Prayerwalking with Jeremiah Smart

August 9, 2022 - by Kathy Marson

Is Prayerwalking new to you? Do you wonder what it is all about? Since this concept is new to me, I talked to Jeremiah Smart, pastor of the Coeur d’Alene (CDA) Seventh-day Adventist Church, who has experience in Prayerwalking. This is a prayer activity that is best described as praying on-site with insight.

Smart began Prayerwalking in Nashville. He found this was a good way to build relationships with neighbors and to potentially invite them to church. When one prays for their neighbors and gets to know them and hears about their needs, a friendship follows.

Once he began pastoring in North Idaho, several of his CDA members went with him to the Prayeradigm shift weekend where they saw how prayer is an important part of ministry through Pavel Goia.

This group began planning ways to make prayer more important and laying the foundation for more prayer to happen. The CDA church is starting “Life Groups.” These are groups formed by a common interest such as boating, hobbies, or eating out. Because of “Life Groups” they have a variety of ways to invite people they meet prayer walking into a group of the church.

They also have a group of Praying Grammas that has been meeting for some time. They felt an urgency to pray and have now grown to two group and they are wanting to begin a group of Praying Grampas.

Prayerwalking is just beginning at Smart’s church so there are no big stories yet to tell. But they have laid the foundation for it to be successful.

“Just start somewhere, even with just one group,” says Smart. “Let a variety of prayer groups grow naturally. Leadership does not need to tell people what to do. Let them do it by the Holy Spirit.”

Smart says that Prayeradigm was huge for getting members excited about prayer. They have a group of 20 *including their children or more young adults who meet regularly following Prayeradigm. There are also other specific groups that meet to pray together.

When it comes to prayer walking, I recommend those who are interested in Prayerwalking resources, go to www.uccsda.org/vertical. Then gather other like-minded pray-ers and get started. Let the Holy Spirit lead you with His insight.

Here is a link to  A Guide to Prayerwalking.