It’s hoped Christians across Rotherham across all denominations will commit themselves to prayer during a new month-long campaign.
Building on the success of ‘Arise:March’ (an annual prayer movement taking place in Sheffield every March), ‘Arise Rotherham’ will see people covering the whole borough in prayer.
A launch event is planned on Saturday 1st March at Rotherham Minster (3pm), with people encouraged throughout the whole month to take part in prayer-walking across the borough of Rotherham and where they live.
Revd James Gould, Curate at St Francis Bramley and St Leonard’s Thrybergh, said:
“We’re hoping that lots of people are partly encouraged by the fact they see there’s a lot of other Christians around. I think it’s one thing to be encouraged and feel good about it, but we have to have faith and belief that it also changes things. If you pray to God to be more present in people’s houses, and that the Holy Spirit would be in the community, that makes a difference. You’re inviting God into the community.
“It’ll be great for people to sort of see it as a challenge: how far could I walk? How many streets can I pray for? They can then see the difference it’s made. Sheffield’s a better place because of the yearly Arise Sheffield campaign so I hope we can replicate that in Rotherham.”
An app will be available for people to select the streets where they walk and log that they’ve prayed there, with those streets then lighting up on a map. As more people take part throughout the month, further streets are lit up with prayer.
Revd Helen Terry, Priest-in-Charge of St Francis Bramley and St Leonard’s Thrybergh, said:
“Prayer is always a good thing, but I like the fact you’re going out into the community and it’s an active thing. You’re seeing things happen when you’re out and about. It helps you get to know your community more and I think that’s really important when it comes to prayer, because you can do more intentional and direct prayer.
“Rotherham is amazing and it has its own identity. It helps us to reclaim it for God because He loves this place. Arise has really good examples of how you can pray, such as suggestions of different ways of praying – not just for adults but for children as well. It doesn’t just have to involve walking; if you’re not able to get out of your house, you could have a map and pray for a particular street.
“It helps everybody to feel included, because a lot of people can feel isolated. When we talk about active things we don’t want to exclude anyone. One of the amazing things is you can see the streets that are being prayed for, but also the ones that haven’t; that might challenge you to go to those places and pray. ”
James added:
“There’s no wrong way of doing it. If you’re out and you’re involved in praying somehow, whether you consistently walk and pray or whether you pray and then leave your house, that’s fine. You’re noticing things and God’s able to prompt you, and we’re inviting God to be more a part of our community. There’s no downside to it.
“The app is really easy to use and it’s very obvious whether it’s online or on the phone. There are good videos that are made to show how to do it. It’s been quite intuitive, which is great because it means it’s quite accessible for everybody. I do think that idea of walking in your area is important because for some of us we tend to go to church a bit away from where we live, and we work in another place. If you spend time in that area a bit more and see the good things, I think we can just have a bit more pride for where we live.
“There’s something about going through Lent and going on a journey of seeking after God and trying to see where God might be leading you. This is a way of doing something new. If you haven’t done it before it will benefit you approaching Easter, so that when Easter comes you feel more connected with Jesus and can experience his resurrection more.”
Helen said:
“More prayer is never a bad thing, is it? It’s only going to be a good thing. Even if it is just going out once a week, that’s once a week more than you were doing before. Anything that encourages prayer is really helpful. You might not know the names of the people you’re praying for but that can be a real positive for so many reasons.
“I recently asked a congregation ‘where are you seeing God’s glory? Where are you seeing that light rise?’ If you’re not looking for it, look about you – I think that’s what prayer walking helps you to do. Have a go, because if you don’t open your eyes, you’re never going to see. If you don’t go out and pray, then you’re never going to know if it’s going to make a difference. Lift up your eyes and look around you.”
Prayer walking app
This is now fully functioning. Go to https://rotherham25.prayerwalk.app to register. You will be able to download an icon to your mobile device to make it easier to return to this site. Information on how to record your prayer walks is on the Arise Rotherham website (see below).
Arise Rotherham website
This is now live and has the links to all the resources you need: https://www.ariserotherham.org
Contact address for Arise Rotherham questions
We are here to help with any queries. Email: info@ariserotherham.org
Launch event (1 March 2025, 3pm, Rotherham Minster)
This event is free but you can register using this Eventbrite link, which will make sure you keep updated: https://www.ariserotherham.org/launch25