With a near-record year for homicides in Winnipeg, violent and gun crime increasing rapidly, and a meth crisis gripping the city, CHVN is holding a Day of Prayer on Friday, November 8. But why pray? Can we really make a difference with prayer? What kind of difference does it make?

Pastor Randy Moffit from Roblin Evangelical Mission Church says that put simply, prayer "is the most natural thing for a believer who's had their spirit regenerated. Our spirit is the part of us that can communicate with God, and when we become born again our spirit is alive towards God. So, then, prayer just becomes the language of relationship and communication between that child of God and their heavenly Father."

As that communication takes place something happens, Moffit says.

"I think it works. I think that the benefits of prayer are more than we can even imagine." Moffit says that while often our prayers might include requests that are not always granted, "prayer does more for us than what we even ask for it to do."

More important than requests being granted is that prayer works in us as followers of Jesus.

"It might not always be that we get the thing that we ask for. It might not be that we see the immediate results that we hope for. But I think that prayer just does something; it changes us and draws us nearer to God. That's ultimately what a relationship with God is supposed to be: near, and more near all the time."

So, what happens when a community prays together?

Obviously prayer can then be a powerful thing for an individual. It's important for our personal faith lives, helping us to draw closer to God and part of our continual transformation process as Christians.

But, what happens when a community of believers prays, then? First, we see that communal or corporate prayer is important to God. Throughout Scripture we see God calling groups, not just individuals, to come to him in prayer. 

Why?

Because, again, it transforms us. Prayer transforms not just the individual, but it has the power to transform the community. It draws not just the individual closer to God, but draws the entire community closer to God when we participate together.

God will listen to us

Imagine what happens as hundreds of thousands of people come together at once to pray together. Often times Christians can let our differences divide us. But, when we stop and pray together, we're putting all that aside. We, instead, become a community that is simply seeking God together.

Jeremiah 29:11 is often quoted by Christians as a favourite verse:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

However, what's not as well known are the verses that come after (or even before) verse 11. Notice there's no quote mark at the start of the verse, or the end. God has already been talking to His people before, and He continues talking after.

Verses 12-14 say:

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

So often we claim Jeremiah 29:11 for us as individuals. But it's not. Verse 11 was for the exiles in Babylon. People carried off to a far off land because they had for so many years turned their back and rejected their loving God.

Yet, He is faithful and cares for them. And, He promises that He has good plans for them. God promises that as they return to Him, He will return them to their homes. When they are finally brokenhearted and empty, they will come before God with their whole hearts in prayer. The people will earnestly seek Him as a community in prayer, and God promises He will listen to them.

Jeremiah 29:11 is for us as a community. Exiles in a broken land and hurting city. We are at a point in our history where we are brokenhearted and empty, and so today we come before God with our whole hearts in prayer. Today we earnestly seek God as a City in prayer. And God promises He will listen to us.

He will begin to transform us today. This is not just one day. It is the beginning of something new if we allow it to be as the Church of Winnipeg and Manitoba. In Jeremiah 29:10 God tells the people it will be 70 years before they return, but they will return.

There is work to do. But it begins today - children of God coming to our heavenly Father and drawing near in our grief, allowing Him to transform us, and begin something new.

That is why we pray.