UniteBoston

Bridging Divides Across Christians for the Flourishing of the City

Awakening Boston: The Vision and Heart of Pray.Boston

At UniteBoston, we love seeing churches pray and serve together, which is why we are grateful to feature Pray.Boston, a new citywide movement of prayer to see the city of Boston awakened to life with Jesus.

In this week’s blog, Yasmin Lountchenko (Pray Ministry Lead at Grace City Church) shares her vision for building “altars of prayer” where believers from all backgrounds intercede for our city’s flourishing. Click below to read how a humble prayer room has grown into a collaborative space for people to contend for God’s Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

By Yasmin Lountchenko

I used to walk through downtown Boston, and I would see the city seal but not think anything of it. Last summer, I was on a prayer walk in the Boston Common, and felt the need to look up the significance of the seal. Inscribed on the seal is the motto of our city, which is “SICUT PATRIBUS. SIT DEUS NOBIS”. 

This translates to “God be with us as he was with our fathers.” Our city motto comes from King Solomon’s prayer when he dedicates the temple as a place to host God’s presence. This has largely shaped how we pray at  Pray.Boston — like Solomon, we are praying that God’s presence would be known here in a tangible way. 

My name is Yasmin Loutchenko, and I am serving as the Prayer Ministry Lead of Grace City Church and Pray.Boston. I moved to Boston for undergrad in 2020, and quickly got involved at Grace City Church. It was at Grace City that I was discipled in prayer and grew in love for the city of Boston. Throughout my time at Boston University, I felt God invite me to pray for awakening in Boston, which eventually led to Pray.Boston being formed out of Grace City. 

Pray.Boston is a movement of prayer to see the city of Boston awakened to life with Jesus. We are calling our city to seek God, love him wholeheartedly, and contend for a move of His Spirit in our time. We exist as a citywide ministry for Boston, aiming to be a resource and a gift to the church in Boston. 

We see prayer as the primary means through which God advances his kingdom on Earth. All throughout Scripture and awakening history, we see God move when his people gather to pray. The Northeast has witnessed significant moves of God, and our own city has a rich spiritual history. Boston was founded to be a “city on a hill,” a vision articulated by John Winthrop, later reinforced by Harvard as a center for training ministers, and dramatically renewed during the First Great Awakening. We have heard of all that God has done in our region, and we believe that God is raising up a praying community of people who are calling on him to do it again in our time and in our city.

In 2019, the Prayer Room started at Grace City Church – it was small and humble, but characterized by a deep dependence on the Spirit and confidence that the Lord responds to those who seek him. Even before Grace City officially launched, prayer was central to the leadership of the church, and the prayer room was born out of the belief that in order for us to faithfully steward our calling as a church, it needed to first come out of a place of total dependence on God. We needed God to do in his power, what we couldn’t in our own strength, so we met consistently every week, asking God to move in Boston and across New England. 

As we continued to meet for prayer, God placed Pray.Boston on our hearts. We wanted to remain faithful with what God had entrusted us with, while seeking God’s heart for Pray.Boston. Over time, the Prayer Room grew and we started to welcome people from different churches and backgrounds. It was a space for people to encounter the presence of God and contend for God’spurposes in our city and world. 

In August 2025, we sensed a clear release from the Lord to formally establish Pray.Boston—formalizing what had already been unfolding. With this step, our vision expanded: not only to cultivate a culture of prayer within Grace City, but across Boston. Since then, we have increased capacity in the Prayer Room, launched Prayer Labs to equip churches to build cultures of prayer in their own contexts, and begun forming meaningful relationships with pastors, leaders, and congregations throughout Boston.

We know that Jesus’s heart is not for one individual congregation, but for his entire body. And while we may have different expressions of our faith, we believe that communion with Christ and one another unites us and fulfills Christ’s desire for his bride. This is why we also started to host Citywide Prayer. Citywide Prayer is hosted bimonthly on Wednesday morning as a space for ministry leaders across the city of Boston to gather in united prayer as we seek God to move in and beyond our city. 

