In a recent local election, my city of 90,000 people faced an unusual opportunity. The redrawing of district lines meant that the positions of mayor and all city council seats were up for election (as well as three school board seats). In all my years of exercising my civic right to vote, I don’t ever recall such potential for upheaval.
My church immediately started praying. As a leader of our weekly House of Prayer, I emphasized our need to bathe the upcoming elections in intercession. I wondered if other churches were also praying.
Our prayer team decided to create a strategy of praying onsite at all 31 precincts in our city before the elections. We figured that over the course of a month, we could dispatch intercessors to each precinct multiple times to pray.
One of our prayer team members jokingly suggested “See You at the Polls” as a name for our prayer initiative. We all laughed—and then said, “Hey, wait. That’s a great name.”
I pulled together a list of the 31 precincts/polling places and addresses. I was surprised to discover that of the 31 polling sites, 26 were churches. I had a new awareness of how central the church is to the civic discourse of our city!
I realized this was not only an opportunity to pray at all the precincts, but it was also a wonderful bonus to pray onsite for most of the churches in our city.
I developed a document that described our strategy and included just three simple prayer points. I knew that intercessors needed only a few prompts—and then would take it from there. The prayer points:
- Pray that the people in the churches in our city will engage in their right to vote.
- Pray that God will favor this city with people who will govern according to biblical principles
I also added a request that comes from our police chief who embraces the power of prayer: - Pray in agreement with our police chief that churches in our city will “preach righteousness from their pulpits.”
We brought a map of our city to our weekly House of Prayer and invited people to adopt two or three polling sites. We encouraged them to drive into the parking lots, spend a few minutes praying for the elections, and then pray for God’s blessing on that church.
I contacted other churches and invited them to join our prayer initiative. I gave them the same simple prayer points and list of precincts and addresses. Although I didn’t track the number of people involved, it was encouraging to envision our city saturated with prayer during the month before our elections.
Our focus was on the unusual circumstances of our local elections, but we will employ this strategy again when it comes to our state and national elections in November 2024. Churches play a key role in every city when it comes to placing people in governmental leadership—if they are mobilized to be centers of both voting and praying.
Carol Madison is editor of Prayer Connect magazine. To subscribe to this award-winning magazine, click here.
