The Prayer Hood
Theme of the Week: Mixing It Up
Charles Lyons
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
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Key Bible Verse: Share the sorrow of those being mistreated as though you feel their pain in your own bodies (Hebrews 13:3). Bonus Reading:Matthew 9:36-38
In the Chicago neighborhood where I pastor, a 13-year-old kid gets gunned down at night. The cops show up and ask a few questions. But nobody knows anything; nobody gets arrested. So people think, Nobody cares; nothing will change.
The night the Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship in 1993, Julio was among the fans leaving the arena. Was he wearing the wrong colors on the Imperial Gangsters' turf? I don't know. But they stabbed him to death. Nobody saw a thing. The church responded by going on a prayer march and offering a reward for information leading to Julio's killers.
When a kid gets shot in our neighborhood, we walk up and down the street, letting people know they're not alone and forgotten. We ask if there's anything we can pray with them about. Then we hold a prayer vigil on the exact spot where the kid died. We've had as many as 350 people show up for one. The people are there—around the corner, in the alley, up in their windows—listening. We sing a few songs, offer pointed prayers for parents, the police, the gang members. Someone stands up in the back of a pickup truck and shares a five-minute gospel presentation. Then we wrap it up and go on.
—Charles Lyons in Leadership
My Response: Do I too easily say, "Nothing will change"?
Thought to Apply: No man is an island entire of itself … Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
—John Donne (English preacher and poet)
Adapted from Leadership (Fall, 01) by permission.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
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Lord, don't let my belief remain private and detached. Push me out into Your world to demonstrate Your love.
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