Prayer Summit Finishes with a 'Circle of Love'

The final day of the Christian Reformed Church Prayer Summit 2015 began with a time of Tongsung prayer in the sanctuary of All Nations Church.

While some who gathered for the pre-dawn, Korean-style prayer on Wednesday were participants of the summit, many of those in the sanctuary are there every day to pray in this fashion.

The summit opened on Monday and was filled with prayer presentations, videos, breakout sessions, and times of storytelling. It closed at noon, following remarks by Dr. Steven Timmermans, executive director of the CRC, and a service of communion.

Morning prayer began at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday as Bill Hwang, a Wall Street investor and one of the summit presenters, led the people by praying through a psalm and a portion of the New Testament.

When that finished, Charles Kim, coordinator of the summit, said, “May the words we have heard in these Scriptures become our prayers today.”

Then the lights in the sanctuary dimmed, signaling the start of Tongsung prayer, an out-loud Korean prayer style that goes back many years.

“In Tongsung prayer we pray out loud and tell God how great he is. We tell God he is awesome. We just shout it out,” said Kim. “We give everything we have over to God.”

During Tongsung prayer, there were moans and what sounded like sorrowful, high-pitched crying.

Some people knelt; others bowed their heads; some sat still in their chairs; and a few circulated the sanctuary with their arms and voices raised.

Once Tongsung prayer finished, summit participants had breakfast and then attended special prayer labs--sessions that invited praying about specific topics such as trouble in the Middle East; or praying for the next generation; or praying for women’s concerns.

As part of the closing session, people were  invited to talk about things for which they are grateful--and in many cases this included the summit itself.

One woman said that she came to the event feeling a great deal of grief and brokenness and wondering if she had it in her to help coordinate a ministry for the bereaved.

“The summit has brought energy to my heart, body, and mind,” she said. “I feel renewed, and I can move on … I am in the right place, and know I can coordinate the program for those who lost a loved one.”

David Hoekema, a Chicago-area CRC pastor and prayer coordinator, said he appreciated the multicultural nature of the summit and how it brought together people from a range of nations and ethnic groups that reflects where the CRC is today.

He also appreciated hearing from presenters who weren’t just from a CRC background. These included an Episcopal priest and a Pentecostal preacher.

“This summit reminds me of how broad God’s kingdom is,” he said.

Stanley Jim, a Navajo pastor and ethnic ministries leader for Christian Reformed Home Missions, said the summit—this one as well as the two that preceded it—“brings the value of prayer back into our Christian church.”

Laura Carpenter, a prayer leader at Madison Square CRC in Grand Rapids, Mich., said she will leave the summit “thankful that God is pushing and carrying me into places where God wants me to be.”

Steven Timmermans offered a few overall comments on what he will take away from the summit.

One had to do with a story included in the summit program about what was called the Fulton Street Revival that started at the North Dutch Reformed Church in 1857.

He had not known about this prayer movement among business people who had begun meeting during their lunch hour in the consistory room of the church.

“All that I knew that happened in 1857 until now is that this was the year the Christian Reformed Church and the Reformed Church in America split apart,” he said.

“But, lo and behold, the North Dutch Reformed Church drew all of these business people together, and by the time the revival was over, it was estimated to have touched one million people around the world.”

Thinking of this, he said, he was struck by the power of prayer in comparison to the painful divisions that can occur between churches.

It also made him think about priorities for the CRC.

Certainly it is important, he said, to be able to consider, address, and debate those issues that can divide the church, which is something that often occurs every June during the CRC synod, he said.

But reading the article about the Fulton Street Revival made him think that having a synod—and all of the discussion that comes with it—means the CRC needs a prayer summit as a counterpoint, he said.

Another thing he will take away from the summit is how it made his heart break to watch a video presentation on Tuesday night that focused on the February killing of some 20 Coptic Christians from Egypt by ISIS terrorists.

In the video, he heard the stories about the Coptic Christians and how they refused to renounce their faith, and he saw images of hooded followers of ISIS walking them along a beach, said Timmermans.

“Their powerful story will not end there,” he said. “It will continue, and that is what is important.”

People will continue to tell this story about Christians who were killed because of their faith. The same thing happened recently when terrorists killed college students in Kenya, said Timmermans.

“These are the stories of ordinary people who maintain their faith in a world that is growing more hostile to our fellow Christians,” he said.

Summit sessions also made him think about young people who are leaving the CRC. Likely, there are ways to address this issue as far as using different programs and taking different approaches, he said.

But the answer to this question of young people leaving the church and even, for that matter, how to address and respond to the persecution of Christians worldwide is for people to hold fast and live out a Christian life.

They can do this by turning to prayer, as people did during the time of the Fulton Street Revival.

“In our DNA, we need to be people of faith. … Our pursuit of faithfulness is about a way of life filled with peace and quiet. That is how we need to witness to the world.”

After Timmermans spoke, there was additional time for prayer, and then everyone was asked to link hands and make a “circle of love” around the sanctuary.

As this happened, the elements of bread and wine for communion were prepared at the Lord’s table.

When they were ready and prayers were spoken, everyone was invited to come forward, to file to the table in love and unity and prayer.

Soon afterward, the CRC’s Prayer Summit 2015 came to an end.