The Blessing Project

Intercessors from my church spread out to the four corners of Colorado Springs last weekend to pray blessings over the city. We had set the date weeks before our city made international headlines—twice within a month—with its mass, fatal shootings.* So the recent tragedies certainly made our time together all the more significant.

I was stationed at the north end of town. We gathered in the host’s living room. He gave simple guidelines. Our goal was simply to bless the north side of town. We weren’t petitioning God for anything specifically. We were just to be agents of His blessing. We were to assume our role as priests (1 Peter 2:9) and bless people with all things God (see Numbers 6:24-26).

It was a bit artificial-feeling at first, as we blessed individuals, families, homes, and neighborhoods with peace, safety, healing, and hope. But before long, the Holy Spirit was infusing God’s mind and heart into the time, and we found ourselves blessing in ways we never would have thought of on our own. We blessed first-responders, nursing homes, families with mentally ill members, the unemployed, children in foster care, people driving on the interstate, and a whole lot more.

We invoked God’s courage, love, joy, and comfort into dark places of our community. We asked God to prosper all wholesome businesses, to bring abundant fruit from Christian ministries, to unify and grow Christ-honoring churches, and to restore broken families. We asked for God’s presence to be tangible in our community and for people to recognize Him and be drawn to Him.

It was a whole lot of fun! (Is it okay to say it was fun? Maybe it’s more spiritual-sounding to say “It gave me joy.” And it certainly did that, too. But it was fun.) I felt kind of like Santa Claus, doling out gifts right and left to people who weren’t even expecting anything.

On Monday, I was invited to share at a small group meeting in the north part of town. I didn’t know anyone in the group, and had never been to the hosts’ house. So I could almost hear God chuckling when the GPS led to a home just one street over from where we’d met for our blessing party on Saturday.

After meeting everyone, I told them about what I’d done two days previously. “We prayed for you and blessed your house,” I told them. Obviously surprised, they asked what I meant. So I explained. Then the hosts told me about the incredible roller-coaster weekend they’d had—which had been hard, but filled with God’s presence, and had climaxed in a miracle of healing. They wondered if our blessing project had had anything to do with it.

I wonder, too.

At any rate, if you want to have a great time connecting with God and friends and making a difference in your city, I highly recommend that you have your own blessing project. And let me know how it goes!

*The first shooting took places on the street in downtown Colorado Springs October 31 and resulted in four deaths. The second happened November 27 at a Planned Parenthood clinic and took the lives of three people, including a police officer.