Pete Greig, one of the founders of 24-7 Prayer and author of Red Moon Rising, and Mark Knight, 24-7's resident theologian introduce the international movement to a new 24-7 initiative aiming to unite us in daily prayer...
"After the Lord spoke to us in Seville, Spain about living up to our name, I started thinking about a daily devotional podcast to help us join together in prayer as a global community. I really liked the idea of different 24-7 people around the world recording a week's worth of 10-minute devotionals so that one week Kelly Greene might be leading our prayers from Mexico and then the next it could be Alek or Alpin from Macedonia.
All this might have stayed just an idea but I happened to share the concept with Dave Slinn who helps lead the Boiler Room here in Guildford and a girl I didn't really know. The next morning she emailed me and said she used to do podcasting for the BBC and volunteered to manage the whole thing!
That was when I thought that God might be up to something.
Mark Knight, our resident theologian, agreed to join the team to shape up the content and Les Moir, the legendary director of Survivor Records offered us their entire back catalogue and his wisdom for free!
Pretty exciting eh?! Just down the road from where I now live in Guildford, a bloke called Selwyn Hughes started writing daily bible notes about 50 years ago and that's how 'Every Day With Jesus' began which now goes out to literally millions of people. The new podcast technology is a gift for us to be able to potentially lead 10,000's of people in prayer each day for the price of a coffee at Starbucks.So...
The podcast will be called '24-7 Prayer Spaces' (as in making space for God) and will be available as a free download on iTunes from 19th March. We're going to run it from Maundy Thursday through Easter and through the 50 days up to Pentecost, exploring the various post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.
We see these 50 days as a pilot. If there is a big enough take-up to justify the (considerable) amount of work involved, we'll probably keep it going. So spread the word! Tell your friends, stick it on facebook, on Myspace, tell your church, tell your cat, tell everyone! I'm convinved that this really could help loads of people deepen their walk with Jesus by developing a really enjoyable 'holy habit'. Maybe some will get the word they need from God, just when they need it through their mp3 player."
24-7 Prayer Spaces will be available on the 24-7 Website and through iTunes. Download them from the 19th then get in touch and let us know how you've found them.
