A sign on Virginia 8 points toward the Colemans' prayer tent.

Jon Jenkins, a teacher and evangelist from Troutman N.C., prays in the Colemans' tent. Jenkins and his wife, Helen, were visiting the Christiansburg area for a religious retreat.

Photos by MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

John and Susan Coleman put up a prayer tent next to their home at 2122 Riner Road in Christiansburg. "I just really sensed the Lord speaking to my heart that he was about to move in the New River Valley," John Coleman says about his vision to erect the tent.

| Katelyn Polantz

katelyn.polantz@roanoke.com, 381-1669

CHRISTIANSBURG -- Cars covered the grass at the house on Riner Road, after bringing crowds to a white party tent in the back yard.

They followed the sign -- "Prayer" with an arrow -- planted at the edge of John and Susan Coleman's driveway.

This was John Coleman's dream. He felt it came from God, he said. But at first, he did nothing.

A month later, another urge: Coleman was driving home on Interstate 81 from Tennessee. He said he felt God's call again at mile marker 110.

"I just really sensed the Lord speaking to my heart that he was about to move in the New River Valley," Coleman said.

Still, he did nothing.

By the next morning, Coleman said he had had another dream. He needed to get that prayer tent he envisioned.

"I didn't want to do something crazy like put up a tent," said Coleman, 50, who works as operations manager at CrossPointe, a conference center affiliated with the Foursquare Church.

"I don't even have a tent. Where would I get a tent like that?"

Coleman had only a few hundred dollars to spend, but friends urged him to do what God asked.

He and his wife went to Walmart. No luck. Dick's Sporting Goods didn't have the right tent, either.

But at Home Depot, a $200 beige canopy with side netting and a pendant lantern would do.

"Does God tell people to plant churches? Yes. Using dreams? Not very often," said Dave Earley, chairman of the department of pastoral leadership and church planting at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg.

Earley said the Colemans' religious beliefs may have made them more inclined to interpret dreams as messages from God.

The Colemans belong to the Foursquare Church, an evangelical Pentecostal Christian denomination based in Los Angeles.

Americans who follow Pentecostal religions are more likely to see revelations in dreams, Earley said. So are people from developing nations, such as Africans and Middle Eastern Muslims who convert to Christianity, he added.

Though the Colemans' home is owned by Foursquare, their prayer tent is nondenominational and not affiliated with the church.

On April 1, the Colemans began building the prayer tent in their back yard. First they placed their sign in the ground, then tent supports.

Before they could fasten the roof, a van of people pulled up.

Rich Palmer, a pastor at New Horizons Church in Radford, had noticed the sign for "Prayer" in front of his friends' house and asked his passengers whether they'd like to stop.

Palmer and a dozen junior high school students pulled into the Colemans' driveway and walked to the tent in the grass. They stood in a circle, held hands and closed their eyes.

They prayed for communities in the New River Valley.

"This one place -- how beautiful it is out there -- just slows you down," Palmer said.

The students wandered in the back yard, and after about 10 minutes, Palmer reminded them they must leave.

In his initial dream, Montgomery County officials had asked Coleman whether he had a permit for the tent. They said he'd need some portable toilets, too, to accommodate all the people.

In actuality, no more than a handful have visited the tent each week. If more people visit regularly, Coleman said he'll expand the tent farther into his yard.

A zoning permit wasn't necessary because of this tent's size -- 10 feet by 10 feet -- or type of collapsible structure, according to Dari Jenkins, county zoning administrator. Residents often put tents like this on their properties, and each is evaluated by the county separately, she added.

John and Susan Coleman have held a few scheduled meetings at the tent, but most of the prayer there arises spontaneously, they said.

As early as 6:30 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m., strangers have come to pray. Coleman said he sees people praying when he lets his cat out, or in steady rain.

Most visitors and he interact.

Prayer tent visitors have knelt; they've cried; they've sat in the six plastic green chairs beneath the canopy. They've written about their prayers in a journal the Colemans keep in a Ziploc bag.

Some have said their experiences at the tent felt unique, and that their prayers have been answered, Susan Coleman said.

Debra Macon, a family friend, stopped with a companion one cool afternoon. They sat in the chairs, listened to the bugs and birds and passing cars, and Macon prayed for the nation and the president, she said.

"God will hear anywhere that we pray, but there was something special when we stopped to pray at the tent," she said.

"It was a sense of peace, a sense of what God was."