The purpose of 24-7 Prayer is not to take over the world, one prayer room at a time. It’s not to conquer every high point in youth culture with trendy teams living lives with missional intent. 24-7 exists to put a rocket up the bottoms of those who responded when Jesus said, “Come follow me”. Follow we did, the decision, whether instant or long-winded was pretty much the easy part. The challenge is to live with the same commitment, determination and motivation as the day we said, “I’ll get my coat”.
There’s a very specific reason why I’m part of 24-7 Prayer. Actually it’s less of a reason and more of a two-hour window in the 24½ years of my life. I was 18, pretty naive, never had a boyfriend, hadn’t found who I was yet and was going through less of a crisis of faith, and more a challenge of lifestyle as I moved to Chichester on the South Coast of England for University.
Those pivotal two hours were in a smelly, cluttered Prayer Room, the first of many messy Prayer Rooms throughout the world. That was all ahead of us though, and rather than feel excited about spending an hour with God I felt mortified that I was going to have to find someway of appearing like I was praying so no-one would know what a pathetic Christian I was.
Prayer was always something my Mum did; I think she’s pretty good at it. I barely lasted five minutes before distraction inevitably came. As I wandered around the room, reading prayers, looking through the art work something like de ja vous crept from the back of my mind. This room provoked the same feeling in me as my old Catholic Church Back in Ireland did. The feeling of awe when I took communion for the first time, or the peace as I sat and soaked in the silence, sitting on a pew and thinking God must be awfully big. In that Church and this Prayer Room I had the same awareness of the immediate presence of God.
I can’t remember what I prayed about, or exactly what I did, but I do know that I spent two hours soaking and I’ve never been the same since.
I pride myself on being something of a human limpet. If I see something with God’s life all over it, I’ll attach myself in the hope that I might learn a thing or two. Seven years on and I’m still here, helping other people make those sacred spaces to encounter that great big God. I feel privileged to hear people’s stories first hand; the girl that got healed of pneumonia in Portugal, the guy who became a Christian because the presence of God was so thick he couldn’t deny him any longer, the team that reunited families after hurricane Katrina.
If the aim of every church and every denomination is Christ-centred Kingdom, with all the richness and challenge that implies, then I like to think that 24-7 is a box of matches in God’s cosmic toolbox. We’re not the only answer, but we’re one spark of many that propels people further than the cloakroom, further than the first year, but hopefully, please God, it equips them with the one tool that will guide them home, the ability to listen to God. The rest my friends will be history.