The Minnesota Chapter
Our Minnesota chapter of the Hollywood Prayer Network (HPN) is 90% communication by email. Whenever anyone hears of anything that has happened to an industry professional – like when John Travolta’s son died a number of months ago – they email me to make sure I know and then I send an email out to the whole group so we can pray about whatever the request is. We also do personal prayer requests for chapter members.
Once every week I send out an email that we call, “TC (Twin Cities) HPN – Target Redemption: Special Edition.” It’s an email that is a bio on an industry professional. It tells the chapter members a little bit about the person and their life, family, accomplishments in the industry and, if possible, something about what they believe or don’t believe spiritually speaking so we know how to pray. Then we spend that week praying specifically for that person to come to know the Lord and we have a little something to converse with Him about them.
Every month we have an actual, physical prayer meeting that all the members (we have about 160 on the email list) are invited to (at present we have around 10-12 who actually come – it sounds like not very many, but it’s actually a very solid group). For this meeting I create what I call a “Share ‘n Prayer” sheet. It includes one Hollywood “missionary” (a Christian who works in Hollywood; one Hollywood “Target Redemption” for the MONTH (as opposed to the weekly one I just mentioned earlier – this is someone who, to our knowledge, still needs a personal relationship with Christ); and one “Minnesota missionary” (an industry professional here in Minnesota). These are people we highlight for the month so chapter members can spend the next month praying for them and, of course, we specifically pray for them at our meeting (which is always held the last Tuesday of the month). We also take prayer requests from those at the meeting and disseminate them to the entire chapter via email after the fact.
For the last two years we have also participated in a Christian Community Fair here in the cities. The Christian Community Fair is like a big trade show of Christian ministries in the Twin Cities (and also includes Christian businesses). We purchase booth space and then attendees walk around and are introduced to ministries they otherwise may not have heard of. We’ve gained many prayer warriors from this fair who had no idea there was such a thing as a group that advocates praying for Hollywood . It’s where a bulk of the 160 have come from. A lady came to the booth last year and said to me, “I signed up with you last year. I see every one of your emails and I stop and pray for each person when you send them.” What a blessing! I don’t know off the top of my head who all is out there, but the power of prayer from those who DO pray – it’s exciting to think about!
We also have just started having quarterly movie nights. This is a time when the chapter can come together and get better acquainted and just enjoy a fun time together munching and watching a good wholesome movie together.
In addition, this year we were invited to participate in the National Day of Prayer festivities at the capitol in St. Paul . An actress in our chapter went on behalf of our group. We considered that quite an honor.
Oh, and we get the occasional press. I was recently interviewed in our local Christian newspaper that comes out monthly here in the Twin Cities – along with afore-mentioned actress – and it was written up in the Minnesota Christian Chronicle. This also gives us some marketing and brings new pray-ers into the group.