In 2021, whilst praying with a fellow church member, God gave Glen Devenish, Lead Pastor at Cardiff Heights Baptist Church, a vision for a ‘Drive Thru Prayer’ ministry out the front of their church. This occurred whilst there was heavy traffic banked back past the church, as is often the case during peak periods.
Being on a main road, Cardiff Heights Baptist regularly sees heavy peak hour traffic out the front of the church, and most weekday mornings there’s effectively a 1km traffic jam caused by a set of traffic lights up the road.
Glen saw an opportunity to use the location of their church to launch a new church outreach, and by September they’d opened a “Drive Through Prayer” ministry. For one hour on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the church opens their driveway to passersby for prayer.
“Drive through prayer is a response to our unique ministry context,” explains Glen. Cardiff Heights Baptist is located on the main road in Cardiff Heights (literally called “Main Road”) and the church’s wide driveway is used by the general community as an unofficial turn-around-bay, so people feel comfortable driving in already.
The focus of the Drive Through Prayer is to be a positive influence on the community, and to brighten people’s morning commute. “A massive part of it is just waving and engaging people positively,” says Glen.
“The church as a whole has lost credibility in our society,” explains Glen, “there isn’t the same level of good will towards the church. We have to earn credibility for people to take what we’re offering seriously. We’re not asking for anything we just want to bless people, and that’s having a positive effect.”
One man who lives up the street has a rough turning across traffic at the next intersection about 400m up the road on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. But he’s told Glen that he has never had a problem when the Drive Through Prayer is on. Coming up to church volunteers at a fundraiser BBQ, he said that “people just seem to be in a better mood” when they’re there.
“We estimate we get 600 return waves each morning,” shares Glen, “we’ve had stories come back on the impact of us waving at people”. One mum contacted the church to tell us that her and her teenage son had moved to the area after a marriage breakdown, and he’d had to change school. They drive past us standing there waving on their way to school, and Tuesdays and Thursdays quickly became their favourite mornings of the week.
Many people take photos or videos of the team as they drive past. Last year, a non-Christian posted their photo to a local Facebook group, sharing how great it was to have the church there brightening people’s spirits. From this, a journalist from the regional newspaper wrote an article on the Drive Through Prayer, capturing perfectly the love and meaning of what the church was doing.
Since Drive Through Prayer began, they’ve had approximately 150 people drive in for prayer, most of which have been non-Christian. Some have a church background, and some have no church history at all. Most of the time people have something they want prayer for, but sometimes they just see the sign and drive in.
Some of the people they pray for they never see again. Others come back and share about the prayer being answered or the difference the prayer made in their lives.
One man with a loose church background had popped home to get supplies after his wife gave birth at the local hospital. He decided to pull in for prayer on his way back to the hospital. He contacted them months later telling them, “you don’t understand the impact that prayer had on our lives”.
“In the spirit of a drive through we keep it short,” explains Glen, “but we also don’t kick people out.”
“Our aim is to join God in the work He’s already doing in the lives of those driving past us,” says Glen, “We want to be that space for people to take another step, and if they’re feeling the need for prayer, we’re there to help them along that path.”
