We invite you to take a peek inside our weekly Light for the Way devotional series provided for staff.
By Pastor Chris Wheatley, PHS Senior Director of Pastoral Care Services
As a Christian ministry, we value seeking wisdom through prayer and reflection. Today’s Light for the Way devotional provides a peek inside a staff invitation to a new practice of prayer at Presbyterian Homes & Services. Pastor Chris Wheatley introduces The Prayer Wall on our employee intranet, where staff can view prayer requests regularly updated by PHS communities.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” —Philippians 4:6, NIV
Essential prayer
Prayer is an essential part of the Christian life. We can pray at any time in any way, but often set aside special times of day in certain places to pray. A prayer can be a wordless cry for help when the car in front of you slams on their brakes, or a memorized oration said in thanksgiving for a specific event in our shared history. Prayer is talking to God, listening to God, and simply being with God in comfortable recognition of silent Presence.
Praying is as important to our relationship with God as talking or writing is to our relationships with our friends, and yet God’s faithfulness is so great that there is no length of time between prayers that is great enough to break that bond. God is always as close as our own spirits, longing to speak with us and show us love.
Prayer at Presbyterian Homes & Services
Prayer is also an essential part of a public ministry, like that of Presbyterian Homes; but here it can be trickier to give prayer its proper place. Because while we hope that many of you pray all day as individuals, to pray as a group means that there must be certain times, shared methods and common practices around prayer.
You know some of them. We pray at
StandUP. We pray before meetings. We occasionally send out invitations to pray together on certain days or at certain times, such as last year’s “
People of Prayer” day.
The Prayer Wall
For more than 20 years,
PHS senior leadership has gathered every week in prayer for a specific community within our ministry. And the prayer requests come from the leadership of the community, naming whatever is most important, most urgent, most joyous or simply most present on their hearts. Our leaders pray for each of these things, lifting them up to God.
Today, we would like you to invite you to join in as well. As of today, you will find a new feature called “The Prayer Wall” on our employee intranet (
theVine at
thevinephs.org). Every week, it will be updated with prayer requests from a specific PHS community, allowing all staff to join in who feel moved to do so.
At one campus, this may mean including the prayer requests in a chapel service. At another, prayer requests may be shared at meetings or StandUP. Whatever happens in your community, you are personally invited to look at the Prayer Wall and take part.
And, of course, if you have a prayer request that you want to share with your PHS family, you can bring it to your campus administrator.
We hope that this Prayer Wall gives you a chance to join in essential prayer and lets you see how valued you are to Presbyterian Homes, our leaders, our residents and, most importantly, to the God who is always a simple prayer away.
Prayer sustains and anchors our ministry. We invite all people of prayer to join us. Find public resources on our People of Prayer page.
Rev. Chris Wheatley serves PHS as Senior Director of Pastoral Care Services. He is an ordained Lutheran pastor and has served in hospice, eldercare, hospital, HIV/AIDS and congregational settings. He and his wife Nicole are perpetually outnumbered by cats and Dobermans.
The Light for the Way series provides staff with an examination of a biblical reading to deepen our focus on scripture. Thank you for engaging with this series as we seek wisdom through prayer and reflection as a Christian Ministry.
Find more in the Light for the Way series:
Prayer – the air we breathe
Get to know us: a Christian ministry
Introducing Light for the Way, a new devotional series