Of Foxes and Friendship
What Arise:March Meant to Me
My first time prayer-walking the streets of Sheffield, I didn't know what to expect. Would it make a difference? Would I know what to say? Would I feel silly? Would I hear God, and feel His presence? Profound and trivial alike, I was full of questions, and even a little nervous.
I needn’t have worried. Walking the streets of Sheffield, my words, entreaties and hopes for the city and its people just flowed. It’s been a conversation with God, yet also a conversation with the city itself. Slowing down, consciously focusing on a place and what the people there might need, has brought a much deeper communion with places I thought I knew.
Prayer-walking makes our everyday places holy. I walked our streets in prayer almost every day in March, even if it was just going across the road to feed the urban foxes. My surroundings have informed my prayers; in my fox-feeding prayers, for example, I pray for the green spaces of our city, all the little wild creatures who make their home there, and for God’s wisdom in our stewarding of his creation. In the city centre I’ve prayed for the homeless; for them to be safe, to feel God’s love and comfort, to find shelter and food and better circumstances, and for them to be treated with dignity, respect and empathy as our fellow human beings.
On Mother’s Day, I was in the city centre with my mum and my sister. By the tram stop, a homeless woman sat huddled in a blanket. We spoke with her and gave her some money. She said she suffered with anxiety, as I myself do; I cannot imagine how much worse it must be to suffer an anxiety disorder while homeless, exposed, with no safe place to go and hide yourself. Before meeting this lady, I had always felt too shy to talk to people and offer prayer, but at this moment I felt compelled. Before our tram arrived, I ran back and asked her name, and if it would be ok to pray for her. She asked for prayer for herself and her partner, and asked for our names so she could pray for us too. She held my hand for a moment and thanked me, and I’ve prayed for her ever since. I wish I could do more, fix the social systems that fail the poor, help this woman and others like her find permanent shelter. But she felt seen, and she was moved by my offer of prayer, and that means something in a world where the homeless are too often treated at best as invisible and at worst as human litter despoiling the street. I won’t soon forget her, and I know God won’t either.
"I had always felt too shy to talk to people and offer prayer, but at this moment I felt compelled."
This encounter was just one of the experiences that brought home to me anew how lucky I am. Even a cursory read through the posted prayer needs on the Arise:March app revealed souls crying out for help: parents with sick children, lonely people, people struggling with their mental health, addiction, poverty, bereavement. In my specific prayers over these needs, I felt overwhelmingly reminded to thank God for my many blessings, to remember that there but for His grace go I, and to be ready and willing to hold out a hand to help suffering people. And although I don’t know most of these people, and they don’t know me, the prayers I say for them nonetheless link us in a deep and holy way; every voice lifted in prayer for a stranger is reaffirming that we all matter; we matter to each other and we matter deeply to God. It’s the empathy and inclusion of Jesus’ perfect example; we love because He first loved us. For those struggling, there can be comfort in knowing that they are not crying out into a void; strangers all over Sheffield are begging God’s strength, comfort and peace in their name. For me, it is the highest, most beautiful expression of our faith, and when I look at the Arise:March prayer map I see a golden web of our love and His grace covering Sheffield; tangible and solid enough to hold it in my hand, and constantly growing, brightening, strengthening.
Even the aberrant deep snow we experienced for a couple of days brought an opportunity for deepening my practice. Unable to physically walk far, I prayed first for the most vulnerable: those unable to get out to buy groceries, or whose carers might be unable to get to them in the adverse weather. Then I got out my Arise app, prayed through the prayer needs, then picked out some streets and areas not yet lit up and prayed over them systematically. Again I felt my relationship with my city deepening as I turned my thoughts to areas I have never visited.
I will remember forever two prayer-walks in particular. On the first, I was praying over Langsett Crescent as I walked to Thursday craft group at St Barts’ Church. After praying over the houses and their occupants, I turned my attention to the green space on the other side, between the Crescent and the main road. I thanked God for the beauty of the emerging spring shoots and blossom, and asked his blessing on all the little birds and creatures who call it home. At that moment, and within a space no larger than a couple of metres square, I saw a wren, a thrush, and a pair each of goldfinches and collared doves. It made me so happy to see so clearly that God heard my prayer, and of course to see the infinite beauty of his creation.
The second memorable moment came on one of my mini prayer-walks, crossing to Capel Street to feed the urban foxes. As I turned around to head home, the power poles across the road were lit in such a way that all I could see was a wooden cross against the sky. Just another reminder God is all around us, sometimes just waiting to be noticed.