Through Pray.Boston, we are witnessing people catch a vision of the inbreaking kingdom through prayer. One of our involved team members went from not really understanding prayer, to now regularly serving in the Pray.Boston Prayer Room, and now even starting a prayer meeting at his workplace. The Prayer Room is not built around any one personality, church, or method, but around the person and ministry of Jesus. Jesus instructs us to pray for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven, and the kingdom picture we see in Scripture is the gathering of a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language before the Lamb who is enthroned at the center (Rev. 7:9). 

Our desire is to see each heart, home, and church collectively agree that the Lord is welcome and wanted in our city, knowing that God’s awakening work is greater than any one church. God is raising up a praying community in our city that serves as a promise to our city that there is a new and better way that is centered on Christ. 

Rev. Devlin Scott & Rev. Kelly Fassett (UniteBoston) along with Pastor Brian Owen & Yasmin Lountchenko (Pray.Boston)

Join in! All are invited to join this praying community and commit to seeking revival and awakening in our city. The Prayer Room is open every Wednesday at 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM at 874 Beacon St., with an Evening Prayer Room hosted on the last Thursday of each month at 6:00 PM. Pastors and ministry leaders are also encouraged to attend Citywide Prayer on May 6 from 9:30-10:45am at 874 Beacon St. For additional events and resources, visit pray.boston.

Churches Praying Together’s Maundy Thursday Service

Join us for the Churches Praying Together event on Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2026 at 7:30 PM.This united prayer service will take place at Congregation Lion of Judah. It will be a powerful evening of prayer, fellowship, and reflection as we come together to honor the significance of Maundy Thursday. We look forward to gathering with you and seeking God together.

Childcare is available for children ages 3-10.

P.S. We were grateful to see how the Holy Spirit showed up in last year’s Maundy Thursday gathering! Read this testimony from Linus from Abundant Grace Church.

Blessing Promised, Blessing Received

“It’s been awhile since many of us have stumbled out of a multi-church gathering, an hour or more after the ‘program’ officially ‘ended,’ because the Glory of God had filled the place and no one – not the pastors, not the laity, not the youth, not the kids, not the Boomers – no one could tear themselves away.”

Have you ever experienced a worship gathering so powerful, so saturated with the presence of God, that you didn’t want to leave? On Maundy Thursday, hundreds of Christians from dozens of churches came together for Churches Praying Together—a night marked by Spirit-filled worship, a compelling message on the self-giving love that unity demands, communion, and healing prayer. Today, we’re honored to share a powerful reflection from Linus, a Boston native and member of Abundant Grace Church, about how God met him that evening.

“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:17

I want to start by stating that I was not planning to go to the Maundy Thursday gathering. When my pastor had asked me if I was planning to go, I told him “no,” as big gatherings aren’t typically my cup of tea. He stated rather prophetically that if I went I would be blessed. I doubt he had any idea as to the extent his promise would be fulfilled. Before the event, I felt a change of heart and decided to go. 

I arrived a little early and found my saved seat in the front row, reserved for me by a brother and friend who’d previously invited me to sit beside him. When the worship started, I excused myself and moved to the back of the auditorium as my ears are more sensitive to volume now that I am 62.

Instantly I felt a Surge of Power, of Exultation, of the Wonderful and Thrilling Presence of God. It literally took my breath away. I immediately lifted my face and arms to the Lord (See documenting photo below). And my feet commenced to dancing. Oh the Transcendent Joy of His Presence! (You can look it up: Psalm 16.11). Soon I felt compelled, yet at the same time blessedly free, to lay prostrate, arms fully extended, face streaming with tears of joy into the carpet, overwhelmed with gratitude for His presence and refreshment. “Thank You Jesus! Thank You Jesus!” was all I could say and all I wanted to say. I was so grateful for the liberating presence of the Holy Spirit. 

One of the abiding desires of my heart has been to be free and released in body and spirit when worshiping the Lord. The Lord knows this about me full well, and graciously granted me a time and a place to praise and worship Him with abandon that Maundy Thursday evening. I’ve read many times of David dancing before the Lord with all his might, unaware of and indifferent to any disapproval of his uninhibited expression of love and worship toward the God of Israel, as David’s focus was on Him alone (2 Sam. 6.12-21). Reading that account always leaves me with a sense of yearning to enjoy that same kind of release. I was blessed and liberated to experience a taste of that at the gathering. 

