PRAYER & SPIRITUAL WARFARE: PRAYER-WALKING: KEY TO EXPLOSIVE IMPACT

One of the great tools that God has given to the church to accomplish the Great Commission is prayer-walking. It is an effective tool that has the capacity to accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Unfortunately, the church in Africa has not laid much store by this tool. Even though some form of prayer walking have been done one way or the practiced rightly for effective and explosive result. other, yet it has not been properly embraced and Christian leader and people will realize the utmost It is my sincere prayer that by this teaching, every necessity of prayer waling to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Revival will come to the church when we take prayer to the community.

PRAYER-WALKING - KEY TO EXPLOSIVE IMPACT (1)

A. Biblical Basis and Foundation: Genesis 13:17, Josh. 1:13, 9, Rom. 16:20.

God told Abraham to walk the length and breath of the land. Joshua was told that wherever the sole of his feet shall tread upon, he would be given. There is something about going out there where the devils are. What is prayer walking? Prayer walking is simply walking while prayer specific, directed, intentional and informed prayers in a very unsuspecting and non-attention drawing way. It is praying on site with insight. It is taking prayer to the very territory of the enemy.

B. Why must we prayer-walk?

Prayer-walking is not showmanship; it is a serious battle for the soul of the community and city. The following points underscore why we must prayer-walk.

To remove the veil and cover of darkness.
2 Cor. 4:3-4
Most prayers within the four walls of the church doesn’t affect some categories of demons in the community.
To stand in the gap for our communities and city. Ezek. 22:30
To secure the spiritual borders of the city for the Lord
To destroy negative gates of the enemy and establish the church as the true gate of God in the city.
To bind principalities and powers and destroy demonic domination
To destroy the demonic covenant of founding fathers.
To change the spiritual patron and atmosphere of the community from that of evil and Satan to good and Jesus.
To show love and concern for the problems plaguing the city.
To bring peace, justice, presence and power of God to the people.

C. Models and Examples of Prayer-Walking

Three basic models of prayer-walking have surface:

1. Home Zone: Christians can prayer-walk where the live, work, study, worship or play. Every Christian, groups of Christian or Christians can do this form the same church.

2. Key Site: Prayer waling involves selecting a certain place, or several places and targeting them for special sustained prayer focus. It may be a shrine, mosque, mystic temples, seat of government, courts, police post or a palace. Such place must have first been identified through spintual mapping Christians from various churches must do it together

3. Total Coverage: Prayer-walking aims to cover the entire city or community in prayer-walking in a systematic and on-going fashion. Every street, road, area, community, house is planned to be prayed for in a systematic way.

Prayer walking is moving the church into the munity, it allows the people of the church to me the people of the neighborhood and the people of the city. Getting righteous people out on streets of our cities in a strategic, constant manner may be one of the most effective means to reaching an entire city.

Testimonies abound of communities, neighborhoods and cities that have experienced transformation, revival, gospel breakthrough, ion in crime rate and security simply use Christians prayer-walk their unities.

D. Pitfalls to avoid in Prayer-walking

Sin and ungodliness – it surely leads to defeat
Inadequate preparation holes in your (ii) armour
Pride and show off-unanswered prayers.
Disunity, competition and bitterness Decome a prey to the enemy
Doing it alone without covering it can esult in death
Over zealousness and rashness closes doors of opportunities. it

E. Methods of Effective Prayer-walking

Two basic issues are very foundational if our prayer-walking efforts are to be effective in our communities.

1. A life-giving church:

A life-giving church is a growing, dynamic church being pastured by a life-giving pastor and inhabited by life-giving people. A cold, divided and stagnant church cannot effectively prayer-walk a community. A church or pastor with a bad image cannot effectively prayer-walk the community. There must be repentance, restitution and restoration. Strong prayer power must be in a life-giving church that intends to prayer-walk her community.

2. A Networking Church:

To prayer-walk a community with positive results, churches and church leaders must network together, we must stop competing, rather complete each other. We must stop fighting each other and start fighting for one another. No one church can win a city or community alone. It requires for cooperative effort.

Various methods abound on effective and impactful prayer walking Here I will mention the most common.

(i) Vicinity Warfare: This is prayer-walking the vicinity of the church, home, office and environment.

(ii) Street by Street warfare: This is Christians going out two by two and praying in street comers, junctions and intersections. Christians of the same church can do it.

(iii) House to house warfare: Moving from house to house in the community, it might be a two or three year project, until every house in the community is prayed in again, group of churches can do it together.

(iv) Praise Match: Churches in the community coming together on a given day to match in procession round the community, lifting the banner of Jesus up and pulling down the banner of the enemy through praise, prayer and prophetic proclamation

(v) Prayer Journey: Christians from various churches going to a particular place to pray and sow the seed of the gospel there by prayer. It may be a resistance place or where a particular incident has happened

(vi) Prayer pilgrimage: Christians serving as prayer missionaries, they can take a pilgrimage of one, two or three months to a particular group of people tribe, area, religion and pray until the powers of darkness holding the place in bondage will be broken.