At the Arise:March Launch Evening, we’d been seated with others in the same postcode, and our table had connected immediately. Before the evening ended, we’d exchanged numbers and set up a WhatsApp group, inviting others from our area to join as well. Three weeks into the Arise prayer-walking, I screwed up the courage to invite this group to a prayer meeting at my home. There were eight of us (plus my cat Dmitry!) crammed into the living room, and spare chairs had to be unearthed! We shared fellowship over tea, coffee and cake. Three of the guests I’d never met in person before - and I’d been so nervous, but I needn’t have worried. Our prayers flowed continuously, seamlessly switching between us; after a time of spontaneous prayer, we turned our attention to the local prayer needs posted to the Arise:March Prayer app.
As we prayed together, I felt again the magnified power of praying with others; I felt almost euphoric as the Holy Spirit came among us; and I felt again the sense of a great shift, that God is working in our community, that things are changing, that He has great things in store and that people who have never known Him - just like myself a few years ago - are starting to feel His presence, His peace that transcends all understanding, and slowly opening their hearts to let Him in. The response to the prayer banners suggests this too, as lots of the prayer requests asked for a sign from God. As my minister - Rev Michelle - pointed out, though, the Arise banners saying ‘Our church is praying for you, what can we pray?’ could not actually be a clearer sign!
It was interesting too to hear about everyone’s experience of prayer-walking. The very busy Rev Michelle, who takes care of three churches, shared how she had adapted prayer-walking into prayer driving, as she went between her many responsibilities; I felt very inspired that even someone so incredibly hard-working found a way to fit in extra prayers. Others had systematically covered all the cul de sacs nearby, reasoning that such streets, not being en route to anywhere else, would be easily missed.
Jo from STC, for example, shared how prayer-walking reminded her to see the Sheffield streets the way Jesus would – not as messy places or the homes of difficult neighbours, but as ‘places where people dwell and have family and experience joy and pain’, letting herself feel some of His love for those people, whether she knew them or not.
Sarah from Wadsley Parish Church told me how Arise has helped her feel emboldened to share her faith; she described talking to people feeling frustrated with the council, commiserating and praying with them about it, sharing prayer as an action point when people feel helpless and impotent.
Mick from St John’s Owlerton shared two really powerful stories about people he met while prayerwalking. During the first Arise prayer-walk, in 2021, Mick encountered a care worker in some distress; we don’t know why, but of course this was in the immediate aftermath of a devastating pandemic, so it’s perhaps not too difficult to imagine. He offered the lady a Gideon Bible, with signposting to helpful support services listed inside in addition to the New Testament; the lady thanked him, saying that God had sent him her way that day.
“What I take away most from this amazing month is a renewed appreciation for the power of prayer, for God moving in our lives and constantly speaking and acting through us if we would just notice, for our beautiful, loving Christian family in Sheffield.”
This year, Mick was prayer-walking with his wife in Loxley when he encountered a family. He stopped to speak with the father, who was fixing a car aerial, and discovered that the man’s father had just died, and his mother a few months before that. Mick listened as the man poured his heart out for the next twenty minutes; he told me it seemed to help the man to express his feelings with a stranger, someone who wasn’t involved but would just listen without judgement. Such a powerful example of God using us to provide comfort and support where and when it is needed.
I’m going to finish by talking about the emPower service held this time at my own church, Hillsborough Trinity Methodists. This took place on 26th March, near the close of our month of prayer-walking, and was a jubilant, celebratory affair. After several rousing songs led by the emPower worship team - including a resounding Amazing Grace (‘And that’s how it should be sung!’ my friend Helen said to me straight afterwards) - we assembled once again in our postcode groups for area-specific prayers. Then it was time for a presentation led by pastor Sallie Wilson of Elim Pentecostal Church with the amazing stories and statistics from a month of prayer-walking. As of that service, still with a week of prayer-walking to go, 55% of Sheffield had been covered in prayer, with 775 Sheffield Christians using the app. It was incredibly inspiring to see that glowing golden map up on a big screen, and we gave joyful thanks to God.
What I take away most from this amazing month is a renewed appreciation for the power of prayer, for God moving in our lives and constantly speaking and acting through us if we would just notice, for our beautiful, loving Christian family in Sheffield, and for the compassion and selflessness of these same Christians, tirelessly walking the streets of our city, praying not just for friends and neighbours but holding before Jesus people they do not know and will never meet; Amazing Grace, indeed, in action.
Michelle has lived in Sheffield since 2017 and came to faith here in 2021. She is part if the community at Hillsborough Methodist Church. She enjoys running, reading, photography and embroidery, and spending time with her family and her rescue cats.
