24-7 Prayer: Prayer, Mission and Justice

"Prayer itself is an art which only the Holy Spirit can teach us. Pray for prayer. Pray until you can really pray" (C.H.Spurgeon)

How Did 24-7 Start?

24-7prayer started by accident in September 1999, with a bunch of young people in England who got the crazy idea of trying to pray non-stop for a month.  God turned up and they couldn't stop til Christmas!

From there the prayer meeting has spread into many nations, denominations and age-groups. Hundreds of non-stop prayer meetings now link up here on the web to form a unique chain of prayer.

What's The Big Idea? 

Simple really... 24-7 has become a worldwide, non-stop prayer movement. There are 3 dimensions to the movement:

First of all we're a network of  Prayer Rooms determined to pray like it all depends on us and live like it all depends on God until the tide turns in our generation
A Missions movement quickly arose out of the Prayer Rooms as we received requests to take   Teams to 'high places' in youth culture.
We also run   Boiler Rooms - houses of continual prayer (24-7-365) like Gen X monastries. 

How Do The Prayer Rooms Work?

Participating groups pledge to pray 24 hours a day for a week or more in a dedicated prayer-room. They then 'carry the baton of prayer' for that period. The prayer passes from location to location in a never ending flow linked up by the Worldwide Web. We are a virtual community praying in real locations. Right now someone, somewhere is praying 24-7.

What Are the Aims?

To turn the tide
The dream behind 24-7 is to turn the tide of youth culture back to Jesus. It's a big dream - maybe an impossible dream. We recognise that the Body of Christ in the West is bleeding young people. Something has to change. But clever strategy alone is not the answer. Never has been. History shows that the tide turns when God's people pray. That is why God is mobilising prayer movements like 24-7 (and others).

We're seeing thousands of young people from Alaska to Australia praying together for their friends and their heroes in a focused and persistent way. 24-7 targets youth culture at a local, national and international level; addressing demographies (like skaters and clubbers) as well as geographies (schools, communities, nations).

"Pray continually." (Jesus)
"WOW! This prayer thing actually WORKS!"
(shocked student)

To mobilise prayer
24-7prayer is not for experts. It's for those who find prayer a struggle. 24-7 is a model that works! It has proven unusually successful at mobilising people - especially young people - to pray like they've never prayed before. People learn to pray... by praying!

24-7 captures the imagination. Young people today are more likely to turn up at a prayer meeting at 3 a.m. than at 7.30 p.m! Why? Because it's extreme. The dare is to be alone with God for a whole hour - maybe even in the middle of the night. 24-7 makes prayer easier. The arts play an important part. Many say that 'an hour feels like 10 minutes in the prayer room'.

Why Not Start a 24-7 Prayer Room Where You Live?

Why not launch the wildest, most extreme, most exciting prayer meeting your area has ever seen Just register here on the web.  We can offer you a choice of resources then all you have to do is find a room with a kettle, get your friends excited and GO! 24-7 aims to turn the tide in youth culture, and that could start where you live.

"The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." (P. Beedie)

So How Do We Get Involved?

You can either:
Enquire for further information and we will send you a free enquiry pack to tell you more about 24-7.
Register a prayer room. If you reckon you can sustain a week or more of continual prayer, simply register your details here on the site.

What Happens if We Can't Do a Whole Week? 

If your church is too small or too sleepy to do 24-7 right now, don't worry! There are other ways of staying involved:

• Add this site to your 'favorites' and log on regularly to share prayers, stories and keep your finger on the pulse.

• Spread the word. Tell your friends about this site - you could even add a link to us from your emails or a banner from your website

• Consider joining a 24-7 Mission Team visiting the 'high places' in youth culture to pray like crazy and live like Jesus.

• Stay informed - make sure you've signed up for the free weekly email bulletin or quarterly newsletter.

• Alternatively you can recieve prayer requests and bible verses straight to your cell phone with our WOW text service!

What Happens If I Register?

When a group registers to join the 24-7 prayer chain you first:
1. Become a site member and fill in our online form.  Once your room is registered you can select the resources appropriate for your group.
2. Your church or group is then posted on the site diary.
3. The nearest 24-7 Base or Office will send the resources you specifically requested in your chosen language.
4. As your Prayer Room approaches a member of our prayer support team will contact you by email or phone to check that everything is running smoothly.
5. We try to be there for you all the way! The co-ordinator is supported throughout the planning stages and during the prayer-season itself.  We're here to help you solve problems and share stories of how God has moved.

Why Do You Need a Prayer Room?

"A Prayer Room is to the church what the heart is to the body." (The Praying Church Source Book)
Locating the prayer season in a specific location seems to be one of the keys to the effectiveness of 24-7. Why?

