Red Tent Prayer Ministries: Stepping Out In Faith
In 2012, a group of young adults from our Brisbane church began leading a prayer ministry at the local farmer’s market. “Red Tent Prayer Ministry” as it was called, aimed to provide healing, encouragement, and prayer to anyone who wanted it.
In early 2013, other members of the church began participating in the ministry to see first-hand how God’s love was impacting the community. For some, it was new territory and completely unnatural but they still stepped out in faith. This faith helped them to grow into their identity in Christ, which enabled them to have the Spirit-given confidence to pray for strangers.
The original idea for the ministry was given from Holy Spirit to one of our pastors. Knowing this was a specific instruction from God encouraged us to stay disciplined and dedicated. We spent one year at the market, once a week from 6 a.m.–12 p.m. We kept going until He settled it within our hearts that it was time to move on, time to make this part of our daily lives, and not simply a weekly occurrence.
As a church, this opportunity has taught us so much. We learned that reaching people with love as our motive made it 
impossible to fail. When we stopped focusing on our pride, doubts, fears, and self, we began seeing many more healed.
We went from being offended and hurt by snide comments of sceptics, to simply wanting to love on them more. We saw people from different religions and backgrounds healed. Stallholders would come to us asking for prayers of success and fruitfulness over their stalls. We saw people deeply changed by prophecy, encouragement, and compassion. God began shaping our minds and hearts to see what He sees instead of what man sees.
Not only did we become blessings to the shoppers and the stallholders, we also were blessed ourselves. Week after week, we would be given something for free, whether it was fruit, coffee, balloons, flowers—one week we were given a baguette
by one gentleman and sample servings of a berry tea from another. So we decided to have communion right there at the market!
God was so good to us every week; patient during our impatience, understanding during our misunderstandings and gracious during our gratefulness. Holy Spirit may have specifically given this task to us in the form of a tent and a farmers market, but He is also giving this commandment to all of us in our daily lives. Matthew 10:8: “Heal the sick, cleanse thelepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” We are told that as believers, we will lay hands on the sick and they will be healed. We encourage believers everywhere, to make this part of their daily walk. To seek after God in regards to how He wants to use you in healing the sick and sharing His love to the broken hearted.
