Appalachian Regional Ministry

It was just a small white Victorian gazebo, with a wood shake roof, set in a tiny triangle park on Main Street of our small town, Mt. Vernon, Ky., (pop. 2500). There was nothing particularly unique about it until one night a lady from our "Experiencing God" bible study woke around 3:00AM and sensed that God wanted her to begin a prayer group. The next day, she and our Discipleship Training teacher talked and decided that the prayer group should meet on Thursday mornings in the gazebo before our "Experiencing God" meetings that evening.

That first Thursday, the three of us met in the city park at 9AM and set a large sign on an easel that announced "Coffee Break With God." We had brought coffee, orange juice, doughnuts and flowers and sat in the gazebo expectantly, yet feeling kind of exposed and self-conscious and more than a little conspicuous in this public place. We were definitely out of our comfort zone, displaying a boldness that was not characteristic for any of us. Nevertheless, we shared a common sense of excitement that comes with new beginnings and looked forward to this different kind of prayer. As our little boom box played a song of praise to God, we bowed our heads, and while soft caresses of warm summer breezes gently touched us, began to pray.

We heard cars, trucks, and buses whiz by plus an occasional car horn as someone recognized us sitting there, but we focused on God in a way that was both powerful and intimate. We prayed for each other, our church, our town, and for revival in all the churches in our county. Tears streamed down our faces as God taught us the meaning of fervent prayer. He seemed to wrap His arms around us inside that gazebo and draw us closer to Him than we had ever imagined possible. We lost all feelings of vulnerability as we felt the protection and love of God Himself hovering about us.

For many weeks that summer, we continued to pray there. Sometimes, there would be ten of us, sometimes only five or six. A few times the gazebo overflowed and a person or two would be left standing outside, but without fail, God made His presence known to us. People began to stop by with prayer requests, weeping as they shared their needs. We experienced God as He drew in others including one lady that searched for our group for three days.

As we continued, God changed the focus of our prayers by enlarging the parameters outside our area until we gradually began to pray for God to send out His light from that place to touch the state, the nation and the world. By helping us to see a little of His greatness and the magnitude of His love, we began to realize that there are no boundaries in prayer except the limitations caused by our lack of faith. We cried out unashamedly in a way that would have embarrassed us a short while before. God gave us a freedom of worship that fed our spirits and renewed our souls. We prayed there regularly that summer, each time going away with spiritual strength and prayers of thanksgiving on our lips, our hearts and minds.

One night, that same summer, my friend and I were going out to dinner with our husbands when we drove past a crowd of people gathered inside the little triangle park. One young man had a huge wooden cross on his shoulder. We stopped and went inside the park; curious to see why they were there in that particular place. An older man and a younger one of two different denominations were taking turns preaching about repentance while others stood close by. When we asked the young man about the cross, he said that God had awakened him in the night and told him to carry a cross around the United States and to begin in the park in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky. The young man was from Ohio and had to ask directions to Mt. Vernon. We stood there awestruck and looked at the gazebo where we had prayed.

Two years have passed since that summer of public prayer at the gazebo and we are still in awe of God's hand moving all around us. Although we are not meeting in the gazebo, our prayer group has been in Thursday night Bible study almost continually since that time. Our church is growing so rapidly that we recently began having two services on Sunday morning. God called a dynamic young minister to our church a year ago and a new youth pastor. We have an established prayer room. Our church has been blessed individually and corporately. A tiny church in our town, pastored by a young man who was in our Experiencing God group, had 54 conversions this past year. They have purchased land to build a larger church. Christ's Outreach for the Blind, an 800-acre summer camp for the blind and disabled, located three miles south of Mt. Vernon, is nearing completion. Mission teams from across the United States have traveled there to do mission work this summer. The facility will accommodate 600 campers per season. A young couple has felt God's call to do Equestrian Ministry for the camp. Another young woman, a middle school teacher, quit her job this year because she was called to help with the paperwork and grant writing there. Equestrian Ministries, International, a Christian-based group with a membership of 400 from 20 states and Belgium, is considering making their headquarters at Christ's Outreach.

Did our Lord feel honored when we prayed publicly, without shame for the gospel of Jesus Christ? Of course, He is God and could do all these things without prayer, so why did he draw us to pray?

Of all the changes in our area, the greatest is the work that God did in our hearts as we prayed. We long to spend time with Him and go into His house to honor Him, not because of duty or habit, but from a true longing to return the love that flows so freely from God. Prayer is a language that He understands and answers.

We will go back to the gazebo in September for a countywide Candlelight Prayer Vigil to begin a statewide call to 100 Days of concerted prayer. As we search our hearts for God's leadership, we feel empowered by the blessing that God caused us to experience that summer in a tiny gazebo in a small town in Kentucky.

You can contact Shirley at Shirlscx@aol.com