The Power of a Prayer Walk

   The Power of Prayer Walking in One Community

          Have you taken your prayer walk today?  Read on to see how one community reduced crime, led people to Jesus and increased the peace in their community.  All through the power of prayer walks!

 Prayer-walking, has been happening on the streets of Jacksonville since summer 2010, and Sheriff John Rutherford said it's helping reduce crime.
Two summers ago a group of residents began prayer-walking through Jacksonville, literally going down sidewalks and praying for the safety of each person living in the homes they passed.
They focused on the Panama Park neighborhood because of a prostitution problem in the area. On the first day one of the participants, A. Wellington Barlow, passed a prostitute "on the clock" at the corner of 63rd and Northland streets. It was 9:30 a.m. The woman was holding a can of Colt .45 malt liquor, and Barlow, an attorney and minister, asked her if she knew Jesus.
"This lady immediately started crying," he said. "She put the beer on the ground, we had a nice conversation and she accepted Christ. That was a sign to me that we were doing the right thing."
That was on June 5, 2010. Two years later and prayer-walking - which is put on through Transform Jacksonville & Northeast Florida - is still happening across the city. On Wednesday, Sheriff John Rutherford stood in Panama Park and praised the effort, a faith-based initiative that he said is one of a handful of community partnerships with the Sheriff's Office that helps combat crime.
"I can tell you crime is down in double digits in this neighborhood after this initiative," Rutherford said.
Ben Goldsmith, the metro director of Here's Life Inner City, said 12 percent of Jacksonville's streets have been prayer-walked to date.
"Our vision statement is that Jacksonville will be a blessed, peaceful, prosperous community evidenced by strong families, high employment, high graduation rates, low crime and low poverty," he said. "The main effort to do that is by prayer-walking our city, asking God to bless us."
Since the effort began in the Panama Park area, the neighborhood has seen drunken-driving arrests go down 14 percent, burglaries down 16 percent and robberies 14 percent, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Organizers hope people living in each community adopt their neighborhoods as prayer-walking targets.
On Wednesday, Owen, John Twomey and Dwayne Kirby walked up the 500 block of East 59th Street praying over homes. They stopped in front of each one, bowed their heads and took turns saying prayers.
"Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for today, thank you for your love," Kirby said in front of one home. "We pray for house 528, pray that souls will come in, we pray for your protection over this house. We love you."

Let's get on our walking shoes and take a prayer walk through our neighborhood, school hallway, home, or workplace and invite the Holy Spirit to do what He does best; work miracles!
Comment below to share your prayer walk stories with our E4M community!

This article was originally posted on Jacksonville.com/Florida Times-Union
Author: William Browning