On February 15, 2020, She Loves Out Loud prayer movement will be hosted by churches and small groups nationwide. It is a time for women to pray in unity for the healing of hearts, for the future of children and for America. Started by Diane Strack, She Loves Out Loud will host Christian leaders at strategic locations across the U.S. For more information, visit SheLovesOutLoud.org.

The Stream is profiling some of the women — women like you and me — who will be taking part in what is destined to be a powerful and profound day.

“I have a core belief that God is raising up a fighting force within a fighting force — that He has positioned the U.S. military very uniquely to fulfill an essential role and purpose in the spread of the Gospel and the restoration of the world.” Megan Brown is a mother of four and a military wife whose husband is serving overseas. Megan told The Stream the military is all over the world. “What if this people group could carry the Gospel to the four corners?” She and her husband, Keith, have dedicated their lives to seeing the Great Commission fulfilled through spiritually equipping a military community.

She and Keith, when he’s home, plant churches and conduct Bible studies in their home. When he’s gone, Megan continues the Bible studies on her own, where 30-40 people attend weekly. 

‘There’s Something to This’

About six years ago, Megan and Keith began the Bible study. She didn’t know what to expect the first time, but six women showed up. The next week they had 17. The third week 25 women came. As she watched moms dragging lawn chairs and red wagons with babies into her living room, she thought, “There’s something to this.”

The group quickly outgrew her living room and within two years, they’d partnered with a local chaplain corps and opened with 40 moms and 50 kids. Within a few sessions, the group had grown to over 200 moms and kids. The Bible study eventually outgrew the government facility they were using. “And then I had to equip leaders to go back into a home model like we started,” said Megan. “We’ve been doing that and I have been really sowing the seeds of raising up a generation of biblical communicators within the spouses’ ranks. And basically what that looks like is intense discipleship.”

There’s a great need for women Christian leaders in the military. Especially since a new Department of Defense report came out recently, which highlighted the number of military spouses who have completed suicide. Part of what Megan hopes to do is to reach women before they get to that point. “We have work to do,” she explains. When Megan thinks about her duty to help military women, she has a picture in her mind: 

 [I]t’s a sea of women that are drowning. And, you know, there are maybe a handful of us with life boats and we are dragging women in these lifeboats, running them back to shore and just running back and forth to and from the shore to save these women. But the lifeboat can only fit six people. And when I look around there are not many lifeboats coming. And there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of women that are drowning in circumstances and grief and anxiety and fear and we can only rescue the ones we can get our hands on. And so, when I think about the answer to prayer, I’ve been begging God to raise up more biblical communicators, to raise up more teachers, leaders, freethinkers and innovators in the military community to help stop the bleed. 

She and her prayer team of women have asked for more workers. “Lord of the harvest, please send more workers. My sisters are dying. Help me.”

The importance of prayer, for Megan, cannot be overstated. It is “laying the tracks before you drive the train.” Prayer is the train tracks. Although she borrowed this quote from Kathe Wunnenberg, author of Grieving the Child I Never Knew, she says it’s true. “Prayer is a nonnegotiable. It’s essential, vital even, to the lifeblood of a Christian. No prayer, no work; no prayer, no purpose; no prayer, no one showing up.”

She Loves Out Loud

Megan met Diane Strack, founder of She Loves Out Loud, through Carol Kent, author of Speak Up With Confidence. Megan is excited to partner with the prayer movement. “She Loves Out Loud has the desire and the heart and the mission mindedness to welcome me onboard to share the Gospel and to encourage women everywhere to do the work. That’s why I’m excited to work with them.” Megan will lead the prayer for the nation, the military and military spouses. She will also ask women to pray for more workers.

Megan wants to see women equipped to do what God has called them to do. “I would love to see a generation of women sold out and bought into the mission and purpose of Jesus. I want to see women that know the Gospel, that have absorbed it, sat with it, soaked in it and then can’t help but bring others into the love of Jesus. Not through behavior modification or through brunches or bad guilt, but women that will lovingly invite women to sit at the table.”

Megan will continue to host Bible studies on military bases. She stresses that it’s real ministry. “We are not about the show,” she explains. “It’s ‘let your kids make a mess. I left my laundry on the couch, the Bible is still good.’ The Bible study doesn’t care if there’s couch laundry. [T]his is real women doing real life and real ministry for a real Jesus. And I think that’s just so important.”

Nancy Flory is an associate editor at The Stream. You can follow her @NancyFlory3, and follow The Stream @Streamdotorg.