Charles Lyons, pastor of Armitage Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois, writes:

People still get killed in my neighborhood. A 13-year-old kid gets gunned down at night, and the cops show up to clean up the mess and ask a few questions, but nobody knows anything. Nobody gets arrested. It creates a lonely, helpless, and hopeless atmosphere to live in. People think, Nobody cares, and nothing will change.

The night the Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship in 1993, a young kid—I think his name was Julio—was caught up in the crowd leaving the arena. The Imperial Gangsters were out that night, making sure no rival gangs were blending in the crowd to cross their turf. I don't know if Julio was wearing the wrong colors or what, but somewhere in the midst of those sports fans, the Imperial Gangsters dragged him down and stabbed him to death. Nobody saw a thing.

The following Wednesday, I announced we were going on a prayer march. The church responded to the tragedy and even offered a reward for information leading to Julio's killers.

It wasn't the first time, or the last, that we got involved with a young man's slaying. When a kid gets shot in our neighborhood, we hold a prayer service on the exact spot where the kid died. We've had as many as 350 people show up for one of these.

We walk up and down the street, letting people know they're not alone and forgotten. We ask if there's anything we can pray with them about.

After getting in touch with the neighborhood, we hold a brief prayer vigil. The people are there—around the corner, in the alley, up in their windows—listening. We sing a few songs, offer a few pointed prayers for parents, the police, the gang members. Someone stands up in the back of a pickup truck and shares a five- minute gospel presentation. Then we wrap it up and go on.