Saturday, March 7, 1998

Prayer chapel provides haven 24 hours a day

By MICHAEL E. YOUNG / The Dallas Morning News

SUNNYVALE, Texas -- The Rev. James L. Green realized how desperately people needed something like The Secret Place when a man bent on murder pounded on the door of his church one New Year's Eve.

"Every New Year's Eve we have a service and a party at the church. And one year this guy comes across the parking lot from another party and asks to speak to the pastor," said Green, pastor of Higher Ground Church on Belt Line Road.

"He looked at me -- I'll never forget this -- and he said, 'It's New Year's Eve, and my wife is flirting with another guy, and I have a gun in my car, and I want to kill them.' "

Green could only imagine what might have happened if the man had come some other night, when Higher Ground, like most churches, is locked up tight.

The idea of building a 24-hour prayer chapel like The Secret Place, open to anyone who wanted to stop, came into focus that night. Not that everyone in Green's congregation embraced the idea. After all, no one could name another church that had done this. Think of the crime, they said, at a place that's open and unattended.

But Green and others at Higher Ground pressed on.

"Why do we always have to believe that people are going to be destructive?" he asked. "Why can't we believe people are going to be saved?"

To make doubly sure people would have that opportunity whenever they needed it, day and night -- or "24-7," as Green puts it -- he even removed the front door locks so The Secret Place would never be closed.

So far, that faith has been rewarded.

Since The Secret Place opened last June, more than 7,000 people have signed the register by the door, Green said. He has no idea how many others stopped and prayed and left without a trace of their coming.

Members of Higher Ground Church, which sits next door, often stop by. But most visitors are people who see the lighted sign on the side of Belt Line Road: "Prayer Chapel. Open 24 hours."

Some leave small contributions when they go, $1 or $5, even though The Secret Place was debt-free when it opened and doesn't solicit donations, Green said.

Often, the visitors fill out written prayer requests, echoing the matters on their mind. Occasionally, they seek divine help for monumental things -- life-threatening illnesses, crumbling marriages, children involved with drugs or gangs.

Usually, though, the prayer requests reflect an enormous faith in God and a willingness to ask for guidance in dealing with life's everyday struggles.

"Husband a new job. Weight loss. Happiness ," one woman wrote.

"To be a good father to my two sons and to love my girlfriend with all my heart ," a man asked.

"A financial miracle to make it through this month and the month to come so that we can make it ," wrote another.

The Bible tells people to pray, to bring their problems to God, Green said. He encourages his congregation at Higher Ground, a Bible-based nondenominational charismatic church, to do exactly that.

But it can be difficult. Distractions intrude on prayer time. The phone rings. The TV beckons. The kids call for mom or dad.

So The Secret Place provides a refuge.

"People can come to a place and pray for all the things they should be praying for," Green said.

"I can't tell you how it made me feel when I walked out of the church at 11 one night, and I saw this big Harley parked by The Secret Place, and there's a guy in there praying, and he tells me he comes all the way from Rockwall."

Higher Ground's congregation has tried to make The Secret Place as welcoming as possible to these unexpected visitors.

Praise music drifts across the parking lot. "Even if people don't go inside, there's a presence," Green explained.

In the chapel, a wall mural painted by the church's praise minister, Curtis Butler, shows Jesus in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. A running fountain in one corner symbolizes "the river of life," Green said. A primitive cross, draped with flowers and a length of white cloth, stands nearby.

When visitors leave, they pass beneath a pair of angels painted above the door, wings outstretched. "We wanted angels so people will know their guardian angels are there, covering them," he said.

And beneath each of the 12 benches -- one for each of Jesus' apostles -- sits an open box of Kleenex. A lot of people need them, Green said.

"I had a guy visiting from England once, and I took him over to see The Secret Place, and there were two women in there touching the garment of Jesus, and they were just screaming and crying and praying," Green said.

"He said, 'You must have set that up.' But those women didn't even go to church here. They just stopped to pray."

Green and other church leaders rarely see the people who visit The Secret Place. They come when they have a few free moments or when they face a particular problem.

"You might have a crisis at 10 at night, or maybe you and your wife have a fight at midnight," Green said. "Sometimes it's a truck driver passing by who needs to stop for prayer."

And some people make it a part of their daily routine.

Green learned that from a note he found Thanksgiving Day written by a little girl.

"She wrote, 'I wanted to come to the place where my daddy prays every day,' " he said.

There was a time, Green said, when churches were always open and people could visit and pray whenever they felt the need. But in most places in America, those days have passed. The threat of crime keeps their doors locked.

So far, though, there haven't been any problems at The Secret Place, Green said. People seem to respect it for what it is, a place of prayer, he said.

And that gives him hope that other churches will follow Higher Ground's example.

"It's been such a blessing to us," Green said. "So I tell everybody I know: 'It works.' "

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Distributed by The Associated Press