I just felt like we needed to pray for Uvalde and the situation going on there. We put together a little prayer service for that.”

Tim Barker, lead pastor, Katy Community Fellowship Church

The purpose of the Open Cross Prayer Park, which sits behind Katy Community Fellowship Church, 24102 Kingsland Blvd., is to serve as a beacon of hope and prayer. That the park sits behind the church means it’s always open to all.

Following the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, the prayer park hosted a vigil for the 19 students and two faculty members who were killed the next evening.

“I just felt we like we needed to pray for Uvalde and the situation going on there,” Tim Barker, Katy Community Fellowship lead pastor, said. “We put together a little prayer service for that.”

Barker said that service drew about 35 people. Barker said they prayed for compassion, remembering Scripture verses that say the Lord is close to the broken hearted, among others.

“We weep with those who weep,” Barker said.

The park itself is relatively new to Katy. Church officials dedicated it April 10, which was Palm Sunday. Barker said then-Mayor Bill Hastings, Police Chief Noe Diaz, and other city officials and law enforcement officer joined in the ceremony and prayers.

Barker said the park was partially inspired by, but not modeled after, the Coming King Foundation prayer garden in Kerrville. For one thing, the open cross in Kerrville is 77 feet tall. The open cross in Katy is 45 feet tall.

The prayer park also features plaques scattered around the park. Each plaque quotes a Bible verse from one of the Bible’s 66 books.

Barker said he had been thinking about creating such a park for some years. He said when he was in college at Oklahoma Panhandle State University, he had a senior class project in which he began envisioning what such a prayer park might look like.

The park is open but is still undergoing some construction, Barker said.

“It’s open to the public at any time,” Barker said. “We don’t have all of the lighting done yet, but we’re working on getting that done. We should have it done in the next month or so. We want to make it more available to walk in the evenings with lights. There is some lighting now, but all the places we want are not let up yet. It’s open for the Katy community anytime anyone would like to come and pray.”

The park has drawn attention from outside the Katy area, Barker said.

“We have had just a lot of very positive comments,” Barker said. “We had people from all around the country, RVers from all around the country. It’s become a destination place. We’ve had over 50 RVers in our parking lot, and they stay and go through the park. People have been blessed by it, and we’ve had opportunities to pray for them.”

Barker has been in Katy since 1987. Katy Community Fellowship Church began in 2000. The church acquired the property and set aside the space on which the park sits in 2012.

“We’ve been a very community-oriented church,” Barker said. “We want this to be something for the Katy community. We believe prayer is the key to seeing spiritual revival and awakening across the nation. We are trying to be a praying community, and that’s the purpose of the park.”