Sydney Salvos offer prayers and encouragement on walk-and-chalk

One of the chalk messages the Macquarie Fields Salvos team left on a path.

 BY LAUREN MARTIN

When we pray, we partner with God’s intentions and promises. We may not see immediate results, but we know God hears (Jer 29:12), and it is his desire that we seek the Kingdom through prayer (Matt 6:9-13).

A Salvation Army prayer cell in south-west Sydney, which has been meeting for more than five years, recently felt God calling them to ‘get out of the building’.

In obedience, they have spent several hours on Fridays over the past month walking through the streets, bush tracks and laneways of their mission fields, praying and chalking words of Scripture and encouragement for those who follow.

Members of the prayer walk team praying with a man at Liverpool station.

“We took some chalk and wrote prayers and Scripture (verses) around places that we felt needed prayer,” said Major Darren Kingston, Corps Officer at Macquarie Fields (Mac Fields Salvos).

“We met some people on the way and prayed with people and healed people. It’s been really good!”

God calling his people to prayer has been a theme across The Salvation Army Australia for many years.

Last year, the team at Mac Fields Salvos began praying as they walked through their neighbourhood every Tuesday morning. They have invited other pastors and people from other churches in the area to join them.

Salvo mission leaders and volunteers from south-west Sydney have spent several hours each Friday over the past few weeks prayer-walking their neighbourhoods, including chalking some encouraging words and Scripture verses.

When they walk and pray, they carry fridge magnets in their pockets, each bearing Mac Fields Salvos’ address and contact details, and the saying: ‘Jesus is a friend who sticks like no other. We prayed for you’. The team will stick one on a person’s letterbox or front gate, letting them know they have been blessed with prayer. 

“We are painting the area with prayer, and people get to know who we are and what we are doing and that we are praying for them,” said Darren.

This, along with a dedicated prayer room at Mac Fields Salvos, where Christian staff and volunteers are available to minister through prayer, is giving the community an opportunity to connect with Jesus and explore faith.

You never know what’s going to happen on a prayer walk! Here, Major Darren Kingston (in red) and other south-west Sydney Salvation Army mission expression leaders and volunteers assist community members whose car had broken down.