Dear Friend,
We're witnessing a mass slaughter of hearts. To be lost is to be alone. And loneliness rules. Nobody comes to Christ without prayer. Most churched people know little of prayer. I'm afraid a lot of people who sit on pews understand the logic of the Gospel, feel comforted by their service attendance, but few have been slain and healed in their hearts by the truth of God's love on the Cross. And for all our efforts in Jesus' name: We have very little to show for in the numbers of rescued hearts; Even less when it comes to both study of the Word and lifestyles of prayer - both must go together. Israel of old was given her kings. Today, the Church in America has been given our politicians, personalities, organizations and many Christian conveniences. All the while, God has already given Himself to us. We must be blind.
Christ declared that He would exponentially impact the world through us praying together. Though we are not a Body of perfect people, we are perfectly fitted together for His honor. The Scripture consistently makes the case that we need each other. As one author says, "This is not the Gospel of Jesus and me, but the Gospel of Jesus and us." Yet, in the past we have not sought God together.

But it is also apparent, from a dialogue with area pastors and church leaders that God is helping us all to see more clearly. It appears that the Lord has been leading to this place all along. We are beginning to see that prayer is the only life for us; And for the flocks. Our appetite for His presence has grown. Prayer is not a ministry of the Holy Spirit, it is the ministry.

Look around: We have produced too many who can enthusiastically tell you about our churches, our preachers, our church programs and even our true beliefs concerning God, but too few of us who can contagiously, humbly and persuasively share this wonderful Jesus who continually changes our hearts; Someone known intimately. It's one thing to tell somebody what we believe about Jesus, it's quite another to be able to introduce someone to our Best Friend; And even another thing to be effectively led in prayer by Him. We know little of prayer.

In the past we have been content with pushing for church attendance and building programs and have executed strategies to grow both, but we have not had a vision, standard or strategy for the homes of our attendees where the Holy Spirit truly prevails over the ministry of Hollywood. Our homes haven't been places of prayer in decades. Too many are alone and being swallowed by the darkness in their own homes.  As a result, church attendance overall is in great decline. A few godly men, hungry for people to know God, have implemented contemporary marketing strategies to lure as many as possible inside church doors and God has blessed their efforts to a degree. Yet the percentage of people who actually live lifestyles of prayer remains the same from mega-church to small church. Others have advanced some growth in attendance on the basis of personality or an angle of doctrine or a niche ministry. Many are simply holding on for both good and bad reasons. Most proclaim the Truth. Yet, sound doctrine is of little use if the Spirit of God is not invading people's hearts. 
Many of us settle for good, which is the real enemy of excellent, but are deluded into thinking we are excellent. Our measurement for excellence is in comparing ourselves with others, not church history or God's Word. The truth is that we still sit atop the dung heap shared by all, yet are satisfied with touching people's lives when God could be changing them. By today's standards, Jesus would have been judged a failure as a pastor. He started out with twelve, lost one and had to leave as His disciples got to lead the three and five thousand after he was gone. But by the time they were ready to lead in Jesus' stead, their hearts cared less about power and more about being eventually reuinited with their Best Friend. None of them were feeling: "Oboy, Jesus is gone now, we're the Big Bosses!"
His focus was on producing real disciples, which he defined as prayer leaders, as well as students of the Word. And prayer leaders are who Jesus put in charge after His departure; Which is why those eight thousand were praying people, not just service attendees. The real measurement of church growth is the corporate prayer meeting, not money or organization.

These dark days force the question: Is God's Spirit not enough? Is not the Holy Ghost more wonderful than all the world can offer? Is He able to compete with drugs, greed, pornography or alchoholism? Can His presence beat a sporting event or reality show? And can His presence do something even greater; Free us from religious and racial pride? Again, we are blind.

If we just answer these questions in our heads nothing will happen. But if the answer comes from deep within, then a passionate hunger should be awakened; A hunger for Someone real.

If people are not coming to Him, Who is the most humble, selfless, loving, giving and powerful Soul ever, then it's because we lack Him in our lives. Hollywood or Washington D.C. are not to blame first.
Before there is ever a comfort within, there ought to be a terror that we even dare to approach a Person in Whom love, humility and selflessness is so white hot that nothing selfish can get within an eternity of Him. It begins with the fear of the Lord. We too often put His Name on things for which His direction has not led. If the Lord were in the many things we do, why is the fellowship among leaders so weak? Why are not our houses of worship overflowing with praying people? The Lord speaks to us through Haggai: 
"Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this House remains a ruin?" Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it." 

