24-7 Prayer: Prayer, Mission and Justice

Cell Church UK magazine - 22nd june 2001

The 24-7 Prayer Movement started by accident back in september 1999 when a bunch of student cells in Chichester got the insane idea of trying to pray non-stop for a month in 1 hour shifts. To our utter amazement it 'worked' - God showed up - and we couldn't stop til Christmas!

We then watched in disbelief as our single Prayer Room multiplied itself all around the world. 24-7 has become a non-stop prayer movement with Prayer rooms everywhere from Alaska to Australia via Malawi and Malasia. The Salvation Army currently has 90 'Corps' registered to pray through the year. In their Nottingham Prayer Room a few weeks ago, 5 people came to Christ including a man just 4 days before he died.

Participating groups pledge to pray 24 hours a day for a week or more in a dedicated room. They then carry the baton of prayer for that period. 100's of these non-stop prayer meetings now link on the web to form an unbroken chain of intercession and breakthrough. Right now someone somewhere is praying 24-7.

We nicked the original idea of trying to pray for a month from the gloriously named Count Ludwig Nicholas Von Zinzendorf who mobilised a non-stop prayer meeting in 18th century Germany that continued for 100 years. We figured that if they could do a century (whilst mobilising 3000 missionaries, converting John Wesley and wearing extraordinary wigs) that we could surely manage 1 month. It seemed a great idea until we got out our calculators and realised just how many hours there are in a month.

Interestingly Zinzendorf might be called the father of the modern cell movement, in that he devised a 'Choir System' by which he divided the Moravian community into small discipleship groups homogenously. When Wesley was converted (through Moravians) he went straight to Zinzendorf for initial discipleship and undoubtedly developed his Methodist 'Class' System from there.

The rest is (cell-church) history! The relationship between 24-7 and the cell movement has been strong from the start. Having transitioned our church (Revelation) into cells over a 2 year process, we were at an interesting stage of development. The cells were working quite well amongst the young people but we knew that God was calling us to pray. We sensed that the wineskins needed new wine - little to do with going to the front of a meeting - more to do with personal vibrancy with God. The cell structure needed spiritual life, the body needed blood. We were strong on project and weak on prayer. I remember being challenged by Joy Dawson's words: 'Anything not born in prayer is born in pride."

As a church leader I was stunned by the fruitfulness of the Prayer Rooms in discipling and maturing people. And - embarrassing to admit - quite surprised to find so many prayers being actually - er - answered! One new Christian who had been through all the Ralph Neighbour material and much excellent input went and said that he'd learned more from being alone with God in the Prayer room than anything else!

Whenever we run Prayer Rooms (which we do seasonally now as part of our church rhythm) Cell groups will book out evenings to pray together. Some do sleep-overs and wake one another through the night to 'keep watch'. A new Christian who was about as unchurched as it is possible to be loved the Prayer room and would copy things she found written on the walls into a small notebook.

As 24-7 has grown, it has had a strong relationship with Fusion - the student cell movement. Many Student groups now choose to combine a week of 24-7prayer with their conventional WEEK-LONG MISSIONS. At Spring Harvest an older lady stepped into one of the 24-7Prayer Rooms and said something wonderful: "If these young people here tonight are the next generation our world is in safe hands." I'm not at all sure about that - but at least we are learning to pray like never before. It's exciting because the history books show clearly that when God's people pray, the tide invariably turns.

Without prayer, all our cell strategising will be lifeless, and without cell all our praying could be a flash in the pan. Together, as God lovingly reforms and renews the church, the future seems bright.

Peter Wagner, the church growth expert says "I sincerely believe that we are now in the beginning stages of the greatest movement of prayer in living memory." If 24-7 is part of that, God really does have to take all the credit - it's been his thing from the start.

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