How Are You Really Doing?
By Rachel White, Pastor of Next Steps
I have a friend in my small group who asks a question most of us learn to dodge: “How are you really doing?” Not the hallway version we’re all fluent in (fine, busy, hanging in there), but the real one. The kind that waits for an actual answer, and then does something with it. When she asks, I feel seen, known, and loved.
Any of us can do this for the people we love. It doesn’t take training or a title. But how many of us actually slow down long enough? It takes a pause, a real question, and the willingness to actually listen, and then to pray.
This fall, we’re walking through the Heart of Revival, our sermon series in Isaiah 40–66. Revival doesn’t start with a program. It starts with people who stop long enough to listen, to God and to each other.
This season, our prayer team has been figuring out how to live out that posture. We’ve even changed how we talk about the team. We now call ourselves the prayer ministry team, not just the prayer team.
That word, ministry, isn’t about a budget line or a sign-up sheet. It’s a posture: people who choose to notice, to care, and to carry what they hear straight to the Lord on someone else’s behalf.
That takes practice. Mostly, it means taking the time: time to actually listen to the person in front of you, and time to listen to the Lord for what he wants to say to them. No rushing to a quick blessing. Just slowing down long enough to hear what’s really there.
Sunday Mornings
Here’s what that looks like for us, not as the only way to live this out, but as one picture of it you’re welcome to borrow for your own life, your own people, any day of the week. We’re not fully there. We still rush more than we’d like. But the shift we’re after isn’t a change in schedule. It’s a change in pace: learning to actually slow down and listen, instead of rushing through a prayer and moving on.
Before the service, our team huddles in the South (Prayer) Chapel to pray: not a generic prayer, but intentional prayer over the people who will walk through our doors that day, asking and listening for whatever wisdom the Lord wants to give us for them. We pray for our preacher too, that the word would land where it needs to.
Right after the service, our team offers prayer ministry at the front of the church. It’s simple: we listen to the request, and we listen to the Lord. Then, at 11:30, we move back to the South Chapel and do more of that same listening prayer, this time more generally over the needs of the congregation and staff.
How You Can Experience It
There are two ways to step into a Sunday with us. If you’d like to receive prayer, look for the lanyards at the front of the church right after the service: free and available, no appointment, no explanation needed. Just walk up.
If you’d like to participate in praying for others, come to the South Chapel at 9:30, when our team huddles before the service, or at 11:30, when we gather there to pray over the needs of the congregation and staff. Either one, anyone is welcome.
If you have prayer needs of your own during the week, you can always fill out our Prayer Form. And if what you’re carrying needs more than a moment (a pastoral conversation, lay counseling, a support group, or a care visit), our Care Form will get you to the right place.
But don’t wait for Sunday. The person next to you in the grocery line, at your kid’s practice, at your own kitchen table, they’re carrying something too. You don’t need a lanyard to ask, “How can I pray for you?” You just need to stop long enough to ask it.
We’d love for this posture to take root well beyond one Sunday morning team: in every small group, family, and mid-week conversation. If you want to help build that into the life of the whole church, come see what it looks like from the inside. Join us at 9:30 in the South Chapel and find out.
PRAYER FORM CARE FORM