Fellowship Hall

By Marian den Boer

Monthly, weekly and daily throughout our region, Christians from many denominations are humbly yet boldly uniting in prayer for our community. These are prayer warriors, intercessors, and just ordinary folk who have discovered the joy and power of connecting with God and praying for Him to send healing and revival.

Prayer warriors spend time praising and worshipping God; they wait for His impressions, pictures, words and phrases; and then they pray. No one intercessor gets the whole agenda. With each prayer contribution, the direction and purpose of God becomes clearer. Prayer becomes a powerful tool. As a result our communities change.

In Burlington, a night club known to police as one of the city’s top drug and crime spots, closed down and then became the location of a vibrant church for young adults. “We just prayed for light to invade the darkness,” says Jill Weber, who leads the Greater Ontario House of Prayer (GOHOP), headquartered at the Crossroads Communications Building in Burlington.

In Hamilton, Hell’s Angels failed to set up a local chapter. A gambling casino wasn’t established. Pro-lifers were allowed to display ads in bus shelters after first being denied that privilege. Christians were praying. “We pray for righteousness and justice. We pray for the spiritual welfare of the city. We pray that things against the principles of God won’t come into the city,” says Jessie Cooper, who presently heads the Nehemiah Prayer Network and has been personally involved with citywide prayer on and off for the past 25 years.

Since 2007, the Nehemiah Network has been meeting for discussion and prayer once a month, from September to June, at First Place on King Street – which just happens to be on the very site of the United Methodist Church where the Hamilton Revival began 150 years ago. Every second Thursday of the month from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., 35 or more intercessors from numerous churches look over the city from the glassed penthouse of First Place as they meet to pray the Lord’s agenda.

The Nehemiah Network prayed that Hamilton would be known as a beautiful city. Shortly after that prayer the local government began promoting Hamilton as a city of waterfalls and natural beauty. That is a prime example of the answers to prayer that keep intercessors coming back. The prayer time is never the same; never dull and new faces are always welcome.

Newcomers are also always welcome to join a monthly prayer ride around the city, organized by Fran Milburn. The first prayer ride happened six years ago as a Jericho prayer ride—one time around the city for six days and then seven times around on the seventh day.

Jessie Cooper

Since then the prayer ride has been taking place on the third Monday of the month beginning at 7 p.m. from Kingsview Community Church on Paramount Drive in upper Stoney Creek (upcoming ride dates are Jan. 18, Feb. 15 and March 15).

Usually there is one car; sometimes there are two. “The dream is to have a whole caravan going right around bumper to bumper,” says Fran. The car or cars with three or four intercessors in each, circle most of Hamilton and touch on Stoney Creek, skirt Burlington, through Westdale, skirt past Dundas and then up the Ancaster hill, left at Fiddler’s Green and back along Rymal Road to the starting point. The prayer riders go around the city twice, which takes about two and a half hours. They don’t pray with their eyes closed; they pray for the places they drive past—for the schools, McMaster and Redeemer universities, the churches, the hospitals, the jails, Hamilton Place, Copps Coliseum, the Convention Centre, shopping areas, mission groups. They pray for clean air and clean water and whatever else they feel led to pray about.

Bernie and Chris Klingsmith

Another more recent prayer initiative has started out of Wentworth Baptist Church at Cannon and Wentworth. Bernie and Chris Klingsmith, who moved here from Denver, gather every morning at 7 a.m. with whoever shows up to pray for whatever comes up. “We do this daily, seven days a week,” says Chris. “Everyone is welcome.”

 Jill Weber of GOHOP says, “Prayer can change the spiritual atmosphere over a region as intercessors come together in corporate humility.” Jill and her husband Kirk came to Burlington seven and a half years ago as faith-based missionaries to set up a house of prayer modeled after the 24/7 Kansas City International House of Prayer.

Kirk is an intercessory missionary and a drummer. Jill is the administrator of GOHOP as well as an intercessor. The Lord let her know she couldn’t lead a house of prayer without personally being a house of prayer. She prays several hours each day, and directs seven full and part-time staff along with 30 volunteers. GOHOP is very interdenominational: Christians from Anglicans to Pentecostals pray in unity. Right now they are praying in the prayer room 30 to 35 hours per week. The goal is to build up to round-the-clock prayer, seven days a week.

Jill and Kirk Weber

“God directs our day,” says Jill. “The focus has been on praying for the city and for the next generation and ending abortion.  Now, God is starting to speak to us more about mission, justice, art, creativity and hospitality.” The intercessors at GOHOP just keep listening and praying.

Jill says she likes the adventure of watching where God is at work and simply going where He goes. “He is making us into houses of prayer as individuals. We bring the loving presence of a people of prayer.” Jill admits she took this last phrase from Peter Tigchelaar, Hamilton’s praying minstrel. If people are praying for Hamilton, Peter often shows up. “Praying for the city is in me,” says Peter. “It’s part of my DNA.” He aims to continuously pray for the city, composing and singing imploring songs along the way.

Peter also takes part as worship minstrel in the Annual Prayer Summit where leaders from various churches and ministries get away together for three days to worship and pray. There have been four of these prayer summits with a fifth scheduled for April 19-21 at the Crieff Hills retreat centre (for information or details, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Peter sees these prayer summits effectively deepening the unity among pastors and leaders. He says, “It’s like Acts, chapter one—our aim is to be all together in one place without an agenda, in obedience to the commandment to wait until being clothed with the power of Acts, chapter two.”

Peter Tigchelaar

Unity is the common theme among intercessors. Jessie Cooper refers to it as “a passion for the unity of the Body of Christ. It takes a citywide prayer effort to exponentially change the city, to see God move in the city—that the world might see that God has sent His Son.”

The Prayer Summits are organized by the Love Hamilton Network (formerly known as The Greater Hamilton Pastors and Leaders Network), which meets for fellowship, worship and prayer on the third Thursday of each month (12 noon-2 p.m.) at the Church of St. Peter, on Main St. E. near Sherman. The Love Hamilton Network also partners with TrueCity, made up of a growing number of churches working together for the good of the city.

In Burlington, just seven years ago there seemed to be little interest among pastors and leaders to gather together to pray. Jill says, “At GOHOP we prayed for one hour every week for two and a half years specifically for unity among pastors.” Now there is a strong Burlington pastors and leaders network. They meet regularly to pray and they sponsor large citywide prayer events twice a year.

Among each group of intercessors there is a common expectation that the Lord is about to do something big.

Whether you speak to Fran Milburn of the city prayer ride, Jill Weber at GOHOP, Jessie Copper at the Nehemiah Prayer Network, the Klingsmiths, Peter Tigchelaar, or any one of the many intercessors who consistently pray for the city and the people in the city, they share a deep sense of anticipation.

“A healing revival is just on the horizon,” declares Jessie Cooper. “God is moving things into place.”   ■