2012 Prayerwalk Testimony

Praying in front of Alhambra City Hall

Pastor Jimmy Tam of Sunrise Christian Church in Alhambra shared some of his reflections on our annual prayerwalk two Sundays ago as well as his journey to seeing the importance of prayer in seeing our community transformed.

The 2012 Alhambra City Prayer Walk was a day that I really looked forward to with great expectation and excitement. To me it was not just an event, but a crucial step in pursuing the vision of city transformation and spiritual revival. I am convinced that God’s requirement for sending us revival is for all His people in the city to come together for united prayer. For Alhambra, it happened on 2/19 Sunday at 1-3pm with over seventy brothers and sisters from different churches, ages, ethnic backgrounds, and languages. I was so honored and excited to be a part of this strategic spiritual alliance. 

As we gathered and started our prayer walk in the center of the city, I felt a sense of excitement, spiritual passion, faith and unity among us. As we moved from one station to another, the presence of the Holy Spirit was getting stronger as our brothers and sisters prayed more fervently. Another wonderful experience of this year’s prayer walk was that each individual would pair up with a fellow Christian from another church as prayer partners. I was very touched and encouraged by the compassion and love of my prayer partner Mike from Gateway Community Church for his earnest intercession for the people, the government, and the churches of Alhambra. I was convinced that our passionate prayers had not only touched God’s heart, but they were the actual expression of God’s compassion and vision for the city.  I also believe that the spiritual effect of this year’s Alhambra Prayer Walk would continue to bring transformations to both the spiritual and physical realms of our community.

My journey into the ministry of prayer and the starting of the Sunrise House of Prayer in Alhambra began about three years ago. As I met different individuals and families in our community, I began to see the needs and brokenness of the people. I saw bondages and brokenness that result from drug and gambling addictions, materialism, divorces and broken families, depressions and homelessness. Even though there are quite a number of churches in Alhambra, we have not been able to make a significant difference and impact in bringing healing, freedom and transformation in these people’s lives. Many of them are still waiting to be touched by the love and power of Jesus Christ. As I researched and learned from the examples of city transformation in different parts of the world in recent times, the number one common factor for transformation and revival to take place is PRAYER.  

Prayer, especially citywide united prayer, is the way God uses to manifest His love and power.  I began to realize that due to the lack of extended passionate prayers, the ministry works that I did produced very little long-term spiritual results. But as we started to pray more, we started to see amazing transformations in people’s lives. By God’s grace, we are seeing drug addicts set free after a miraculous encounter with Jesus through prayer, and couples on the brink of divorce and suicide due to the husband’s longtime addiction in gambling restored to hope, freedom and reconciliation within two months of desperate and united prayers. I am now very convinced that nothing else we do can be more important and more influential that prayer.  I pray that the Church in Alhambra will come together as one to pray more often and in greater numbers in the days to come. If this happens, city transformation and revival will come to Alhambra soon.

True School Reform?

I met with the principal of Fremont School (K-8) last Friday, and was struck by her desire to want to create a better learning environment for the students but plagued by an aging campus and limited budget. We had a good chat about possibilities local congregations in Fremont's school boundaries could partner to help out.


I know enough of my Christian peers with young kids who are considering or have moved to a better school district, chosen homeschooling, or are putting their kids in private Christian schooling. I had one co-worker from another city  tell me that sacrificing his kid's education to a bad school was not on the list of things he wanted to sacrifice anymore (and his family sacrifices a lot for the good of their city).

I don't want to judge my friends who have made all of the above choices. I would feel ambivalence too if I didn't already live in the "best" K-8 school in our district (not planned, just worked out that way). I can't say I wouldn't have done the same if given the chance and resources. And I know many also made their decisions because they feel that their faith will not be supported in the public school system.

But I wonder if our choices as a whole become another form of capitulation by the Church to reinforcing the sacred-secular split in our society. The local school becomes irrelevant, competition, even the enemy in some ways.

If the Kingdom of God in Christ is the best, brightest hope we have in the world, it must permeate all sectors of our society, especially our institutions and including our local schools. Even if we've made the best choice for our own kids, should the Church abandon the rest who can't do the same? If we believe that true school reform will somehow be wrapped in who Jesus is and his mission to the world, we must realize that it will take more than even the greatest individual Christian teachers, administrators, parents, students who faithfully slug it out in an often challenging environment--the  Church community must be there as well.

City of Alhambra Prayerwalk, Sunday 2-19-12

Come and join us for our annual City Prayerwalk! Pray with other Alhambra congregations for the City of Alhambra, where we will pray for all the aspects of our community in the downtown Civic Center: City Hall, Police/Fire, schools, the courts, local churches, businesses, etc.

Time: 1:00 - 3:00pm

Start/End location:

Alhambra True Light Presbyterian Church

20 W. Commonwealth Ave.

This will be our 8th annual City Prayerwalk, and we are excited about the possibility of getting more congregations coming together to pray for the City! We hope you can set aside 2 hours aside to intercede for the City of Alhambra. For more info, please e-mail me at jessec@kingdomcauses.org