Is He not able to pull us together in worship of the great King and to share with us His passion for those who've never felt His loving embrace? His ability to write unique and true stories of love and victory in the lives of each individual can and will only be realized in great quantity when the corporate prayer meeting returns to the center of Church life. 
Martha is who we are today, but Mary is who we need to be. "...Martha opened her home to Him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" 'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'" John 11:38-41
He has never really needed all of the additional "tools" of ministry we've given Him. He only needs the avenue of hearts who will seek and wait to have our heart's eyes opened to the truth of His great love. His Holy Spirit is more than real enough to do this. His Holy Spirit wants to come, because the Lord loves people. He does not want us to feel alone. And He can fill our hearts with this reality, overflow through our lips and legally, effectively invade this fallen world where His supposed rival rules. Through vessels of prayer He can take prisoners for Christ without any additional ideas from us. 
The Scriptures teach that the god of this world has blinded the mind of the unbeliever. Nobody has ever been reborn without Spirit-inspired prayer. If we don't put ourselves in a place to pray for the people around us, then how will they come to Christ? All the radio programs, services, preaching and reasoned arguments will fail. For so long we have used prayer to prop up so-called ministry in America. Whatever we do, we selfishly want prayer for that thing. But it should be the other way around, for prayer is the purpose, as well as the means. We pray to pass tests, pay bills and to gain sermons, but seldomn do we pray to pray. It is time to change. Prayer is the most important channel; One paid for in Blood. Are we Christian activists or a people of prayer? It is time to change. We MUST return to seeking God so He can give us the passion and power to pray so God can confront the lost Himself. We are His legal entrance into this fallen world. We are conduits of Him. Our disobedience to the command to seek God costs lives.
Our disobedience hurts the morale of the Body as well, which hinders the lost from coming to Christ. Generally speaking, in American public ministry, there is no experiential point of reference to diffuse the animosity that naturally builds in our hearts toward each other over the course of time. We are helplessly at the mercy of our own pride and the pride of others. We are left to posture and pretend; we socialize, but seldomn fellowship. Only people of prayer can be real friends. Their goals for us are that we might be closer to God. They cause us to search our own motives the whole way because they also search their own. Prayer-bathed friendships are not incidental to ministry, they are foundational. Jesus died for such friendships before he ever died for an organization. That's where the real authority of God begins, not on a legal document. Sure, few do ministry like this anymore. And the results are damning universally. Those at the top of post-modern public ministry organizations will say that such a view is naive and PolyAnnistic, but they are wrong. God calls us to die for friends, to give up earthly (even social religious) power and bow before one another in order to wash each other's feet. The call is simple. This is about friendship. It's just that it is so hard on our pride. But through corporate worship and prayer, God's presence can cleanse and continually sets things right. 
This effort was launched not because of any ambition to begin a new organization that recruits the few active Christians in leadership within each area congregation; Nor is it another attempt at ecumenism where uniformity is achieved at the expense of sound doctrine. We seek prayer-birthed & Spirit-inspired unity, but before even these, we desire to seek Him. This online site is designed with the belief that God has sovereignly placed the spiritually hungry Christians in this area for a great and wonderful display of His love for people. These are believers who will truly seek God and encounter Him, to such a degree that even cynics and skeptics will come running for Christ. Divinely-designed friendships for life are being born and grown even as you read this!
Parkcircleprayer.com is a parachurch and laypeople's effort, not a congregation, with the sole purpose of glorifying the Lord by supporting the divine institutions of the family and local congregation through the facilitation of community-wide prayer events which are led by Christian leaders who are concerned for the souls in the Park Circle - Remount Road and Rivers Avenue Area and who desire to please the Lord by seeking Him together. The Park Circle Prayer Campaign is not an organization, but a persistent and burning idea, geographically centered on Park Circle, but not exclusive to it. This is a call to prayer. It is a seasonal, laypeople's effort which will be brief in duration. Again, these souls are the target but the geographical lines are not exclusive to anybody.
If you sense that you are called to help, it would be great to hear from you! For more information please contact us at info@parkcircleprayer.com. 

Ultimately, this is all heading toward a place where we are going to be cornered into seeking God. Truth will corner us. There is a selfish part of us which wishes to not go forward, but we know that seeking God is inevitable. The world is a very bad place, taking lives everyday and how we wish we could innoculate ourselves against such despair through pretension. But if we do not heed the call to seek God, the cost will be too great and the shame even greater.
We are promised that He will not abandon us, even unto our vain selves. What a wonderful Friend, who inflicted upon Himself the deep heartfelt wound of rejection when the Son died of a that broken heart crying out the question: "Why have You forsaken Me?" And so His love saves us from this passing world, from Hell itself and greatest of all, from ourselves. What kind of love is this? 

Lord, open our eyes that we may see, because when we see, our hearts will change and your Spirit will ride the waves of prayers You inspire within for those around us! Come Lord, to our hearts here in the Park Circle Area, to all the Lowcountry and to this nation, according to Your great love. 

In Jesus' Name. Amen.

Your Friends in the Park Circle Area