It's Prayer Time

Corporate Prayer In The Black Community

Coming from a new prospective on prayer and spiritual warfare, Mark Pollard provides a voice from inside the Black community and gives insight into what is ailing Black churches in America. He describes prayer in the Black church as distinctive, personal, and about overcoming great odds. It is primarily personal and worship-oriented.

It is time for the Black Church to get organized and pray corporately, says Pollard. When people in the Black community pray it is "cheap reconciliation," because people pray without an expectation of their circumstances being changed.

Pollard learned about the importance of prayer from his mentor Dr. Elliott Mason, pastor emeritus of Trinity Baptist Church in Los Angeles, who at 80 is still learning how to pray.

Prayer is a relationship with God that involves both speaking and responding to Him in every activity of life, says Pollard. He believes that corporate prayer in the Black community is the key to reconciliation and breaking the bondage of racism.

Pollard reasons that prayer movements like the National Day of Prayer and Prayer around the Flagpole only consist of a small number of Black leaders because they are an outside organization coming into the inner city. When Black leaders come together with organizations from inside the inner city, they feel a sense of ownership about the event.

Several affluent Black ministers who share Pollard's view combine personal experiences, researched knowledge and guidelines to help Black churches bring corporate prayer into their communities.

It's Prayer Time

Pollard asks the question, has there been a massive prayer gathering in the Black community that wasn't politically motivated? Such as Million Man March. Have Black communities cried out to God in corporate prayer? The answer is no.

God's people must pray for their city, pray that He will bring them to their knees in contrition for the sins they think to hide in its density. Only then can the city be healed.

Pollard contends that to make this happen, God is calling out specific apostles and disciples while separating the wheat from the tares. Prayer in the Black community is, he says, especially important because of the many strongholds of violence, sexual diseases, and broken homes that exist in them.

Uniting The Country Through Prayer

Pollard is co-chair of the organization "Healing a Nation," which helps churches in the Black community all over the country by leading them into the Spirit of Revival.

The revival consists of three levels. The first level unites community leaders and pastors locally in prayer. The second level involves representatives of the city regionally who hold spiritual leadership. The third level brings rulers, people in higher positions of power together in prayer and results are produced. One example of regional rulers moving in power is the Billy Graham Ministries.

Pollard is working with five churches in Atlanta, San Diego, Detroit, Philadelphia and Dallas and helping them establish a citywide revival using corporate prayer. In the future Pollard would like his organization to expand enough to help more churches in their effort to break bondages in their cities.