citypraise reports

"When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices..."
(Proverbs 11:10 NKJV).

Goodness Of God

A recent cityprayer testimony

from Lorrie A. Kosinski

Hi Pastors! Wanted to let you know how God answered prayer at the April City Prayer. When we broke up into small groups to pray for each other, I received prayer for a rather large ovarian cyst. After City Prayer I went up front as well and had a member of the prayer and healing team pray for me. I went to the doctor on Thursday, May 3 for a follow-up appointment (from a CT scan done a month ago) to have an ultrasound done. The doctor came in the room and after looking at all of the pictures taken from the ultrasound said "there's nothing there." I first gave thanks to God, then said "I had a lot of people praying for me." Her response: "It worked!" :) It sure did!! and I give all of the glory to the goodness of God!!

This is the verse God gave me the night before my ultrasound appointment: "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for me?" Jeremiah 32:27.

Prayer Works!!

- Lorrie A. Kosinski

Everyone’s Talking

Praying to conquer a city’s evils

by Jean Torkelson

Rocky Mountain News – September 27, 2004

  Do you prefer Kerry or Bush? Are you Christian, Jewish or Muslim? On drugs or in church? No matter where you're at (or whether you like it or not), you got prayed for Saturday.

In a one-hour prayer session, by turns whispered and exuberant, the mega-ministry of Marilyn Hickey took a next step in evangelical zeal. Her Denver church, whose reach through radio, TV and videos claims a potential audience of 1 billion a week, is expanding in its own back yard.

At 9 a.m. on the last Saturday of the month, Hickey hosts folks from, so far, 120 churches - "That's nothing, she says, "there are 3,000 churches in this city" - for prayer to transform the city.

"We want to open the heavens on Denver," says the irrepressible Hickey. "We're praying that 80 percent of Denver will be in church - we're not saying which church - that the city will be drug free, with crime down and the economy up."

On Saturday, several hundred women filled Hickey's Orchard Road Christian Center in Greenwood Village, a multilevel complex of fountains and greenery that resembles an upscale hotel. (The public is invited to attend; a men's prayer group meets in another room.)

The idea grew out of a pastors' wives group Hickey hosts at her Castle Rock home, and also from a video she distributes titled Transformations. It details how prayer campaigns have conquered urban evils in drug-and-violence-racked nations such as Colombia.

At the next Saturday session on Oct. 30, Hickey is combining the women's and men's sessions and asking politicians to stop by to pray.

"We want Republicans and Democrats to come here," says Hickey, whose church, like many others, hosts voter-registration drives. "We do not say who to vote for; we say, 'Vote for the person who has biblical principles.' "

This Friday, billboards are going up advertising cityprayer.com, a Web site for the public to post prayer requests (though as of Sunday, it wasn't running yet).

If the marketing is fitful, the message has been honed to muscle. On Saturday, women milled the aisles, raising hands in prayer. Kids tumbled about, on the stage area and stairs. Hickey, 73, in casual khaki slacks, paced the aisles, yielding the microphone to others.

"We ask you, Lord, stir our hearts, that this city would see your love, your compassion!" prayed Kerry Miller.

Alone in the balcony, Elizur Alfred-Ockiya sang and danced in prayer. A native of Nigeria, her two kids are in the U.S. military. One just returned from Iraq. Pausing from her solitary praise, she said softly that America is so good, yet needs so much prayer: "Oh, people don't know what they have in this country!"

After praying for Israel - the day's special theme - Hickey told the crowd that detractors often ask, "Do you pray for just national issues? Don't you pray for people?"

"Check us out," she challenged, then split the crowd into small groups for personal prayer. Kelly McClain, 22, linked hands with virtual strangers Linda Drury, 53, and Sue Roberts, 45, two small-business owners.

McClain asked prayers for her move to Arizona, and Drury, for her business. Then Roberts shared her need, prompting the group to pray, "Lord, that you have a husband for Sue in the future, a godly man."

Which suggests that - to paraphrase the late, great politician Tip O'Neill - in the final analysis, all prayer, like all politics, is local.