“Prayer has shifted from being a religious duty to a delight. I can’t imagine my life without prayer.”

Jenny Burr
Special to Spur Ottawa

While many begin January with New Year’s resolutions, Sarah Jackson and other prayer leaders in Ottawa are starting 2016 on their knees. Pray Ottawa (an arm of Love Ottawa, led by Jackson) hopes to increase prayer in the Church across Ottawa with a special initiative called “City on our Knees.”

“City on our Knees was an idea sparked from one of Love Ottawa’s quarterly round tables for prayer leaders,” says Jackson. “We wanted to start the year off in prayer and unite our prayers with one another.”

The City on our Knees initiative is a week of focused prayer, running from Sunday, January 10, to Saturday, January 16. The City on our Knees website provides scripture themes and prayer points for each day, but they’re also leaving it open ended so believers can seek God about what’s on their hearts, too.

Organizers encourage believers to keep doing “whatever you currently do in the area of prayer, we simply ask you to increase it.”

“This is a call to the Church to be a praying community. It’s a cry to God to increase our desire for Him and to do what we ourselves cannot do—to make Ottawa truly a city on its knees,” says Peter Hartgerink, a City on our Knees team member. “Our city, like every city, needs to turn to God humbly and ask Him for wisdom, mercy, hope, and salvation.”

He adds, “In the past twenty-five years of my life, prayer has shifted from being a religious duty to a delight and a way of life. I can’t imagine my life without prayer.”

Throughout this initiative, several churches and houses of prayer are holding prayer gatherings in various parts of the city. The kick-off event is a one-year-anniversary celebration for Burning Hearts House of Prayer, at East Gate Alliance Church, on January 10, starting at 7 p.m.

Glen Humphreys says his church, Woodvale Pentecostal, and Arlington Woods Free Methodist Church plan to meet jointly for the week of prayer. Humphreys has been involved in a number of initiatives to pray for Canada for the past 14 years. He believes this initiative is important for the people of Ottawa.

“God’s word asks us to pray for leaders and those in authority,” he explains. “I truly believe the community of Ottawa will benefit when churches pray together in unity and call on their God. With the change of government, it is important that Christians in Ottawa pray for our new leaders and for key decisions on controversial issues.”

Rafael Falcon, another team member, is also really excited about the planned prayer events in his part of the city.

“We are working to get several neighbourhood churches working with All Nations Church Ottawa to organize meetings throughout January 10 to 16. We also want to partner with churches in the Vanier/Overbrook area,” he says, adding, “I love prayer and the fact that it can turn things around for people, cities, and nations, as we intercede for them before God.”