitude, but also they have a presence. They start to build trusting relationships with people in the neighbourhood.”
“I believe mission is everywhere and the whole body of Christ is to be involved. It starts with asking the Lord of the Harvest for workers and then realising we are those workers. Find one other person because where two or three are gathered in Jesus’s name they have authority to go on a mission with Him to bless people. Just point people to Jesus and His way of life and give them a Bible and say Would you like to know about Jesus? As simple as that.”
Click below to listen to the full interview with Mike Hey.
