It All Begins in Prayer
Sarah Bowen was disappointed. She’d been looking forward to the Collegiate Day of Prayer at Texas A&M for months, but she couldn’t find a babysitter. Usually, this wasn’t a problem. But this time, no one could help her. She’d have to stay home while her husband, Jordan, went without her.
Discouraged but determined to participate, Sarah watched the livestream from home. As the event unfolded, she felt something stirring. Halfway through, she muted the TV and started praying.
“The Lord was really speaking to me about prayer for the city,” she says. “As I’m praying, He tells me, ‘I’m calling you to pray for revival in the city, but don’t do it alone.’”
The day after Jordan returned, they traveled to Missouri for a funeral. On the drive, Jordan told her what happened at the event. “The Lord’s stirring me to unite churches to pray together,” he said. “To reach out to pastors, so we’re not praying by ourselves.”
Sarah was stunned. They had heard the same thing.
Praying for Revival
Jordan is the teaching pastor at Hillcrest Community Church in Little Rock. His mentor is Bill Elliff, a pastor devoted to prayer and the study of revival. Jordan and Sarah met with Bill and shared what God told them.
“You’re not the only people praying for revival here,” Bill told them. “Ask the Holy Spirit to show you who they are.”
As they sat in Bill’s office praying, God revealed five ladies to Sarah. “It wasn’t an effort at all to contact them,” she says. “One of them, someone I had never met, reached out to meet with me. I would run into others and say, ‘What’s the Lord showing you?’ and they’d say, ‘God is moving so much, and I want to be a part of it here in the city!’”
The same thing was happening to Jordan. The first person he met was Tim Caldwell, a pastor at Fellowship Midtown. Jordan asked him, “Who’s another pastor who has the same heart for praying for the city?” Tim mentioned Grant Harrison, the worship pastor at Epoch Church.
In January, Grant had traveled to the UK to meet with pastors and see how the Spirit was moving there. “They kept saying, ‘It all begins in prayer,’” he says. “It wasn’t like they had 500 people coming to pray. There was weekly prayer, and sometimes eight people showed up. We sometimes think it’s got to be real big, but it was just faithful people seeking the Lord and asking Him to move.”
Grant wanted to see something similar happen in Central Arkansas. “I don’t care about a program. We just got to start praying,” he says.
The day after Jordan’s meeting with Tim, he and Sarah walked into 317 Coffee & Cafe. There, sitting at a table, was Grant Harrison. Jordan approached him. “You’re not going to believe this, but I have you in my phone to call.”
They talked and understood that God was moving and calling them into something. They just weren’t sure what it was yet.
“The Lord kept putting people on our path,” Sarah says. Over the following weeks, they spoke with about 15 pastors and ministry leaders who shared the same heart for revival. “So, we said, ‘Let’s get together and pray on Monday mornings for four weeks leading up to Easter.’”
Who’s Contending for Revival?
In March, the group began praying in a conference room at 317 Coffee & Cafe.
“It was really powerful from the first time we met,” Sarah says. After the fourth week, everyone agreed. They needed to keep going and invite more people.
Word spread, and it didn’t take long for the group to outgrow the conference room. Tim told the group that Fellowship Midtown could host the gathering, which is where the group has been praying ever since.
Rod Vestal attends Antioch Community Church, where members have been praying for revival in the city since 2018. “My wife and I have been part of the Antioch Movement for many years,” he says. Back in November, Rod had been reading about past revivals, such as the Moravian Prayer Movement, which lasted over a hundred years. On November 19th, Rod wrote in his prayer journal: “Who is contending for revival in Little Rock? How can churches collaborate?”
In April, Rod attended One Voice, a citywide prayer event at Hillcrest. His pastor introduced him to Jordan, who invited him to come to Monday morning prayer. “I went, and it was amazing,” Rod says. “I felt like this was my tribe. This is what I had been yearning for in our city.”
Rod, a member of the Boomer generation, is one of the oldest in the group. At the front of his journal, he’s written a verse from Psalm 71: Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation. “My role here is to serve this generation and pray for them and spur them on.”
The Lord’s Prayer
Years ago, Jordan asked Bill Elliff to teach him to pray. “One of my favorite things is when Bill takes the Lord’s Prayer and breaks it down. We did that for years. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. As we prayed that together, Bill would ask, ‘What would it look like for heaven to come down in my life?’ Then, Bill would expand the question.
‘What would it look like for heaven to come down in your church?’
‘What would it look like for heaven to come down in this city?’
‘What would it look like for heaven to come down in the world?’
“When we pray that prayer, we’re literally inviting the kingdom of God down onto earth. That’s what I think revival and awakening are,” Jordan says. “It’s heaven coming down. It’s the Lord’s Prayer being answered.”
“I’m guilty of not praying, which is why I need Mondays,” Jordan says. “They remind me that this is the most important thing I can do. And it’s the most valuable thing we can do as churches. Jesus said, ‘All things are possible through me.’ Christ is constantly bringing us back to prayer, which is communion and fellowship with the Father. It’s intimacy. You can’t be intimate with Christ if you don’t talk to Christ.”
“Not praying says we don’t need God,” Grant says. “If we’re not spending time in prayer, we’re saying, ‘Lord, we’ve got this.’ We’ve all been in that place, trying to do things in our own strength, and it fails every time. Those are reminders that it’s all Him. It begins and ends in prayer.”
A Move of God
Simple is the best word to describe the Monday prayer gathering. There’s no signage. No handouts. No PowerPoint. Just a pot of coffee and an open door.
The group meets in Fellowship Midtown’s atrium, an open space with open seating arranged beneath stained glass windows. People start showing up around 8:30 AM. After some brief announcements, Jordan leads the group into prayer. There’s no set structure. Jordan may call on the group to praise God with a word or phrase. He might direct them to prayer through scripture or spend time in confession. He may invite people to pray specifically for people and their needs. Someone with a guitar might lead the group in a worship song or two. Overall, the group goes wherever the Spirit leads them.
The prayers you hear every Monday are bold. Prayers for revival and spiritual awakening. For healing and restoration. For God to transform their city and the world.
“Every missionary movement started in a prayer room,” Jordan says. “What we’re seeing now is a move of God, because we’re coming back to recognize that prayer is the most important thing we could ever do. We’re inviting Him to do what only He can do in and through our lives. If you want to see transformation in your life, in your family, your church, and your city, you’ve got to be praying.”
The group is praying for God to move. They’re seeing it happen in and around them.
One church had a group of women praying for months, asking God for people to respond during services. Week after week, the altar stayed empty. Then, one Sunday, something changed. Instead of people gathering their things to leave, they filled the altar. Dozens of people bowed in prayer, crying out to the Lord.
Someone in the group was praying when the Lord said, “Go to the cafeteria at Baptist Hospital.” They went and met a lady there, who gave her life to the Lord in the middle of the cafeteria. Others have reported breakthroughs in relationships and how, all of a sudden, people are more receptive to hearing the gospel.
“Hearing about little movements like these has been very encouraging,” Sarah says.
A United Gathering of Prayer and Worship
Josh Starks attends the Monday prayer gathering. One day, he was praying by the Arkansas River. “Lord, what’s the next step of obedience you’re calling us to?” he asked. The Lord told him to contact Jordan.
The next day, Jordan was running by the river. He stopped to pray at the same spot where Josh prayed. His phone rang. It was Josh.
“Both of us had the same desire for a united gathering of prayer and worship,” Jordan says. That conversation led to plans for A United Gathering of Prayer and Worship, a citywide event on November 9th at City Center in Little Rock.
There’s no elaborate setup and staging. No extensive marketing strategy. Just a simple black-and-white flyer and a couple of informational meetings to invite churches to pray.
“It’s going to be simple,” Grant says. “We’re just coming together to pray and seek the Lord. And we’re going to wait on Him to move and see what He wants to do. That’s it.”
News about the gathering is spreading by word of mouth. “We’ve been praying for favor,” Jordan says. “I’m going to stand before my church and encourage all of us to come. I have a good friend who says, ‘History is transformed through friendships.’ We’re just operating in our friendships. We’re just sharing and inviting people to come.”
For Rod, this moment represents something the Church desperately needs. “The Lord is inviting us to be part of the harvest in our day and time. This emphasis on prayer prepares us for the harvest. There are so many disturbing things happening in our world today, and this is an opportunity for the Church to release hope. Christ is the hope of the world, and He’s calling us and inviting His Church to be part of what is on His heart, and our desire is to delight Him. So, we’re saying, ‘Yes,’ to this invitation, and, in faith, we will see it. And we know that faith is what really pleases the Lord. In fact, we can’t please Him without it.”
Jordan believes God is doing something unprecedented. “We’re seeing an increase in people coming to Christ, baptisms across the board. Europe is probably the coldest continent in regard to Jesus, but people there say they’re in a time of revival. It’s because there’s more prayer than probably ever before. What we’re seeing happen every 60 years or so is a generational shift. It’s repentance. It’s a return to Christ, to the gospel, and to prayer. God is uniting churches in that.”
“We need faith that lives can be transformed, and a city can be fully consecrated unto the Lord. Revival and awakening really can happen,” Jordan says. “We need faith that our neighbors are going to come to know the Lord. That our families are going to be restored, and marriages are going to be stronger. That a world can change because of prayer, because of God. That the stories we read of are actually possible.”
Every Monday morning, this group shows up to pray. And on November 9th, they’re inviting the rest of the Church in Central Arkansas to join them.
