We had a very stretching experience in our church planting class today. As part of our preparation and training, we drove to Asheville (about an hour away), and dividing up into pairs we prayer walked around the neighborhoods of the city. It was meant to be a lesson in "spiritual mapping", but it turned to create some amazing opportunities to connect with non-believers there.
Another student named Bobby and I were paired up and assigned a neighborhood on the north side of the city. When we got our assignment sheet, the description of the area read "inter-racial, drugs". Hmmm. Not a promising start to the day. The label turn out to be a bit of an exaggeration. The neighborhood was very quaint and had a interesting mix of poorer established residents and rich newcomers.
When we arrived in our area, there really wasn't much activity. We walked around for half of the time simply praying and asking God to give us His heart for this neighborhood and people. We prayed that He would raise up workers for this place and that He would overcome any spiritual darkness or oppression. After about an hour, we came across a group of women planting an herb garden in a vacant lot. We struck up a conversation with them and chatted for about twenty minutes. Unfortunately, we weren't able to open up spiritual things with them (they were kinda chatty), but it was great to simply listen to them and show Christ's love for them in a small way.
The most important thing I took away from this time was lesson that God meant our faith to be public. It was always intended that we would be put on display for the world to see. Instead of this, I tend to keep to my private Christian sphere. I'm really excited to use prayer walking in Cologne. I'm hopeful that this will open up some amazing encounters with the people in our community.
