Kneels on Wheels:
Prayer Initiative in Central Florida

by Larry Dennis

“For months, God had been tugging at my heart to put into place a district-wide prayer initiative,” says Central Florida District Superintendent Larry Dennis. “The prayer initiative would function for a complete year: 365 days, 24 hours a day, seven days a week of unbroken prayer. From this God-given vision the Mobile Prayer Chapel was born.”

When Dennis shared his idea with a group of Central Florida pastors, the concept of a year of unbroken prayer grew from a customized motor home, into a chapel on wheels. The Mobile Prayer Chapel could visit each church on the district three times during the prayer initiative.

“In a matter of minutes, my fellow pastors caught the vision. As steel sharpens steel, that anointed team of pastors formulated a plan that I had been wrestling with for months,” reported District Superintendent Dennis. District Sunday School ministries donated the funds for the pre-owned motor home. A district construction team transformed the 36 foot Winnebago into a worshipful and welcoming prayer chapel. The exterior vinyl wrap clearly communicates the mission of the chapel to the churches and communities it visits.

A transportation team organizes the volunteer drivers and arranges the schedule for over 80 churches across the district. Each church is responsible to promote the prayer chapel’s visit, enlisting volunteers to pray for thirty-minute time slots. Depending on the size of the church, the chapel visit will last from 24 to 48 hours. The prayer chapel features five stations, where participants are guided by printed instructions through periods of praise and thanksgiving, and then encouraged to intercede for personal, local, district and global prayer needs. A “Stand in the Gap” prayer team covers periods when the prayer chapel is unscheduled or unavailable due to maintenance.

“The rewards of the prayer effort are significantly exceeding our expectations,” says Rev. Dennis. Emails from host churches reporting prayer victories regularly arrive at the District Resource Center. The Mobile Prayer Chapel (MPC) recently visited the Tampa First Hispanic church, where participants had signed up to pray in one-hour segments during the 48 hour visit. When the driver arrived at the church to move the MPC to the next location, there was a long line of people waiting for their turn. Those waiting refused to allow him to move the unit until they had taken their turn to pray. The driver, excited about the congregation’s determination, reported that it was his first experience with a prayer riot!

Pastors are asking for return visits due to the unifying effect of their church’s involvement in the prayer thrust. “And best of all, there is an obvious fresh wind of the Holy Spirit blowing across Central Florida,” Dennis concludes. “As the Psalmist said, ‘the Lord has heard our cry and is answering us.’”