It is only 500 feet of elevation gain. Still, at this height above the greater Denver area, the ministers, priests and rabbis who catch a ride on the Prayer One helicopter see neighborhood boundaries dissolve.
Churches, schools, skyscrapers, ballparks and football fields appear to shrink to toylike dimensions. The only giants left are the Rocky Mountains.
Clergy say this 22-minute flight with 47-year-old pilot Jeff Puckett opens their eyes and moves them, often profoundly.
“It was awesome. It solidifies me in my faith,” said Gregory Allen, a 34-year-old house manager at the Denver Rescue Mission.
“It allowed me to see how fortunate I’ve been,” Allen said. “It makes me know I need him more and more. I’ll serve him all the days of my life.”
Puckett’s unusual, perhaps one-of- a-kind, ministry has been ministering to ministers almost every Monday since May 2005.
Aboard Prayer One, people see and feel many different things, from transcendent peace to an overwhelming sense of urgency.
The most memorable thank-you Puckett received came from a 6-foot-6, 280-pound Ugandan minister.
“He ran over to me afterward, picked me up and down and danced me around the hangar,” Puckett said.
On Monday, Puckett carried his 1,111th Prayer One passenger over the city. He hopes to celebrate with as many of them as possible next month at a reunion.
Puckett’s friend the Rev. Tom Melton helped instigate this chopper crusade to lift ministers above the day-to-day grind.
“I’ve been in the ministry for 37 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this for bringing people together,” said Melton, the senior pastor at Greenwood Community Church.
The idea for Prayer One began to take shape about three years ago. Melton was on retreat with Puckett and other friends in the Bahamas, relaxing and bobbing around in the water, when Melton posed a question.
“I asked what would we ask God for if there were no limit, no restriction,” Melton said.
Puckett, who owns an oil and gas company but enjoys being an amateur stunt pilot, wanted to know if he could pray for a helicopter – if it was all right to ask for something just because you want it.
“We think we can’t ask God for something we’ll enjoy,” Melton said.
A short while later, after Puckett had purchased a helicopter, he sought to cheer up his friend Melton, whose wife had just received a cancer diagnosis.
“Want to fly?” Puckett asked Melton.
“As I flew over the city, it sort of ambushed me,” Melton said. “I saw that neighborhoods disappeared. The homes all blended together. It opened my eyes to the city of Denver.”
The new perspective lifted him above the concerns of his affluent congregation. It made him wonder about a broader ministry, about linking up ministries.
Puckett loves ferrying ministers aloft. For thrills, he still enjoys aerobatics in his high- performance stunt plane. Prayer One, however, is more satisfying to him.
“This is way more important,” Puckett said. “This is a God thing.”
Puckett pays all the flight costs.
He tells his first Monday flight of three ministers to feel free to pray out loud.
“We’ll circle Coors Field,” he said. “You might want to pray for the Rockies.”
The Rev. Keita Andrews, the 51-year-old pastor at Colorado Community Church, said the key word that came to his mind in the air was “perspective.”
“This has been a violent summer,” Andrews said during the flight. “We pray, Father, that you’ll break through that violence, hatred and anger.”
Everything looks so peaceful from high above.
“The peace you feel up there, you wish (it) could descend 500 feet,” Andrews said.
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
