PALM BAY — Members of Fellowship United Methodist Church here plan to begin a circuit ride of prayer around the state of Florida this April, according to the Rev. Deborah Mak, pastor of the church. But it won’t be the church’s members or Mak making the ride that will cover nearly 54,000 square miles, it will be two prayer journals. The project is called the "Circuit Ride for the New Millennium."

Mak said the idea came from a Bible study group at the church that was reading a book by the Rev. Dr. Terry Teykl, a United Methodist elder from Texas and full-time prayer evangelist. Teykl wrote about a group of pastors in Arizona who drove around the state praying for awakening.

"Someone said, ‘That would be good for our state,’ " Mak said. "I told them that if this church did it, that would mean their pastor would be gone for a long time."

The idea evolved into a traveling prayer journal that would start at Fellowship church. Members would write their prayers in the journal, then send it to the next church. Each church along the way would celebrate the journal, reading and praying for other churches’ requests, add their own prayers and carry it to the next location.

Thirty-one churches "from Madison to Marathon" answered the initial invitation to be involved, Mak said. The greatest concentration of churches is in the Jacksonville area, and only a few churches from the south and southwest areas of the state responded.

Tracking the responses on a large map in the narthex of the church, Mak said she realized they would need two journals to cover the state without asking anyone to drive for most of the day to reach the next location.

The goal of the circuit ride is to prepare the state for a massive evangelistic effort.

"Prayer is evangelism, and evangelism without prayer doesn’t work," Mak said. "We need to establish a foundation of prayer, beyond our church, our districts and even our denomination. Christians must commit to prayer to soften the hearts of nonbelievers and prepare believers for Christian service."

The Rev. Waite Willis, a United Methodist elder and professor at Florida Southern College, asked Mak if she had any plans to follow-up the Circuit Ride with "concrete missional opportunities to get the unchurched."

Mak said the Circuit Ride is intended to help people and churches "access the will of God for our church through prayer." Members of her church have already started exploring Celebrate Jesus and Faith Sharing training as missions opportunities. Celebrate Jesus is a Florida-based organization that helps churches organize one-week Celebrate Jesus evangelism ministries as a means of training and motivating them to do their own evangelism. Faith Sharing is a personal evangelism system illustrated by the Revs. Eddie Fox and George Morris in their book "Faith Sharing."

"It’s equipping the people here to reach out," Mak said. "People don’t feel prepared to reach out, and prayer is essential for that."