Annapolis, Maryland | Pastoral Prayers Across Racial Divides Bring Change

Pastors around Annapolis, Maryland (near Washington, DC) have been gathering to pray together for years, joined by Novo staff Todd. In 2022, Todd suggested that in addition to praying at church buildings, they also pray in different missional spaces around the area. That same week, one of the black churches was vandalized with racial slurs. So that was the first new place the pastors gathered to pray. AJ, a local black lay leader from a Pentecostal church, came to that prayer meeting.

AJ grew up on the streets, and has an amazing testimony of finding Jesus and being restored. He’s very familiar with all the Section 8 housing and projects in Annapolis, and in December, he suggested the pastors gather to pray at an empty lot, in a historically black part of town that now has a mix of mostly Hispanic and black residents who rarely connect with each other. So on a very chilly (25°) morning, Todd joined AJ and other pastors there for prayer. Todd sensed a strong call from the Lord to invest more through prayer at that location.

Todd, AJ, and another pastor, Dan, began to pray at that lot weekly. It was a funny group, almost like the start of a joke: “One day a charismatic, a missionary, and a reformed pastor walk into a bar…” Over the past year and a half of consistent prayers, folks from five different churches have prayer-walked with them as well. Residents of this community are blown away seeing blacks, whites, and Hispanics praying together, especially from different churches. Those prayers are shifting the spiritual and social atmosphere in the neighborhood: drug-dealing has decreased; a house used for drugs mysteriously burned down right after pastors prayed near there; another house used for drugs shut down; people are outside more than they used to be.

The larger group of pastors (30-50) have continued gathering quarterly for prayer. In fact, the last cross-denominational, ethnically diverse worship and prayer night they hosted had 700 people in attendance and the Holy Spirit was tangibly present. The Annapolis mayor has gotten wind of these prayer efforts, and realizes that the significant decrease in crime this year across the whole city is directly connected to their prayers!