The Clarion Call Prayer Circle and World Changers through Prayer groups are both sending up more prayers this month. Evangelist Maria Tillman is bringing an extra level of inspiration as she leads the prayer line that currently gathers every Tuesday morning and Thursday evening. Tillman just returned from a trip to Israel and being among other prayer group leaders to be baptized in the Jordan River.
Tillman said that she wants to widen out in her evangelization of young people. Even though she is a matured adult, she said this is possible. While in Israel, she said she was able to relate to the younger faithful as well as the young people she met along the way.
“I will always offer up prayers, but God also gives me a word,” Tillman said. “I’ve been trying to dress in a way where I do not look old. It’s not to look younger than I am or be someone I am not. It’s to be able to be more approachable to young people.
“I’ve been trying to watch some of the things they watch, read the books they enjoy and listen to their music as long as it is uplifting. I do so to be able to better relate to them. When they mention a song, they expect I won’t know who it is. When they find out I do, that opens the door so we can talk about what God has done for me and to pray,” Tillman said.
So, Tillman is glad that she is bringing some younger people to her prayer line and ministry events. This, she said, gives her hope. She said that she tries to keep the conversations with the youth and young adults upbeat, even the prayers.
“Everyone who knows me knows I do not like to hear negative talk,” Tillman said. “That is why I stress our prayers must be upbeat. I know sometimes there are things we are praying about that is challenging. I have had to do that even as far as my health.
“But, what I have found is by keeping a positive spirit and praying in a way that I am expecting God to bless me, I get blessed. My doctors are amazed that I am still here. They have given me negative [prognosis] in the past, but I know that uplifting prayers have kept me going. That is what we need for these challenging times, because so much is going on,” Tillman said.
World Changes through Prayer no longer meets on a monthly basis at various venues around the city, but the prayer chain is still continuing. Deacon Harvey Reed, who serves at the New Covenant Church in Mount Airy, said that he is praying with others about the current political climate. He insisted that there are still many blessings awaiting the local African-American faith community as long as they pray.
Reed singled out the scriptural passage in Hebrews 11. He said that this scripture is often misquoted by many Christians. “What many people will do is put the verses in the future tense. It is actually in the present tense because it is telling you to believe as you pray,” he said.
“After you watch all the things on the news we sense that destruction is near. You look back in history and see it repeating itself with the way the rich are treating the poor. This is what happened in ancient Rome, and this is what led to the revolutions in France — that gap between the rich and poor widening,” Reed said.
Reed feels that prayer can do much to change hearts and empower those who are organizing against injustices. He said as a member of the 35th Police District’s Advisory Board, who formerly worked in Washington, D.C., when the Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter presidential administrations were running things, he knows what “changing of the guard” means.
“We, as persons of faith, cannot give up,” Reed said. “We cannot resign ourselves and say that nothing can be done. We have to understand that we are in transition. What our focus must be on is sharing what we know and understand with the young people. We have to pray so that we can stay positive when you help ground the young people, because after we are no longer here they still have to live.”
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