• The Holy Spirit can fill a place as well as a person (Acts 2.², 16.¹⁶). There's often a strong sense of God's presence in such a place of prayer, even experienced by non-Christians.

• Time often goes quicker! Many have reported that 'in the prayer room 1 hour feels like 10 minutes'

• Evangelistically the prayer room is excellent. Non-Christians have often sat in such places to pray, some have said that they can feel God's presence. People who don't want to be preached at still like to be prayed for.

• The prayer-room enables people to pray non-verbally, by posting artwork, poetry and graffiti on the wall. The environment can be artistically designed to stimulate and direct prayer.

• The room provides accountability - a place where people have to turn up, and this ensures a constant flow as one prayer-shift hands the baton onto the next. Visiting the room is like a mini-pilgrimage.

• A shared location provides a strong sense of being part of a community carrying each others' burdens, celebrating the breakthroughs together and ministering to one another. You are more than a link in a prayer chain.

Prayer rooms have been opened in all kinds of weird and wonderful locations:*** a barn in the English countryside,
*** a skate park in Switzerland,
*** a bus in the slums of Delhi,
*** a police station in London,
*** an office in Tulsa Oklahoma,
*** the U.S. Naval Academy,
*** a brewery in Missouri,
*** in tents,
*** in student basements,
*** campus chaplaincies and...
*** Oh yes church buildings 

"A Prayer Room helps a church look beyond itself, motivating it to unleash prayer power for the unsaved, the community, the nation, the church's missionaries, and the world." (The Praying Church Source Book)

Why Continual Prayer?

Because bold, persistent prayer is effective. First it changes us. Then it changes the world. Jesus told stories to encourage us to "cry out day and night" (Lk 18) and to persist in prayer.

• Pentecost came to a prayer room.

• Paul urged the Thessalonians to "pray constantly."

• The early church "joined together constantly in prayer." (Acts 1-14)

• Celtic Monks at Bangor Abbey in Ireland prayed continualy for 200 years. A young Celt called Ciaran formed a community in Clonmacnoise near Dublin back in 547AD. Sadly Ciaran died after just 7 months but the community prayed for about 1000 years and sent out missionaries all over the world!

• The pope decreed continual prayer in certain locations in the 15th century.

• In the 18th century, a small community of Moravians began a 24-7 prayer meeting that lasted for over a hundred years, mobilised 3000 missionaries and converted John Wesley! (check out 'Stuff' / Zinzendorf)

• Many revival centres today see 24 hour prayer as a necessity. 

"I HAVE POSTED
WATCHMEN ON YOUR
WALLS O JERUSALEM;
THEY WILL NEVER BE SILENT
DAY OR NIGHT. YOU WHO CALL
ON THE LORD GIVE YOURSELVES
NO REST, AND GIVE HIM NO
REST TILL HE ESTABLISHES
JERUSALEM AND MAKES
HER THE PRAISE OF THE
EARTH," ISAIAH
62:6+7

So What's Different About 24-7?

Simply the focus on youth and the way that the web is being used to link the prayer. 24-7 is not an orginization, its a network of like minded people. It all began by accident with a church called Revelation on the south coast of England and has snowballed, out of control, from there.

Is It Working?

24-7 Is truly making history! But don't take our word for it, here is what people are saying:

"We left the prayer room at 0435 madly and passionately in love with Jesus." (Teenager)  

"The vision behind 24-7 is directly from heaven.
It just works." (Church Leader, Germany)

"For years I've been trying to get my young people to have a heart for the lost and a desire to pray. Last night I found 8 of them on their faces in the prayer room at 0200 weeping for their non-Christian friends. What's happening?" (Youth pastor, UK)

"It is so important we come together to pray at such a time as this. 24-7 is well positioned to do just that." (George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury)

Why? - This Is Nothing New

24-7 is not a radical discovery. In fact it's the oldest, simplest idea there is... that we were made to walk in intimate friendship with God. 24-7 is just a way of getting as many people as possible to lock themselves in a room with God for an hour and see what happens.  Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is this...

"To love God."

That's it.

"I sincerely believe that we are now in the beginning stages of the greatest movement of prayer in living memory." (C. Peter Wagner)

"Our 24-7 week exceeded all expectations. It's been one of the most productive (yes - prayer is productive!) weeks I've ever known. People were saved. The lukewarm were ignited and unity made huge steps forward." (Ian, UK)

Why?  

Because we need miracles more than we need strategies
Because the world is a vacuum waiting to be filled
Because the MTV generation is lost in space
Because we've seen the end of the movie
Because this is not the dress rehearsal
Because the poor are getting poorer
Because we're aliens in the world
Because we're too sensible
Because boredom is sin
Because he's
worth it

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