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Passersby Write Prayers Tags Of Hope At Nicollet Mall Church

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Twin Cities church is going beyond its walls to help get prayers heard, and hopefully answered.

Westminster Presbyterian Church, along the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis, started a prayer railing this spring. Passersby write messages on tags and then hang them for others to see. The simple gesture is touching people in a way they never expected.

"We pray that you will teach us to love one another well," Sherrod Colbert said, reading one tag. "And I pray for justice for all."

The sounds of the city flow with force, but if you stop and listen with your eyes, it's amazing what you can hear. Prayers from other people, written on a whim, left hanging with hope.

"Praying for better days," Sarabe Singleton said, of her prayer. "Hopefully it gets around. I know there are people out there that are going through the same thing as me."

The railing outside Westminster Presbyterian Church has become shoulder to lean on, a spot where thoughts and prayers can be shared with others time after time.

"I'm feeling a peace come over me as I'm writing this," Narissa Antoine said. "My husband is really sick. He has to have two major surgeries, actually. ... It really just gives me hope that I'm not alone, that people will read this and think about me when they read it."

Her feelings are exactly what Rev. Sarah Brower and Rev. Meghan Gage-Finn envisioned when they started the prayer tags in the spring.

"I think there's such a need for connection, yearning for belonging, a need to be heard and to be known," Gage-Finn said.

A thousand tags were ordered.

Some prayers are personal, others meant for those struggling. Recently homeless, Colbert wrote his on June 9.

"It says, 'I pray for the rains of God's salvation to visit us and bless us here in Minnesota,'" Colbert said. "Today I got an answer. I'm not gonna be homeless. Tomorrow I'm going to sign a lease to get back in an apartment."

It's an answer he feels came from a higher power.

"I know that it has good, man," he said. "I can tell you that's so true, because the people of this household of faith here, they're genuine people."

Those very people will even bring the tags inside the church to pray on them.

"I think we do hope that as people walk by or walk away after having written one that they trust that God hears their prayers and that we are hearing them," Brouwer said. "We're excited to see where this goes. We are certainly being led by this endeavor."

One that has a following, growing stronger and stronger each day.

"I wouldn't stop it for nothing in the world," Colbert said.

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