FAQ’s

Douglas Small shared a vision he had carried for more than two decades of prayer teams trekking across the nation, engaging in symbolic action, stopping for prayer rallies, and ending up at a small park that marks the geographic center of the nation. The vision was actually born in the heart of an intercessor who saw a map of the USA with an ‘X’ across it. She asked God, “Does this mean that you are finished with the nation?” She reported that God’s response, “No!” Then she asked, “What is the ‘X’?” God’s response was comical, and to cynics, laughable. “Gunpowder,” God told her. This is the kind of odd encounter with God that intercessors have that create misgivings and skepticism in the rest of us. What followed next in the intercessor’s report is equally mysterious. Suddenly a spark touched the point at the center of the ‘X’ and the map of the USA exploded in fire. It raced across the map, across the nation. Small said the vision was unforgettable. He began to dream about seeing it fulfilled, with teams praying across the nation and holding a prayer rally at the center of the nation. His efforts failed. Then, at a multi-state conference in Eastern North Carolina, a large group of people imagined the large space where they had assembled as the USA. Seattle was in that corner, and Miami diagonal to it. Portland, Maine was there, and San Diego across the room. Participants symbolically prayed for the USA, crisscrossing the room. Small shared – “This was an exercise. What if this was literally done? What if we crisscrossed the nation, stopping, praying here and there, and gathered at the center of the nation and consecrated it to God?” 

Garry Bryant, now the Chairman of the Board, and Vice President of PATH, approached him and said, “I want to see that vision fulfilled. You are not carrying that burden alone!” Gary Bird, whose team circled the nation also approached him saying, “We can do this!” 

And thus, the first national gathering of PATH took place in July 2021 with 3000 gathered representing 50 states! One team of 17 came from South Korea. Eight teams prayer-drove the nation, stopping here and there, at borders and in cities, conducting some 350 prayer rallies, and traveling 20,000 prayer-miles. They came from the four corners of the nation and north-south-east-and west. The goal was and is for teams in every state, to circle the state in prayer, drawing a line of consecration around the state, and then bring teams together from all directions to the geographic center of their state. Then, to repeat the process in every county, and every city and town. 

The goal is pervasive outdoor prayer! Multi-denominational gatherings that cry out to God for Great Awakening.

The national gathering in Kansas was featured live, throughout the day, by Flashpoint on national television. It was supported by Christian Television Network, Daystar and a correspondent from CBN, with an estimated one million viewers. The goal is to see similar rallies in every state, every county, and every city and town. Teams that circle the state or county and meet at some center for a solemn assembly and a time of consecration. 

Sixteen states signed up to further the mission. Gatherings have taken place in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, North Dakota, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Texas had a gathering of three thousand and New Mexico of almost 2000. These are grassroots movements of prayer and unity aimed at a Great Awakening. 

In addition, there was a pilot project in Cleveland, Ohio that involved ‘tents of meeting’ for prayer throughout the city. Hundreds were impacted by these gatherings where prayer was offered. Healings were reported, salvations and deliverance. The effort climaxed in a gathering at the center of the city that drew representatives from across the city – Catholic, Mainline, Evangelical and Pentecostal. A First Nations group took part in the effort as well. 

PATH continues to encourage open, public state, county and city prayer gatherings. 

In addition, PATH is sponsoring PROJECT 2026 aimed at mobilizing one million people to pray for one million souls to be saved from Passover to Pentecost, 2026.

It’s very simple. It is an effort to mobilize One Million Christians in the USA, to prayer for One Million souls to be saved from Passover to Pentecost in 2026. 

Healthy prayer, we believe, leads to evangelism and mission. Prayer At The Heart rallies and prayer gatherings, prayer walks and treks, were never meant to be an end in themselves. The Great Commitment of Prayer is found in 1 Tim. 2:8,1-8, “I would that men would pray everywhere lifting holy hands,” and “for kings and all who are in authority.” Such pervasive prayer leads to our fulfillment of the Great Commandment, demonstrations of God’s love (Mt. 22:37-40). That’s loving God and our neighbors open to the gospel. Before us are open hearts that can be engaged with the good news of Christ. That’s the Great Commission (Mt. 28:18-20). There is yet another great – the Great Collaboration (John 17:20-23). We should do gospel engagement together. Our unity invites God’s favor and blessing. All this climaxes in the Great Consummation – every effort to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).  

Prayer that changes us, that drives loving people to share the good news, and do it together to the glory of God. That’s PATH and Project 2026.

