Inside Story
At Home on His Knees
Vic Black Leads The Navigators in Prayer
By Rebecca K. Grosenbach
Vic Black never tires of prayer. “For me, it’s all about relationship with God. How could I get tired of that?”
The 6' 4" North Carolina native is at home on his knees, and as director of The Navigators’ U.S. Prayer Ministry, he is impassioned about helping others go deeper in their relationship with God through prayer.
Vic’s association with The Navigators started just after high school and continued into college. He met his wife, Lindy, at North Carolina State University, and they later joined Navigator staff. In 1984, the Blacks assumed their first assignment at Auburn University in Alabama. In the early 1990s, Vic attended a regional meeting where the newly appointed Navigator prayer director, Lee Brase, led the group in a time of prayer. Vic met Lee and he says, “God knit my heart together with Lee’s right away.”
From then on Vic spent as much time as he could with Lee. “I followed Lee around the country for 12 years while still doing student work in Auburn. Little did I know what God had in store for me!”
While at Glen Eyrie Conference Center in Colorado Springs in the mid-’90s, Vic had an unusual encounter with God. “He planted this thought in my heart: ‘Lord, if you ever want me to lead the prayer ministry, I ask that you’ll give me a double portion of what you’ve given Lee.’ That totally rocked my boat,” Vic says. “I suppose I was remembering what Elisha asked of Elijah in 2 Kings 2, but I had never prayed anything like that before. I didn’t understand it, but I knew it was from the Lord.”
In 2000, Vic left the collegiate ministry and joined the prayer ministry full-time. Lindy continues to serve with the Collegiate Mission as associate director.
In 2002, then-U.S. Navigators President Alan Andrews asked Vic to assume leadership for the U.S. Prayer Ministry while Lee focused on international prayer. Vic asked the Lord for some confirmation in his new role, and through Lindy, God directed him to Isaiah 61.
Even though this was a favorite chapter, verse seven jumped out at him as if he had never read it before: “Instead of your shame you will have a double portion” (NASB). Vic remembered the shame he had experienced over some childhood experiences and how God had given him victory. Seeing “shame” and “double portion” in the same verse, Vic knew it was the confirmation he was looking for.
Today, Vic supports Navigator ministries through prayer and travels the country teaching and leading prayer retreats for Navigator staff and the people they work with. “I want people to experience that prayer is all about relationship and intimacy with God.”Vic believes that even when we pray for each other our prayers need to be God-centered. He compares it to the actions of the men who brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus (see Mark 2 and Luke 5). “These men gave no prayer request. They just put their friend in front of Jesus and trusted that He would do the rest. Likewise, we need to place one another in front of God and trust that He will tell us what to pray.”
This fall Vic is leading The Navigators into a new frontier in prayer ministry—a “prayer blog.”
The blog—or web log—is a prayer dialogue. “We aren’t exchanging requests, we’re entering into a conversation with God,” Vic says. Someone initiates a prayer for the day, then anyone on the blog adds his or her own prayer, joining together in a new form of corporate prayer. A new prayer starts every day. Initially, the blog is set to last for 31 days beginning in November.
“Our desire is to see the blog grow to be an effective 24/7 prayer coverage for Navigator ministry,” Vic says.
Even as Vic leads The Navigators into new arenas for prayer, he still sees himself as “one of Lee’s guys.”
“We’re kind of like David and Solomon,” Vic says. “It’s as if Lee was called on to lay a foundation for the prayer ministry, and I have been called to build upon it. It’s very humbling.”
