The Prayer Closet Ministries, Inc.

The Basics of Conducting A Prayerwalk

.....There are a variety of ways to conduct a prayerwalk. The following is simply an offering of suggestions to help you get started. This is an explanation of the basics. These are the fundamentals that will help you begin and sustain healthy and powerful prayerwalks. You may have to make adjustments in light of your situation. Yet, these are the basics that needed to begin. A prayerwalk needs to be conducted in three phases.

Phase One:
The Preparation For A Prayerwalk

.....Before you prayerwalk, you need to make preparation. This is not something you do on a whim. If it is going to be powerful and effective, you must begin by preparing yourself. You need to take certain steps to get yourself ready to be an instrument that God can use.
.....Your first step in preparation is to commit yourself totally to God. Before you prayerwalk, you need to have a time of worship and surrender before the Lord. You are about to become a bridge of blessing between heaven and earth. Adore Him for His character and ways. Give thanks to God with a grateful heart. Confess your sins with honesty and brokenness. Read the Scripture. As you worship before the Lord, be still before Him for a short while with a readiness to sense special instructions regarding where you should walk or what you should pray. You need to have a definite plan about the place you should prayer and the prayer requests that you are going to make. Yet, be open to change at the guidance of the Lord. Go with the plans that you have formed unless you clearly sense otherwise.
.....The team also needs to pray on each piece of the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). God has granted this armor to the believer for help and protection in the midst of the spiritual war. Any time a believer prays, a spiritual war is going on. This is true also for prayerwalking. You are laboring to take back territory and people that the enemy has enslaved. He will not accept this passively. The team must put on the armor of God by faith and prayer.
.....Another part of your preparation should be the development of a prayer team or prayer teams. People can prayerwalk by themselves. God can and does use this. Yet, it is best if there is a team. Why should you have a team of prayerwalkers?

.....The teams should consist of three members. You can allow partners to find each other spontaneously. You might also consider mixing and matching teams on the basis of maturity, experience, and physical capabilities.
.....Before you prayerwalk, you need to designate where the teams will prayerwalk. Locate the area that the prayerwalkers will work. Sometimes this can be a roughly designated area. You can also give a specific area or route. It is important to have a definite area or route that you will prayerwalk. But, you must also be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leadership. Routes and areas should not be too tightly designated in order for the prayerwalkers to have the freedom to do as the Spirit leads. God may have a divinely appointed prayer appointment for them! Labor to strike a balance between structure and spontaneity.
.....Another part of your preparation is to determine how long the prayerwalk will be. You need to agree with the teams on the time that you will regather. It is difficult to gauge how long it will take to cover the territory assigned plus God's providential appointments. For this reason, you should allow reasonable flexibility in the schedule.

Phase Two:
The Practice of Prayerwalking

.....When you prayerwalk, your prayers need to be balanced between three topics: worship, warfare, and the preparation of the way for God's blessings. Every prayerwalk should have the worship of God included. As you walk, praise God who made all the things that you see. Adore God who has created the people that you are praying for on the prayerwalk. Give God the glory for what He is going to do in that area. The purpose of this worship is to glorify God and to seek God's manifest presence. God inhabits or dwells in the praises of His people. His power flows when His people praise Him. God is always present. Yet, in worship, we are seeking God's presence to be made real and vital in peoples' lives. Praise is crucial to this. When the praise goes up, the power comes down!
.....You also need to do warfare on the prayerwalk. The purpose of this is to deal with evil spirits that are working in the area in which you are prayerwalking. It is to begin the process of tearing down strongholds and weakening the grip of Satan in the lives of the people by prayer. Satan and his demons work to blind and keep unbelievers in bondage (2 Corinthians 3:3-4). Satan and his demons work to hinder and lead believers into bondage (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). There must be a resistance and binding of these forces. Call on the Lord Jesus Christ to bind, confuse, and send these evil forces away. Ask Him to tear down any strongholds that Satan has built in the lives of people. Plead that the forces of hell will be broken and destroyed by the power of Christ's blood, Christ's cross, Christ's name, and Christ's Word. This is done in preparation for receiving the Word of God and bringing about true repentance and faith in the lives of those for whom you are praying.
.....There must also be the preparation of the way for God's blessings and salvation. The purpose of this part of your praying is to ask for God's blessings on the people who live where you are prayerwalking. It is seeking God so that He will pour out His abundant blessings on the people for whom you are praying. Plead that the people will be receptive to the gospel. Cry out to God and ask Him to remove any obstacles that might hinder people from hearing the gospel. The purpose of prayerwalking is to prepare the way for God's blessings through prayer. It is using the channel of prayer to release God's mercy, love, grace, and peace into a city or community. It is pleading for a genuine and open welcome to the reign of God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
.....As you walk, keep these suggestions in mind:

Phase Three:
The Evaluation of The Prayerwalk

When the prayerwalk is finished, it is beneficial to have meeting of the prayerwalkers. This is for the purpose of discussing the prayerwalk and how they felt about it. At this meeting, you need to discuss what insights were gleaned during the prayerwalk. Insights will fade over time unless you discuss them and record them. These insights should be compiled and given to each member of the team and other intercessors. This will serve as a further guide to prayer as one continues to intercede for the area in the personal prayer closet or in the church meeting.
This meeting should also include strategies for ministries in these areas. From the insights that were gained, what ministries could be started to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ? Again, the prayerwalk is not an end in itself. It is just the beginning--the beginning of intercession and prayer for the area that one prayerwalks. Along with this, team members should evaluate the prayerwalk. From this session, they may be able to offer suggestions to improve future prayerwalks. This should lead to a decision of where, when, and how to prayerwalk again.
Some basic guidelines for the reporting about the prayerwalk include: