Passing the Torch
As the bus pulled out of the parking lot, no one quite knew what to expect. Thirty-one pastors from ten different denominations sat in their seats as the bus made its way to the first Arkansas Pastors Prayer Summit. Many of us had only met that day. As I sat in my seat, I felt a nervous excitement. We were going to spend four days together in prayer. Would we see God move, or would this be a spectacular failure? I had no way of knowing.
Two years earlier, I was serving at a church I deeply loved in Little Rock. I saw spiritual fruit there and knew of other churches doing good things in the city. However, what I didn’t see was citywide transformation.
Through this desire for greater spiritual impact in our city and the major health issues of a close family member, the Holy Spirit led me to pray and seek God’s intervention through a time of fasting and prayer. On April 2, 1996, the Spirit spoke to me. While it wasn’t audible, His words could not have been clearer. I sensed God calling me to unite pastors in Central Arkansas through prayer.
In the following weeks, as I waited on the Lord to reveal the next steps, the Holy Spirit began to direct me to other pastors whose hearts were being stirred in similar ways. Through these new and expanding relationships, God brought all the details together for the first Arkansas Pastors Prayer Summit in January 1998.
During that four-day experience together, God transformed hearts and minds. As we worshipped and prayed together, we began to encounter God’s presence in a new way. We confessed sin to God and one another. We shed many tears. New relationships formed and existing ones deepened. These pastors who began that bus ride as strangers became brothers. The brokenness and humility we felt together led to a genuine unity that has become a sustained prayer movement for our churches and cities in Arkansas.
Seeds of a Movement
The seeds for that movement were actually planted years before the first Prayer Summit. Pastor Tony Minick (River of Life) had been praying for a cooperative effort among different churches in Little Rock. The memories of churches uniting for crusades he led in cities across the South had stuck with him. Could something similar happen in Central Arkansas?
Tony invited a small group of pastors (including me) to pray weekly for their city. He told us, “We have to come together. This needs to be a citywide move of God. We need to be here for each other, so God blesses the other, and He blesses our efforts.”
Reflecting on those early meetings, Tony says, “We had some awesome times. There were times when we didn’t want to leave. It was that great. You’d see things you had missed all your life because you were involved with your own denomination. Our singing and prayer time together—it was a foretaste of heaven and what we will experience in eternity.”
That group showed me what we are capable of when we work together, when we set aside our own agendas for God’s agenda. And it was this group and those relationships that sowed the seeds for the first Prayer Summit.
A United and Praying Church
What began as a handful of pastors praying together would become Nehemiah Network and, later, CityChurch Network of Arkansas. For nearly 30 years, God has done amazing things through a united and praying Church. Churches have demonstrated the love of Christ to their neighbors through citywide events such as ShareFest and CityFest and collaborated on statewide initiatives related to foster care (The CALL), literacy in schools (ARKids Read), racial reconciliation (Race Under Grace), and marriage (Arkansas Marriage Challenge).
Throughout CityChurch Network’s story, the Prayer Summit has been an essential part of our mission to help churches work together for the good of our cities. “We have sought to come together, continually, with one mind to pray,” says Pastor Bill Elliff (The Summit Church). “Each year that this happens, amazing results occur. There is always an increase in unity, connection, instruction, and direction from God. United prayer is uniquely irresistible to God, and Arkansas needs the spiritual awakening that could occur when God’s leaders pray together!”
For pastors who have attended, the Prayer Summit has been a lifeline. “I would not have made it through 20 years of urban ministry were it not for the encouragement and deep fellowship I’ve experienced at these summits,” says Pastor Harry Li (Mosaic Church). Pastor Greg Kirksey (The Church at Rock Creek) describes it as “among the most incredible and meaningful times of prayer I’ve ever experienced in my life. Those in attendance were bonded together in an authentic unity that can’t be fabricated.”
What I’ve Learned
In 1989, Dr. Joe Aldrich, then the President of Multanoma University, asked a question during the first Prayer Summit in Portland, Oregon: What would it take to see a move of God initiated and sustained in a geographic area?
As I reflect on what God has done in Arkansas since the first Arkansas Pastors Prayer Summit, there are many memories and thoughts, but three key lessons of God’s faithfulness stand out.
A significant transformation in a place begins with the transformation of its leaders. Near the end of the first day of the first Prayer Summit in January 1998, a dear brother and fellow pastor, James Walker, came up to me with tears streaming down his face. He said he had been dreaming and praying for this moment—pastors praying together— for years, but wasn’t sure if it would ever come. He went on to share how he had struggled with his relationship with God since he had lost his son years before. That afternoon, as he experienced the love of God in the fellowship of other pastors, he released the bitterness he had felt toward God. He would later say that he knew that moment saved his ministry, and it might have saved his life. Each of our stories is different, but I have watched God’s grace and power transform again and again when pastors are praying together.
