For the past 12 years Walter Lieber has been the president of a local family foundation. The foundation has given close to two million dollars to local organizations that provide for the needs of under privileged children. These organizations, and others, are doing an excellent job of serving the children of Miami Dade County.

However, when one looks at the bigger picture the needs of children continually grow and some problems only seem to become worse. While enthusiastically supporting every effort to improve the lives of children, Mr. Lieber began to think that another organization or more money to existing organizations would not be enough to make the kind of massive changes to the neglected, abused and needy children or our community that we would all like to see. He began to think that only God could make that kind of major change.

Years ago Mr. Lieber was part of a clergy group in another state that worked hard at developing community wide prayer efforts focused on changing aspects of the religious community in that city. Extraordinary changes took place in the level of communication, coordination, mutual support and general spirit of good will among hundreds of congregation. Most everyone who participated felt that corporate prayer was behind the changed atmosphere.

So an idea began to form. “What if we could get hundreds of congregations and tens of thousands of individuals in Miami in concerted prayer to positively affect the lives of children in our community?” This is the genesis of a truly simple, but perhaps profoundly powerful prayer effort.

The idea is simple and the entry level easy for a congregation. A congregation must commit to only two things. First is to pray publicly from the pulpit at least once a month for the children of Miami Dade County. Second is to make PrayForKids prayer cards available to individuals in the congregation. Of course, we hope most congregations will do more. The prayer cards include a few basic but crucially important needs for children. It is designed to encourage regular, focused prayer over a long term.

Further, in order to avoid this becoming only a “feel good” program, we will be tracking several measurable statistics regarding benefits to children’s lives. These metrics were chosen by consulting with organization leaders with many years of experience serving children in Miami Dade County. We asked the question, “What set of statistics, if greatly improved, would make you say definitely that things are better for the children of Miami Dade County? We will actively monitor these stats on a year to year basis, reporting back to you and measuring what we hope is great progress.

So join in. Be a congregation or an individual that commits to pray regularly for the kids of Miami Dade County. And together let’s watch our children’s lives get better!