Free Prayer Booth - Birth of the Idea

It was the Free Prayer booth at this weekend's Dogwood Festival that prompted me to start this blog. Let me tell you a little about it. I will start as far back as I recall.

About a month ago a dear friend of mine, I'll go ahead and name him, Phil, gave me a generous handful of CD's to listen to. They are chock full of recorded sermons from Bethel Church in Redding, CA. I'm still not really sure which one it was but several weeks ago I was listening to one of the sermons and Bill Johnson told a story (testimony) of an older lady believer who entered a bar, sat down and ordered a Sprite and put up a sign that read, "Free Prayer". I believe a young man went with her and sat off a ways. Pretty soon people started responding and eventually the young man felt compelled to join in and help. One man was so moved by the ministry that he offered to buy the young man a drink. The young man replied that he didn't drink so the bar customer asked him what he was doing there. The young man said, "I came here to pray for you." You can imagine what impact this would have had. (I think there may be a similar story in one of Johnson's books.)

So last Sunday, about 8 days ago I'm down in the park with my wife, Gina Baker. We were walking along and I looked down. I saw spray painted lines and markings on the green grass. I asked Gina what it was for and she said, "the Dogwood Festival". I asked her when it was going to be and she said the following weekend.

In that instant I had a mental picture of me sitting at a booth at the Dogwood Festival with a sign on a table that had two words on it, the first over the second, "Free Prayer". It was a very vivid picture. I could see the size of the sign, the color of the letters, the color of the background, a white tent. I could see the white plastic tables and what was on them. I could even see roughly where it was and it's orientation. I could see that the tent had white sides and also see that I was sitting alone in that moment.

According to the Siloam Springs Chamber of Commerce's website, "The Dogwood Festival attracts an estimated 30,000 people each year to the city's two adjacent downtown parks." That's more than twice the city's population in an area that can't be much larger than a square mile, a few small city blocks.

More to come...

- Wade Baker