When God guided our family to move to Rapid City, South Dakota, in December 2022, he encouraged us through Acts 17:26-27: “He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” Rapid City lies at the base of the Black Hills of South Dakota in an area that resembles the shape of a human heart if you look at it from a satellite view. And God is mightily at work in the Heartland of the USA!

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Before we arrived in Rapid City, God had already set His stage and prepared friends and ministry leaders for our paths. Angie Myers was called into deliverance ministry as an intercessor and positioned as the Rapid City Leader of the National Day of Prayer. He and Pastor Craig Moore started a weekly prayer meeting for pastors and ministry leaders in Rapid City. My husband Dennis and I joined them in spring 2023. About this same time, I discovered and joined the South Dakota IFA weekly prayer call, where I now serve as Kathy Schmeichel’s co-leader. I had found many ministries, including IFA, to help me go deeper in my renewed faith shortly after God turned my life around 34 years ago, so IFA’s resources were familiar to me and God had called me to prayer ministry throughout the last three decades.

Angie and Pastor Craig’s group meet for an hour each Wednesday morning and devote at least 45 minutes to praying together for Rapid City. They recognized the increase of crime, drug use, suicides, and homelessness. Together, these intercessors pray for families, churches, pastors, ministry leaders, and government. We also pray for local businesses, schools and the School Board, the medical community, and entertainment. Following much prayer, God gave us a Christian pastor, Jason Salamun, as our new Mayor in June 2023.

In the fall of 2023, Pastor Craig invited the Wednesday prayer group and other pastors and ministry leaders in the city to a meeting at his church. He told God gave him a vision years earlier that Rapid City was to be a “City of Refuge.” He felt God’s calling to “Dedicate Rapid City to Jesus.” He envisioned a series of four rallies in different churches preparing the Body of Jesus Christ in Rapid City to come together in one large, unified service to dedicate the city officially. It would be a powerful statement, which would “release the Spirit of the Lord to work in Rapid City” and “push back the darkness.”

In 2024, a leadership committee chose dates for church services in four different churches: Feb 27, April 9, June 25, and August 12 with the fifth and crowning event to be held at the Monument Event Center on October 1, 2024. As we approach the final event, we’ve seen how the rallies have magnified Jesus through our mission to “Praise, Proclaim, Pray.” The pastors of the hosting churches emphasized repentance in the Body of Christ and unity among believers. At each rally, a pastor spoke on what it looks like for a city to be dedicated to the Lord.

In mid-July of this year, Rapid City hosted a free two-day Christian musical festival called Hills Alive, just as it had for more than 30 previous years. This time pastors and ministry leaders took to the stage in unity on both days and prayed for their city.

We completed our fourth rally service on August 12. More and more churches, pastors, and believers came to each new church service. The pastors wrote a dedication based on Psalm 24:1-2 (NIV): “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.” The dedication was a prayer and declaration to God for our families, churches, government, education, economy and businesses, local military bases, health care, media, arts, and entertainment.

The dedication concludes, “Therefore, be it resolved that we, the Church of Rapid City, a gathering of Christian Churches in the Rapid City area, do hereby on the day of our Lord, the 1st day of October 2024, dedicate the city of Rapid City to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

We declare that Rapid City, South Dakota belongs to Jesus, and we are fully convinced that God is ready to bring revival and spiritual awakening to the geographical center of the 50 United States. Please join us in our prayers for America’s Heartland!

What would your city look like if it were dedicated to Jesus?

Mary Beth Phillips is the IFA state co-leader for South Dakota. She appeared on this week’s episode of IFA’s Pray the Vote 2024 Live. You can click here to watch! Photo Credit: WeaponizingArchitecture – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=123588110.