As 2023 was coming to a close, I heard about the fresh idea at PCC, to start an annual emphasis on ‘21 Days of Prayer’. While I was excited about this new thing for our church, I have to admit I was also skeptical. As a musician at our church, I knew that I would be “tapped” to be a part of these early morning services throughout the week, and I thought about all of the man-power outside of myself that it would take to pull something like this off. As a husband and father of six kids, I was also trying to wrap my head around how our family could take part in the 21 Days experience. It was hard to imagine how the kids would do, how streaming the music would go, how many people would actually wake up and attend, and how long time periods (20 minutes) of prayer/reflection would go for people who weren’t used to that practice.
I also have to admit, I was a little bit hesitant to talk about this undertaking with Amanda, my wife. It seemed a daunting task to add more church serving days to the calendar and more things for our family to try and be a part of. I probably shouldn’t be surprised that Amanda, without hesitation, said that we should make the 21 Days experience a priority. In our hectic lives, we could certainly use some time set aside to pray, reflect, and hear from God each morning. So we decided to go all in – we weren’t going to miss any of it!
On the days I wasn’t a part of the band leading from Powhatan, we would attend each day at the Midlothian Campus. (They would all come to Powhatan when I was there.) With a start time of 7am and 10-15 minutes of drivetime, that meant some of our kids were still sleeping and we’d have to wake them up. Every night, we would try to lay out some clothes, or we’d just put them in PJs that they could wear out in public. We’d throw some snacks into the diaper bag and we’d hit the road.
There were little toys and activities in the atrium for the kids, so we’d let them grab a handful of things and we’d find a row of seats, usually in the back, so the kids had room to sprawl and play. To our surprise, the kids did great. Of course they wanted to talk and look for more things to do, but it wasn’t distracting. They’d stand and sing/dance with us to the opening couple of songs, then they’d play for a bit. As someone who’s often on the platform, leading worship, these were cherished moments.
The coolest memories of the whole experience were ones with our kids at the various stations around the room. One of us would stay with the youngest girls at their little play area by the back row, while the other would take the older ones around. Or sometimes, someone else in attendance would come take over, so we could both participate. The kids would ask questions and they would want to engage. They wrote things they were thankful for on rocks (or would have us do it for them) – things like ‘family’, ‘food’, or one of their friend’s names. They would ask us to read them prayer cards that other people had filled out so they could pray for them. We’d tell them about communion and we would take it together. It was an amazing experience.
The older kids would ask us many nights if we were going the next day and the answer was always yes. We ended up making it to 19 of the 21 days. We had to miss the last two days due to illness. As we near the halfway point of 21 days this year, our family is continuously excited and expectant about the experiences we’ll have with each other and on our own as we enjoy the habit we came to love in 2024.
