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closeKeeping the faith
Community comes together for prayer vigil in East Pierce County
Heather Meier
At 9 p.m. every day for the past seven weeks, Kay Davis could be found in a first floor room in a house across the street from the Puyallup Nazarene Church.
Sometimes she does nothing but listen to praise music while she’s there and other times she concentrates on the prayer requests people have tacked onto the wall. She doesn’t spend much time in the corner of the room with the cross, where people have nailed note cards that read comments like “pornography” or “cussing,” things they feel plague them. Still, there are times she feels moved to that spot, just like there are times when she focuses on family and friends.
During Puyallup Nazarene’s 24/7 vigil, she has learned there are many ways to pray.
“From the very first night I knew it was where I needed to be,” she said. “In the private time, it’s just me and God.”
The 24/7 vigil concept isn’t unique to Puyallup Nazarene, explained Pastor Chris Rodes. The idea is loosely outlined in the book “Red Moon Rising,” which he was wowed by when he read it last fall. The authors, Rodes said, wanted to see if they could get people praying 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Churches around the globe have decided to start their own 24/7 vigils, some lasting for weeks and others for months or even years. There are 24/7 prayer teams that will rent buildings in the worst parts of neighborhoods and use that space to pray for the community.
Rodes passed the book on to the group of 20-somethings he ministers and they got fired up, wanting to be involved with something like that in their own church. They decided the last three weeks of Lent leading up to Easter would be the perfect time to start a 24/7 vigil at Puyallup Nazarene.
One of the beautiful things about the vigil was that no single group could be responsible for making it work; everyone would need to participate.
“It also brought unity to the entire church with this thing,” he said, explaining it wasn’t just the church youths or the seniors who became involved. “That’s pretty rare.”
In only a few days they converted a meeting room into a prayer sanctuary where people could spend their hour concentrating on God.
The finished room has many different areas with netting separating each space. Rodes said people can treat it like a journey, traveling from one area of the room to the next or picking a couple of spots and settling there. It’s up to them.
“No hour has been the same,” he said.
One corner of the room has canvases where people can paint artwork or messages as they are participating in the 24/7 vigil. The initial canvases were filled so quickly they were moved to the house’s hallway, right outside the prayer room. In the opposite corner is the cross where people write down problems that plague them and nail the note cards onto the wooded cross.
There’s a wall where people have tacked sheets of paper with prayer requests, some asking that their diabetes will disappear and others hoping their children will behave better.
And for those who would prefer to simply sit still and have a conversation with God, there are several places in the room dedicated to that.
“You can do whatever,” Rodes said. That’s the important element of the whole 24/7 vigil — there’s no right or wrong way to pray.
He wasn’t sure at first how the congregation would receive the idea of the prayer vigil.
“So many people struggle just to pray for 10 minutes straight,” he said.
At first people were pretty nervous and didn’t know what to expect. Word spread, though, and soon every hour was filled. When Palm Sunday rolled around, the coming week was already booked.
A group of 10 church members fasted and prayed for three days over whether or not to contain the prayer vigil to the original three weeks, Rodes said. After the end of those three days, they decided to extend the vigil to three months.
Davis said she’ll be saddened when it finally ends.
“This last six weeks have been a wonderful time for me,” she said.
She’s been a Christian for a long time but has often found it difficult to dedicate time to praying.
“I hate to admit it but I was not one who had a prayer routine before,” she said.
She’s had to miss a couple of her scheduled times and tried to pray at home but it didn’t work because of all of the distractions. That’s part of what makes her nightly routine so significant to her.
It’s hard sometimes because the day is winding down and she has to hurry out the door. There are a couple of times she’s gone only because she signed up and had an obligation.
But once she’s there feels settled and knows she made the right decision. Most days, though, she wakes up looking forward to heading to the prayer room.
Dale Crane fills the spot right after Davis. It’s not an easy thing to do, he said. Because of his health condition he should be at home sleeping at that time of night.
But he believes it’s important to step outside of his needs and put God first. In the past, he said, he usually fit God into his routine.
“It’s a struggle for me,” he said.
The time he spends in the prayer room gives him time to focus more on the continuation of prayer. He also finds that the prayers and artwork others have added to the prayer room enhance his experience.
For example, someone drew a crown of thorns on one of the canvases. A few days later, someone drew hands through the crown of thorns.
“That piece was just so powerful that just moved me to no end,” he said.
Rodes said they will consider extending the vigil if the church community is still interested after three months. Mostly, though, he doesn’t want to force it on them.
“We’ll bring it to God, again” if people are still fired up about the vigil, Rodes said.
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WANT TO PARTICIPATE?
If interested in participating in the prayer vigil, call 253-845-7508.