Are you talking the talk while walking the walk?
Around the UK prayer walking is on the rise and the OIKOS app is equipping local groups to get involved. Sammy Jordan explains how
“We’re seeing a move of God linked to prayer,” says Sammy Jordan. “The Lord is stirring people to pray around the UK.”
Sammy, director of Hope Together’s Hope For Every Home, is excited about the rising levels of local prayer she is seeing through her role heading up the organisation’s OIKOS app.
OIKOS, she explains, is a tool that has been designed to help mobilise Christians to gather to pray for and in communities. “It’s an app that helps you pin streets and places where you’ve prayed or had conversations that involved faith,” she says.
In order to develop it, a big focus over the past couple of years – and indeed for the year ahead – has been forming partnerships that help people to pray.
“OIKOS’ vision is linked to a strategy of ‘prayer, care and share’, where you begin by praying for a place then are intentional about relationships, acts of care and conversations. But there are other Christian organisations which are better placed to help with some aspects of that journey and if we work together the impact can be massive,” she says. With this in mind, OIKOS has added Discovery Bible Study, Try Praying, Cinnamon and UCB Prayerline recently.
“We’re trying to make it easier for people to pray or have faith conversations. Imagine that during a conversation someone discloses something they need prayer for, for example – I can direct them to UCB. Or maybe a neighbour is interested in learning about the Bible. I can tap a link in the app and we can look at Discovery Bible together.” Two other partnerships have been especially important for resourcing local prayer in the past year.
In time for Thy Kingdom Come and the launch of Hope Together’s 23-24 prayer initiative, OIKOS added resources to help people who had never prayer-walked before.
“We linked the Lord’s Prayer and prayer walking with resources that use the Lord’s Prayer to pray for streets and non-Christian friends.”
Last March, OIKOS also partnered with the Cinnamon Network to pilot a prayer scheme.
“Cinnamon is brilliant at social action and has its own hyper-local online maps where people can journey and document together.
“We’ve pooled resources to bring the words and action of evangelism together, so when people have conversations they can log and share them with their prayer groups.”
Partnerships and initiatives like these are especially important as OIKOS is noting a growing number of local prayer groups. “There are more people coming together to pray and walk who haven’t done that before, so we’re resourcing them as God is prompting them to pray.”
Over the past 18 months, subgroups have been created on OIKOS that allow local groups to track their activities. Data shows their popularity is growing, says Sammy. “It’s interesting because a group will start, then you suddenly see pins appearing on the app. We could see people using it during Festival Manchester last year, and after people were encouraged to pray for university campuses, we saw pins popping up everywhere during Freshers Week too.”
This links back to the bigger picture of what God is doing throughout the UK, she says.
“I believe there is a reformation taking place which started as God called his church out of the building during Covid. He rooted people back into their communities, and the daily walks allowed during lockdown became significant.
“We launched OIKOS soon afterwards when it was easy to turn a daily walk into a prayer walk.”
Why I love spiritual mapping
“I love spiritual mapping my area because it helps me see it as God sees it,” says Sammy. “Whenever we pray, we’re asking ‘Lord, let your kingdom come here, as it is in heaven’, so it helps me align my heart with God’s from the start.”
To help her pray for the new estate she moved to in North Stoneham Park, Eastleigh, recently, Sammy was quick to research the area and its history. “We’re in between two motorways and have a train station and airport nearby, so this area is a place of connection,” she says. “In the 800s and 900s it was actually monastic land. Learning this has helped me to pray about my area as an in between place and a place where people connect, and to ask God if he would like to restore any of its original DNA.”
Sammy likens her calling to that of a dandelion.
“They’re flowers that grow where nothing else will. They break up ground – in my case through prayer – help new things to grow, like relationships, and are windblown: we are blown by the Holy Spirit,” she says.
Many people feel daunted by the thought of evangelism but Sammy says tiny steps – like the relationships being formed at a new school nearby or the prayer box in her garden that neighbours can put prayers in – are possible for anyone.
“Evangelism starts with prayer. People who aren’t Christians will respond if you ask, ‘Can I pray for you?’ Anyone can do that, and God answers prayer.”
You can be part of the bigger picture!
Sarah Whittleston helped
OIKOS's development
Elim Prayer’s Sarah Whittleston was on the working group that supported the development of OIKOS.
“There’s something special about being in and among your community as you pray,” she says. Being intentionally aware of your surroundings and asking the Holy Spirit to show you how and what to pray, is brilliant. You’re joining in with what he’s already doing among the people and places around you.
“OIKOS is a great app and resource to help you. It allows you to be a part of and see the bigger picture of prayer across communities.”
To find out more about OIKOS, visit hopeforeveryhome.org or email Sammy at sammy.jordan@hopetogether.org.uk
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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