When pastors prioritize time to seek God together, He provides Spirit-led direction. At the second Prayer Summit, through various stories, we began to see that the community was not hostile to churches. It was simply indifferent. When they considered the challenges our cities faced and what was important, the Church did not come to mind. There were glimmers of light here and there, but the light of Christ was not visible. During that Summit, pastors united around a simple idea. What if each church, in its own way, committed to doing a project—at a school or in our neighborhoods—on the same weekend to bless our communities? It would create a light show our city couldn’t miss. That moment, birthed in united prayer, led to 10 years of churches demonstrating the love of Christ through an annual event called ShareFest. Seeing the transformative impact of thousands of lights shining together inspired an even bigger light show at CityFest with the Luis Palau Festival.
God is answering Jesus’ prayer in John 17, and when God is doing something, it will endure challenges. It was our last night together, and we had one of the most meaningful times I had ever experienced at a Prayer Summit. As we were beginning to wrap up our time, a pastor made a statement that ignited a significant conflict in the group. People expressed their opinions, emotions flared, and some spoke hurtful words. We were all stunned in disbelief. It felt like the unity that had developed over the years was evaporating before our eyes. Finally, a wise leader in the group appealed to the group to pause. There was agreement that the issue was unresolved, but we could no longer make progress in the heat of that moment.
I noticed a pastor who had left just before the evening session but had returned. I approached him and said (I have to admit, somewhat sarcastically), “Well, I guess you are glad you came back.” His answer surprised me. He said, “Actually, I am really glad I did. If the movement survives this, I will know it is of God.” And it did. Key leaders representing both sides of the disagreement came together. Through the power of the gospel, humility, forgiveness, and unity were maintained (Ephesians 4:1-3).
The Legacy Continues
Today, a new generation of pastors is carrying the prayer torch forward. Pastor Jordan Bowen (Hillcrest Community Church) is one of them.
“Every missionary movement started in a prayer room,” he 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.”
In early 2025, a group of pastors started meeting every Monday to pray at 317 Coffee & Cafe. It didn’t take long for them to outgrow the conference room there, and Pastor Tim Caldwell offered his church, Fellowship Midtown, as a place to meet.
Rod Vestal attends Antioch Community Church, where members have been praying for revival in the city since 2018. In November of 2024, Rod was studying past revivals, such as the 100-year-long Moravian Prayer Movement. On November 19, he wrote in his journal: “Who is contending for revival in Little Rock? How can churches collaborate?”
Later, in April, Rod attended One Voice, a quarterly prayer gathering at Hillcrest Community Church. His pastor introduced him to Jordan, who invited him to Monday morning prayer. “It was amazing,” Rod says. “I felt like this was my tribe. This is what I had been yearning for in our city.”
Rod is among the oldest in the Monday morning prayer group. The vast majority of others are decades younger. At the front of his journal, Rod has 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,” Rod says. His words remind me of Tony Minick and other pastors who championed prayer for younger pastors like me all those years ago.
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 had no idea Josh had been there. He stopped to pray at the same spot where Josh had prayed the day before. 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 A United Gathering of Prayer and Worship, a citywide event on November 9, 2025, at City Center in Little Rock. There was no elaborate setup or marketing strategy. As Pastor Grant Harrison (Epoch Church) put it, “We just came together to pray and seek the Lord.”
Nearly 600 people from churches across Greater Little Rock showed up to do exactly that. God had done something far greater than anyone in the Monday morning prayer group could have ever imagined.
Prayer Changes the World
Jordan Bowen believes that prayer changes everything. “We need faith that lives can be transformed, and a city can be fully consecrated unto the Lord,” he says. “Revival and awakening really can happen. 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.”
Bill Elliff, Jordan’s mentor, has watched this prayer movement unfold for nearly three decades. “The results have created a culture of prayer among us in large measure,” he says. “We are better together. But we only experience the depths of that benefit as we pray together. The Prayer Summit has helped us get there in ways nothing else can.”
What began with a bus ride to the first Prayer Summit nearly 30 years ago has become a movement of Spirit-led, worship-fed, Scripture-based, corporate prayer that continues to bear fruit today.
The torch is being passed to the next generation, and it continues to burn brightly. As we look ahead, I am more convinced than ever that prayer is the foundation of everything God wants to do in and through His Church in Arkansas. May we be faithful to prayer that is increasing, unceasing, and persevering until earth reflects heaven in our cities.
We are grateful for the pastors across Arkansas who are uniting to intercede in prayer for our communities. They are helping the whole Church grow.
Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:15-16