Congregations should be encouraged to participate in a project in which thousands of other churches are engaged. We encourage churches in a given region to partner in the effort to more fully impact their community. But any congregation can participate. Imagine mobilizing your congregation to adopt unchurched family and friends, neighbors and workplace associates, and begin to quietly pray for their salvation. 

Each congregation should have a Congregational Representative, an advocate for the MILLION/MILLION campaign. The representative(s) should connect with the county representative(s) for potential collaboration with other congregations. If there is no county representative, then sign up and let your congregation lead the way. As a congregational representative, you want to become familiar with all the resources so you can make recommendations to your pastor about implementation. The goal is, on average, ten congregations collaborating in each county. In larger counties more.  

We recommend the Operation Andrew model used for many years by the Billy Graham Associationthat encourages triplets of prayer, partnering in the effort to see family and friends come to Christ. If a hundred people in your congregation began to pray, together, and believe for an equal number, one hundred souls, your church would double in the 50-day period. 

There is a 50-day resource guide for congregations. There is also evangelism training materials emphasizing a new approach: Evangelism As Blessing, a relational approach to evangelism. This is a four-week evangelism training led by the local church. All materials are free if downloaded.This approach to evangelism is not script-based and does not require the memorization of a hundred scriptures. It is natural, relational and we believe, biblical. It is listening and caring, and telling your story of conversion and offering a friend the opportunity to start a journey with Christ.  

In addition, there is 50-day devotional guide that can be distributed as a whole or daily electronically. It emphasizes prayer and evangelism and reinforces the 50-day effort.

• Timeline
• Overview

Certainly. You can make use of the 50-day devotional prayer guide. You can download the Operation Andrew materials  and find two Christian friends to pray with you about your lost loved ones and theirs. You can start a SALTY group at the place where you work or in your neighborhood – that’s a 30-minute prayer experience designed for the workplace, but adaptable. Three or more believers agree to gather once weekly, and use the prayer guide to pray for fellow workers, to bless the business and be a blessing.  You can also receive training from Project Pray University to be a certified Ambassador. That prepares you to go, usually with two or three others, to your mayor, state representative or congressman, even to the governor for the purpose of representing the Kingdom of God, and offering a prayer of blessing, an act of peacemaking. We have been critical without being conciliatory.

You can also be a State, County or Congregational Representative helping PATH spread the word about the effort and engaged churches and individuals to praying during the 50-days for loved ones who are disconnected from faith and a church home. Request more information on being a representative.

Click here to find out the representatives in your county or state. If no one is serving – volunteer. We believe a team of 3-5 representatives is ideal to mobilize individuals, congregations, and ministries to participate. 

If you do have a PATH county leader, contact them, and offer to assist them. Or tell them the degree to which you are involved – as an individual or congregational representative.

There are multiple roles at the city-county level – making pastors aware of the resources and the MILLION/MILLION campaign. Promoting the resources – the 50-day prayer guide, the Operation Andrew resource, the Evangelism As Blessing training materials, or offering to teach that in various congregations. You can promoting the SALTY Groups. Or sponsor a prayer walk or public prayer gathering. 

You can conduct a Rooftop Prayer Encounter praying for the city, for parts of the city in great need of the grace of God. To to some vista point, a hillside, a high rise building from which you can see the city. Rooftop Ministries will provide support materials for your effort

You can help by organizing the Ambassador effort in the city. Learn more about that below.

We have allowed, in many places, an adversarial disposition toward authority. We are known for our opposition more than our love. Paul said that we have a ministry, the ministry of reconciliation, of being an ambassador (2 Cor. 4:1; 5:18-20). This is a stately role. It stands between two kingdoms. Ambassadors represent a foreign kingdom. So do we. We are now citizens of heaven. We have been left here on the earth to represent Christ, the King. The church is the embassy, the visible expression of the invisible kingdom of God. We are peacemakers. Our evangelism efforts in the past have focused on individuals. But God wants cities to be impacted. The goal is to see nations joined to the Lord (Psa. 2:1-8; Zech. 2:11; Isa. 56:6-8; Mt. 28:19). In the book of Acts, the gospel was preached to kings. What happens when someone at the top of an influence pyramid comes to Christ? It influences large numbers of people. Ambassadors build bridges for communication with community influencers.  

They do so in a positive manner, to the end that there is a cordial and peaceful relationship between two states or kingdoms. We have ignored the role of the ambassador. Project Pray University, a partner to PATH, offers training.

Learn More.

Identify a group of people in your congregation. Or in the city or county, if the effort is being done by a group of collaborating congregations – which is the better approach. Get these people trained and certified. For a brief time, the training is free. Project Pray certifies Ambassadors, but the church commissions them.  Make a list of those who completed the certification training by Project Pray University. 

