Ready to see what God can do when we come together in prayer and ask God’s Spirit to unleash in us?

Begin 2024 by joining a breakthrough prayer movement across the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area! Join us from Jan. 14-Feb. 10 for our area-wide Dynamite Prayer initiative. Throughout this period, Bishop Lanette Plambeck invites you to read “Dynamite Prayer,” a 28-day devotional guidebook by Rev. Dr. Rosario Picardo and Rev. Sue Nilson Kibbey. The book will help you incorporate a surrendered prayer practice into your daily life following Christ, and help you cultivate your capacity to discern, to notice, to respond to God’s guidance, and to live by the power of the Holy Spirit.“All around us, we see and experience division, anger, violence, and polarization,” said Rev. Dan Bader, superintendent for the Dakotas Conference’s Southwest District. “If we are going to respond with the heart of Jesus, a heart of grace and love, in ways that address the needs, the hurt, the brokenness, then we need to lean deeply into the heart of God. That is done as we commit ourselves to prayer.”

Bader and Rev. Michelle Hargrave, superintendent for the Minnesota Conference’s River Valley District, are organizing this initiative across the Dakotas-Minnesota Area, and they are excited for us to collectively experience God’s Spirit moving in us and bear witness to God’s transformative power.

“This is an important moment for us in the Dakotas-Minnesota Area to do something that’s grounded in our deeply shared connection and beliefs,” said Hargrave. “Doing a prayer initiative together can connect us across theological differences, urban and rural settings—all the things that might still divide us.”

Each day’s entry in the guidebook is divided into five key parts:

• a personal scripture reading that emphasizes God’s dynamic power
• a personal devotional insight about some unique aspect of the Holy Spirit
• prompts to assist you in cultivating your own honest and authentic reflection, journaling, or discussion with others
• a short breakthrough prayer to keep your mind and heart aligned and focused God-ward throughout the day (and space for you to craft your own breakthrough prayer)
• a prayer-hold—a short phrase or word from a scripture verse you can use throughout the day, every hour or whenever you become aware that you’re feeling inadequate, uncertain, or tempted to slide off track spiritually

Both Bader and Hargrave have led breakthrough prayer initiatives in congregations they have served—and they have been powerful experiences.

Hargrave said she appreciated the practical ways breakthrough prayer helped focus her church’s prayer life. Bader, meanwhile, said he witnessed how it revitalized and birthed ministries and how it transformed an attitude of “no, not now, we don’t have the resources” to doing, becoming, taking risks, and experiencing joy, promise, hope, and life. 
 
“God wants to do incredible things in and through our lives and the lives of our churches, and yet we often neglect seeking the unleashing of God’s Spirit in leading us,” he said. “God is not done with us! It is vital that we don’t simply sit back and worry about surviving, but rather we should be asking, listening, preparing for God so that we might transform our thoughts and hearts to what it means to be thriving for God, for God’s people.”
 
You can participate in this initiative as a congregation, with a small group, or individually. We recommend finding others within your church or community, or from another nearby church, who wish to participate because if you order at least 10 copies of the guidebook from this website, you will receive a 50 percent discount (watch for an email with a discount code after you register).

Ready to see what God can do when we come together in prayer and ask God’s Spirit to unleash in us? Join us and let’s find out!

Dynamite Prayer Now Available