Praying together in community

Life is busy. Church can be busy. Family is busy. Sports, social events, work and other priorities often keep us spinning our wheels. Some of us have learned the power of rest during the busy-ness, but most of us run until we can’t run any more. My hope is that we take the time daily and weekly to re-energize our hearts and minds as we go about our lives. One of the best ways I know to get re-energized is through worshipping the Lord and through prayer. Both of which you must set aside time to step into. It often needs to become a disciplined part of our lives.

Growing up in a small church that my father and family attended in Salem, Ore, I had an understanding that the prayer gatherings were generally the least attended functions of the week.

Most Christians have a high value for prayer, and yet we can often find that gathering for prayer can take a backseat to the needs of the day or week. Knowing that we all are busy and tend to focus on the fire in front of us instead of the one God put inside of us, we should actively choose to make more room for prayer.

There is also something powerful and refreshing when we gather to pray together as a group too. With that in mind, a group of people from around the region decided to try and create a platform to get more people praying together, even in the midst of the busy schedules.

As we head into our Annual National Day of Prayer gathering (Farmin Park, May 3rd at noon) we wanted to prime the pump and start praying over the region as a community now. We decided to create an online platform to come in agreement and pray for Bonner County. Many of us use Facebook from time to time, so our group, Pray7B, decided to do a 40-day prayer campaign.

This 40-day campaign is happening right now, and you can join us in praying over the community every day as we head into National Day of Prayer. If you search Pray7B on Facebook you will find us, and you will see so far 20 video prayers with different community organizations, businesses, schools and many other agencies. Please, like, share and comment on the prayers that are important to you, and tag those friends of yours that you are praying for.

The focus of National Day of Prayer this year is “UNITY” and we believe that as we cover the entire region in prayer, our hearts and minds will continue to grow together as believers in Jesus Christ to fulfill Christ’s prayer in John 17:20-21, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Join us as we pray over our region and believe God for a powerful revival of unity this year and join us as we gather on May 3 in Farmin Park for this year’s National Day of Prayer gathering.

Chris Bassett is the senior leader at Harvest Valley Worship Center. You can find out more about Pray7B at pray7B.org and Chris at hvwc.com.