Since Sept 1999 the idea of temporary tabernacles of 24-7 Prayer has spread through more than 60 nations in 4000 known incarnations in schools, universities, police stations, churches, workplaces, outdoors, in planes and at festivals...
It’s spread virally with the help of some strategic friendships, the story of Red Moon Rising and a lot of the Holy Spirit. All prayer rooms experience excitement about intimacy with God, renewal of faith and mission and the break down of fear and intimidation around prayer, especially among young people.
We’ve seen prayer rooms morph into many things; years of prayer rocking nations or denominations, long-term mission or even Boiler Rooms or communities. We’ve managed to work with almost every Christian denomination, overcoming barriers that would normally exclude such unity. We are not particularly clever or gifted, we're merely part of a bigger wave of prayer that has been swelling and gathering momentum on an unprecedented global scale.
When I broke bread and sipped squash with Ian and Pauline from the World Prayer Centre I was awed by the knowledge that the UK has gone from only a handful of prayer organizations to more than 400 in the last decade. What does this mean! This is more than fashion, it growing... We’ve seen the rise of the Global Day Of Prayer and millions of people in nearly every nation mobilised to pray in one voice for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
It’s good to know that however signifigant our work in 24-7 seems to us, we exist in the context of a massive wave of prayer on which we are but a strip of froth riding high on the wave, standing on the shoulders of many faithful pray-ers before us.
It is an honour to be used by God, we are responding to His invitation to give our gifts, to give our best, to help the Holy Spirit mobilise ourselves, to mobilise the Global church into Christ-centred, mission-minded prayer.
Currently all the prayer 24-7 catalyses is resourced by a handful of people, no more than 11. Everything they’re doing to support prayer has developed from something that Pete and Kerry dreamed up on the back of an envelop when they expected to pray with a few friends for a few years. There is great opportunity to reinvigorate the way we catalyse and resource prayer and the way we bless and equip the Church. We have nearly eight years experience under our belt, many stories about the impact prayer, how to intwine it with life and how to marry it with mission and mercy.
I am excited. My new team is about to have a lot of fun :) xc