List those to whom Ambassadors should be sent. Remember, the purpose is to bless community leaders. Who then should receive a visit? Certainly, the mayors and perhaps the city managers of the various towns and cities in the county. Ambassadors will thank them for their public service. Add the police and fire chiefs, to whom we owe much. The sheriff, to whom we are equally in debt. Judges, if they can be accessed. The State Representative and State Senator; as well as the Congressional member representing your district in Washington. Add the city council and the county commissioners – and whoever else the Lord prompts as you prayerfully make your list. 

The goal is peacemaking. Determine what gifts they should bear, what tributes they should offer, what commendations or gratitude they should express on behalf of the church community. You want to organize this at the city, and perhaps county level, to prevent overlaps. 

Then, with the public service offices covered, remember, Paul exhorted that we pray for kings, those with political power, and, one translation reads, those with influence (1 Tim. 2:1-2). For example, the English Standard Version reads, “and all who are in high positions.” This is beyond the political. These are people of influence in the community. The rich and powerful. Corporate president and CEOs. 

Do a power mapping exercise. Ask this question: Who runs our city? Who has influence ‘over’ the political offices? Where is the money? People in office usually have others backing them, political parties and powers, and behind them, there are the rich and powerful who influence their decisions. Who are the powerbrokers in your city?

It is to these people that you want to send an ambassador team with the olive branch of peace. They go carrying a blessing, building a relational bridge. They are not contentious. They carry no petition. They offer no complaints. They are peacemakers, seeking to effect a measure of reconciliation. Even if the leader, the person in office is toxic, the chair in which they sit is sacred. “All authority is of God” (Rom. 13:1). When we cannot bless the person, we bless the office. When we cannot bless the pathology, we bless the potential of a transformed life. What would happen in your community if high-profile politicians or community influencers, became a new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). The transformation of your community begins with a blessing.

As you make your list of people to whom Ambassador teams should go, each congregation should think of its influence, but not merely over the families who attend. Rather, the congregation should consider itself a parish – caring for the community, whether the people around the church attend or not. What area has God called you to serve? A one-mile radius? Five miles? What is in that radius – what businesses, what shopping plazas, what schools, what gangs? How do we learn to pastor ‘a city, a community.’ God has called us to be ambassadors. The church then serves as a kind of embassy to the area around it. We are representatives of His kingdom to the neighborhood, to schools and businesses, police stations and fire houses, gangs and drug dealers. That ministry begins with a prayer!

Gather those who have gone through the Ambassador training. The training is important to define the Ambassador role Biblically and prepare the team for surprises. Project Pray University offers certified training, but the local church or community, commissions them. The church serves as the embassy of the kingdom of God. Ambassadors do not go, they are ‘sent.’ They do not represent themselves, but the kingdom of God expressed through the life and ministry of the church in the community. They should be anointed, consecrated for service, prayed over and commissioned. 

You have made a list of community leaders, both political and official, as well as community influencers. Pray over the names of both ambassadors and community leaders. Make assignments to the Ambassador teams. Keep a list of Ambassadors and to whom they have been assigned. You want to conduct a follow-up meeting.

Visiting community leaders is half the task. Learning from the visit, how the church can pray for them is the critical follow-up. Then, in no more than three months, you want to visit them again. Perhaps with the same team or members of that team, and others – usually 3-5, no more. Again, you go bearing a gift – flowers, a Bible signed by the pastors of the city, an inspirational book, a plague, a declaration of appreciation from the pastors and churches of the city, or a pledge to pray for the individual and the city.  God will lead you as you prayerfully depend on Him. 

The ambassador program is an ongoing program. It is not one-and-done. It is being launched in the 50 day Million/Million prayer experience, but it is a valuable means of continual bridge building between the Christian community and city leaders and influencers. 

Take the first step. Ask for more information.

PATH is a national initiative that drives state initiatives that then filter down to county, city and congregational initiatives. Local initiatives, disconnected from county, state and national bonds, are unlikely to spark a national Great Awakening. 

The goal is to connect the nation with prayer but do so as a grassroots movement. The Prayer Wall connects people in every state by means of a rolling prayer call. People in a given state have the opportunity to pray with others in that state. One state completes their hour of prayer scheduled weekly at the same time, then the voices of those leading prayer in another state are heard. Prayer moves from state to state like a wave across the entire nation. 

People are encouraged to their state prayer call, but they can also join the prayer call of other states. The number is 518-318-7117. Check out the Prayer Wall schedule.

