Jon Petersen: A Life Less Ordinary

Published: November 2nd, 2009

Andy Freeman, author of Punk Monk and pioneer of the first 24-7 Boiler Room, is stepping down from his international role to train for ordination.  Meet the man God has called to take 24-7 Communities on the next leg of their journey…

Jon Petersen has lived a fascinating life.  Three continents, three languages, and thousands of friends, prayers and experiences have shaped Jon into one of the Fathers within the 24-7 movement...

As a missionary kid growing up in Japan, his late teens were punctuated by God breaking in and bringing Jon and nine of his friends to salvation on the same night.  Becoming acutely aware of God’s reality and nearness in the middle of a massive thunder storm he likes to joke that God “scared the hell” out him.

After meeting his wife Mindy at Biola University in the early 1970s, they went on to live a far-from-ordinary life. Together they have participated in over 50 church andministry plants including establishing a YWAM base in the city of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.  Jon and Mindy raised their son and two daughters living and praying among the arts community and sex industry of the famous European party hub. The base they helped establish is still blessing the city even today.

Talk with Jon and it doesn’t take long before you sense his “father” heart to see the Body of Christ growing in depth and number. Share a drink and a conversation and you ultimately leave feeling encouraged and edified.  Seeing as it is unlikely that the thousands of readers of 24-7prayer.com will get a chance to do just that, we’d love to introduce you to him as best we can.

Why is he serving 24-7 Prayer, what is he passionate to see and why is he stepping into a new role as 24-7 Prayer’s International Communities Team Leader?  We’ll let Jon explain…

“What am I passionate about?  Well… I love what it says in Acts 1:14, that they (Jesus’ followers) were gathered steadfast in prayer in one accord. I’m passionate to see us marry being unified as a tribe to the work of prayer that would move into disciple making. I’m passionate to ultimately see entire communities blessed, see the church hit the streets, see people saved,” says Jon.

“24-7 Prayer has centered me. I needed simplicity. 24-7 has brought me back to see prayer as a lifestyle not an activity. That was the chip missing in city transformation.

In the 1990s when I worked with a community-transformation-focused ministry in the Bay Area I got a little frustrated wondering how this expression of church would really transform cities. God gently said to me “My church in the form it is in can never reach the city”. So I asked God “What do I do with that?” God was using that season to introduce me to His Kingdom and how it works. Moving into 24-7 it married some of that together and took on a new wineskin but didn’t discard the old. I long to see the church be more kingdom focused, but at the same time we need to make sure our hearts stay in love with the body of Christ at large.

I’m very excited about feeding into 24-7 communities around the world and the people I get to work with! Just the nature of leading with a team rather than leading as an individual – working as a collective not  concerned about being ‘stars’. Anybody can plant a church or make disciples.

It’s not about the models of church it’s about the lifestyles of those in the movement. The models will change, but the heart is simply doing life with Jesus every day, letting that intoxicate those who don’t know Jesus, and helping them make disciples that make disciples, and so on.

I’m passionate about the young guys, and developing them as leaders. We can be a community and lead as community leaders. We’ll see a lot more leadership development in the years to come – development which is about the person, training which is about learning the skills of leading, and sending which is about reproduction.

I would love to see a church plant movement where each community has children of their own.  Communities making and discipling communities. I see Europe as a primary focus for a while, blessing that continent with new expressions of church community, and from there we may move into Africa and the Middle East.  Let’s see where God takes us.”

Find out more about 24-7 Communities and join us in praying for Jon Petersen as he takes on this strategic international role.  Together we look to see the Kingdom of Jesus established throughout the earth and a new chapter in the 24-7 story begin…

Sheena Littlehale is from Portland, Oregon and came to England in 2009 to work with 24-7 Prayer. God, art, travel, photography, music, prayer, justice, reading, writing, coffee and dark chocolate with a high cocoa content are all things Sheena is passionate about. You can keep up with Sheena's adventures in England through her blog.

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