After the worship, feeling a rejuvenation and refreshment of spirit that I hadn’t felt in years, I found a seat beside a sister whom I’ve known for decades. We connected in a way we never had before. We were enjoying each other and giggling on occasion about one thing or another, and then enjoying prayer together. Another woman joined us, whom neither of us had met, but it made no difference. All our prayers were in sync and blessed. All one in Christ.

Then came the benediction and dismissal. Yet, because I was still basking and reveling in the presence of God, I felt zero desire to leave. I found a dear brother and friend whom I have known for over 20 years. I put my arm around him and he put his arm around me and we just stood there, kind of feeling, “Isn’t this amazingly great?” and yet neither one of us said a word. No words were necessary. Such freedom! And again I’ll say—”Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 

Folks were invited to come to the front to receive prayer, as it was clear the Lord wanted to minister to His people in various and specific ways. How Kind and Caring and Personal He is! 

There was a moment which I found delightfully laugh-out-loud funny, where another leader from the front made a general announcement that those who wanted to leave were not bound to stay: “I heard a benediction somewhere in there about 25 minutes ago.” Still, few people left. 

Everywhere and every time I met eyes with someone I didn’t know/had never met, which was the majority, I felt love and acceptance for them, and an unspoken acknowledgement that we were all joined together in Christ, all recipients of His grace and salvation. I thought of a couple lines from an old hymn:

“Gimme that old time religion…makes me love everybody.”

Indeed, it does.

Ah, what a blessed place to be with God’s people with His presence showering us all with His blessings. Denominations, religious affiliations, style of dress—all irrelevant. Only Jesus mattered, and the Unity He blesses those with who give God the place of preeminence. All praise be to God.

Other Testimonies

“It was such an honor to help lead the time of communion alongside other local pastors—and even more powerful to witness how God showed up when dozens came forward for healing prayer. Some testified that their back pain and other ailments were completely healed! Seeing the gifts of the Holy Spirit at work—so tangibly and beautifully—deeply encouraged my own faith in a way I haven’t experienced in a long time. While you may read this with skepticism, this isn’t just a ‘charismatic thing’—it’s a Jesus thing. The promises of the New Testament are still true today. ”
— Rev. Kelly Fassett, Executive Director of UniteBoston

“What a beautiful time together.  I always expect our united prayer times to be good, but this was beyond what I expected.  Praise the Lord.  As Sean preached, when we love Jesus, unity is the result. When I saw all of the other pastors praying for people after the service had “ended,” God instilled a confidence in my heart and a trust that together we are the Lord’s servants doing His will.  We truly are one church in Jesus our Lord.”
— Pastor Dave Hill, Abundant Grace Church

“Our family left the service last night and my 8th grade son, Isaac, said with great enthusiasm, ‘That is one of the best and most powerful services I have been to.’  We all agreed that this was a result of the love and unity in the room centered on worshipping and responding to Jesus.  I am thankful to have the privilege of contending with other pastors for Jesus to be glorified in our city!”
— Pastor Sean Richmond, Antioch Community Church

National Day of Prayer – May 1, 2025

Join us for a powerful day of prayer as believers come together across Boston to pray for our nation, its leaders, and every area of life. On Thursday, May 1st, we are offering two opportunities to join in prayer:

  • 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM at Congregación León de Judá (20 Reed St, Boston, MA 02118)

  • 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM at Church on the Hill (140 Bowdoin St, Boston, MA 02108), directly across from the State House. This unique location, though not a Christian church, has been generously opened for prayer by Michele Charles, who regularly intercedes for our government here.

These prayer times are not about political agendas, but about seeking God’s will for our government, as Paul encourages us in 1 Timothy 2:1-2. We will pray for our leaders, our police and first responders, public schools, families, businesses, and all areas of society. It is a time to come together, giving thanks, and asking for God’s guidance.

Why join us? There is great power in united prayer. On this day, thousands—perhaps millions—of believers will be lifting up prayers for our nation. We encourage you to gather your church, your community, or even host your own prayer meeting to stand in agreement with believers around the country.

Mark your calendars, invite others, and come ready to pray for God’s will to be done.


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