If you’d like to volunteer, call us at 704-966-7284 or email us at info@prayerattheheart.org

When nations err and offend the holiness of God, there is remedy in scripture. It is called a ‘Solemn Assembly.’ It is intended to be a ‘national reset.’ It is a time of repentance for leaders and the people. A time of getting right with God and the reordering of personal lives, families and society. It is to result in a new direction for the nation. A Solemn Assembly was called by a king, a prophet or a priest. That would be equivalent, in the USA, to a Solemn Assembly being called by the President (kingly), the judiciary (prophetic, judges), or the congress (representative, people’s advocates). The last US solemn assembly was called by Abraham Lincoln. If, the powers that be, will not call a solemn assembly to right the nation’s direction and repent of national sins, there is a wildcard in the scriptures. It reads, “If my people …” 

Ours is a Solemn Assembly movement of repentance coupled with a prayerful plea to God to “forgive us and again bless us.”

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:22-23.

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. Psalm 110:3 KJV

Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves… Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’… The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” 18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven…” Luke 10:3, 9, 17-18

These are explained in the following questions and answers.

It is the desire of God that the unanswered prayer of Jesus (John 17), that we are unified, be answered. Our disobedience and pride stand in the way. Jesus prayed, “I am not asking on behalf of them alone, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” Our disunity stands in the way of our mission. Jesus predicted a harvest that was connected to our unity. There are “those who will believe,” when they see our unity. Our unity is necessary that “the world may believe that You [the Father] sent Me [Jesus]” (John 17:20-21).  

God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, wants to see unity. Our part is humility and obedience. It is loving ‘the other.’ Not merely those in our tribe. United around the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ, we will find unity. If we focus on ‘core theology,’ the simple center of the gospel, and give love and grace a role in disputes over denominational differences, we can engage in ‘task theology,’ mission, together. The mission cannot be completed by any one church in a city or one group in the nation. We need one another. 

PATH honors denominations and movements. But the movement is not about labels or titles. We want to make ‘no reputation’ for ourselves that the name of Jesus may be gloried. 

That is why you can join the effort – and call it what you want in your circles. You can adapt the materials, and style them for your group. 

The one thing that we can clearly do together is pray. And that will lead to collaboration in mission

Humbly, that we can link arms with you to ignite a great awakening across NE Ohio – and then Ohio and the rest of the nation. We believe it’s time for the Church to go on the offense together, against the forces of darkness that are ravaging our nation. God has given us a strategy in scripture and we believe He will come in great power if we will pray and mobilize Christians in unity outside the four walls of our buildings.

Please will you encourage your members to use their God given gifts, abilities and experiences to share God’s love with the ‘lost and broken.’ There are 20 or so different ministries they can serve in during a 40-day season of prayer, care and share from May 8th – June 16th 2023. Your members will be serving with other members of God’s Church, providing a wonderful opportunity to fulfill Jesus’ words in John 13:35 and 17:23. Specialist teams will provide the necessary directions, guidelines and training so that everyone will know what, where, when and how to serve in their chosen ministry e.g. prayer and intercession, helping the poor or the addicts.

Our prayer is that thousands of people will come to faith in Christ during the 40 days of prayer, care and share and at the central gathering. Many of these new converts will end up in your church, which will help to stir vision, faith, courage and action. We pray that a great awakening will lead to a transformation of culture and society and a missional form of Christianity in line with the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).

There will be training available to equip churches to care and disciple new converts, whatever needs they may have.

As explained in previous answers, PATH is for every age, ‘tribe and tongue.’

​For example, does your church have a specific ministry gifting and/or could you encourage your members to sign up to use what God has placed in their hands such as:

• Does your church have a heart for the homeless or for orphans and widows?
• Could your church serve the ‘lost and broken’ by:
  • Meeting a need in the family/home e.g. a plumber, dentist, hair dresser, financial advice etc.
  • Taking in one or more foster children.
  • Running a sports and/or music event/s for young people;
  • Giving advice for mental health and addiction issues;
  • Giving comfort to the broken-hearted;

Every person we have contact with we will endeavor to connect to a local church, including a beginner’s course such as Alpha and/or a national ministry for grief and addiction counselling services.

You can sign up to get involved with your local PATH team at www.prayerattheheart.org/contact

Yes

No, PATH is about one thing and one thing only – lifting up the name of Jesus and to see His Kingdom come on earth and His will being done as it is in heaven.

PATH holds to the absolute centrality and supremacy of Jesus, being fully God and fully man, His virgin birth, life, substitutionary death on the cross and His resurrection and second coming in glory. Jesus being the only savior from sin and death.

No. Christians are called to love people and not to judge them. Jesus said, ‘God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.’ John 3:17 NLT