Scroll down to explore the story of how a single prayer room became a movement:
Inspired by the Moravians, a bunch of young people with a passion to see God move decided to try to pray night and day for a whole month. We started praying on 5 September 1999. One month turned to two, then three, then other communities started to join in…
In November of 1999, while the first prayer room was still going, we gathered with other passionate young people at a conference, and God sparked a vision for what could happen next. Could churches around the United Kingdom conspire to fill a whole year, the year of the new millennium, with prayer?
“‘If anyone wants to pray non-stop for a week or more with their friends next year, let me know afterwards,’ I said, looking dubiously down at the dusky crowd on the circular dance floor. ‘Maybe we could fill the whole of next year with prayer.’ A cheer of approval rose from the floor, and in a flush of enthusiasm I would soon regret, I added, ‘We’ll try and hook it all up online.’ Everyone cheered again. I jumped down from my pulpit to discover that we had, effectively, just launched a prayer movement.”
- Pete Greig, Red Moon Rising
We kicked off the year of 24-7 Prayer with a prayer event in a nightclub in Guildford, England. 13 people gave their lives to Jesus on that night, and it felt like the start of something bigger than we’d dreamed. The whole year was covered in non-stop, day and night prayer – and the prayer still hasn’t stopped.
Words written by Pete Greig on the wall of the first prayer room were emailed all over the world. Soon, they went viral. The words went on to be shared across the USA and Europe, performed at a festival in Spain and published in The Way magazine, reaching 100,000 underground churches in China.
“I didn’t realise any of this until someone in Canada emailed my own poem to me saying they had come across it and thought I might like it,”
- Pete Greig
Inspired by hours in the prayer room, the relationship between prayer and mission was pioneered by our first mission teams, who travelled to pray, listen to God and see what happened. They came back with stories of people meeting with God in extraordinary ways.
Fuelled by enthusiasm and excitement at God’s presence in Prayer Rooms, we gathered together in the place where non-stop prayer began to share stories, worship and pray together. This first 24-7 Prayer Gathering began a regular rhythm of meeting together annually, growing each year in number of attendees and nations represented.
When we realised that the prayer wasn’t slowing down, we decided to do all that we could to support what God was doing. 24-7 Prayer officially launched, looking to support and catalyse non-stop prayer, mission, and justice wherever God would lead.
Launching out of the prayer and mission teams in Ibiza the year before, we started the first summer team of what would become 24-7 Ibiza, seeking to transform the experiences of partygoers by introducing them to Jesus, driving the “Vomit Van”, and sharing practical help and the love of God night after night.
24-7 Prayer Rooms expanded out of the UK and into European nations, with people championing non-stop prayer in Spain, Switzerland and Germany.
Pete Greig, 24-7 Prayer’s founder, wrote the story of how God turned one prayer room into three years of non-stop prayer. Its publication marked a turning point, and we are amazed at the way it continues to transform people’s lives.
The prayer movement crossed the Atlantic, with communities devoting themselves to non-stop prayer and setting up 24-7 Prayer USA.
Inspired by the original Order of the Mustard Seed from the 18th Century, we created a new Order with the same key rules of life: to be true to Christ, to be kind to people, and to take the gospel to the nations.
Pete Greig’s next book, exploring what to do when we don’t feel like our prayers are answered, was released.
“The Christian witness and our ultimate hope is not merely a miraculous succession of miraculous escapes from all human affliction. Rather it is the joy of a deepening relationship with the “man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isa. 53:3 NIV 1984) who loves us and lives in us.”
Pete Greig, God on Mute
Four different people in four different places in the UK had the same idea: what if we could take the concept of a 24-7 Prayer Room into schools to help children engage with prayer for themselves? Prayer Spaces in Schools was born, and it launched this year.
24-7 Prayer was established in Asia and in the Middle East, with individuals and communities pioneering non-stop prayer, mission, and justice.
Loretto is a charismatic Catholic community born out of Austria and operating all over Europe. Our friendship with them has strengthened and grown, encouraging a beautiful ecumenical unity around prayer.
We created the Prayer Course to help churches, communities, and individuals go deeper in prayer.
In 2015, we had the joy of seeing the Prayer Course run in more than 100 prisons!
Cardinal Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, invited us to celebrate 15 years of 24-7 Prayer in St Stephen’s Cathedral – and his own palace! This celebration welcomed people from all around the world, all different walks of life, and a wide array of church denominations in a humbling display of unity before God.
“How on earth did we get here? I wondered. All we ever did was hide ourselves away to pray in a back-street warehouse in a nowhere town. We didn’t know anyone famous, didn’t have any money, didn’t have a plan, weren’t even trying to start a movement. And yet here we were, fifteen years later, thousands of us, fathered from many nations, getting photobombed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope.”
– Pete Greig, Dirty Glory
We partnered with the Anglican Church to support the launch of Thy Kingdom Come, a week of non-stop prayer leading up to Pentecost focused on praying for others to come to know Jesus. It has grown and expanded into an annual, global initiative across the Anglican Church
Now-famous words posted on the wall of the first prayer room were transformed into a video to reach a new generation.
With incredible expressions of prayer, mission, and justice, the first 24-7 Prayer team in Africa launched in South Africa.
This UK-based festival is a joint venture with 24-7 Prayer, Worship Central, Bible Society, Pioneer, Fusion, Big Church Festival and Tearfund, all based around a hunger for revival. We gather around Camp Fires that deepen friendships and community; pursuing together Holy Fire through worship, prayer and teaching; and encountering the Wild Fire of the Holy Spirit to take back to our homes, communities and our nations.
We launched our first app! Inner Room is born, equipping people to pray for the things that matter to them, and turning a phone into a portable prayer room.
Just a year after the success of Inner Room, we launched Lectio 365, a daily devotional app based on the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, to help people pray the Bible every day. We had no idea that just months later, thousands of people would use the app to meet with God in their homes in the midst of the global Covid-19 pandemic.
During the coronavirus pandemic, we worked to resource the church as we all navigated through a global crisis. We helped churches run virtual prayer rooms, and our Coronavirus Prayer resources were produced in 16 languages, with 80,000 page views.
We couldn’t meet in person, but we were determined to gather however we could – so we hosted 7,500 delegates online for a virtual 24-7 Prayer Gathering.
Pete Greig’s bestselling book How To Pray was adapted for children, giving the opportunity for 8-11 year olds to encounter God and learn about 24-7 Prayer.
Brian Heasley, 24-7 Prayer’s International Prayer Director, released his book Be Still to equip people to build their relationship with God in quiet times. At the same time, we launched the Be Still Series, a five-part small group video series based on the book.
Our existing prayer course designed to help young people to pray was adapted into a video series for youth groups.
We returned to Belfast, UK, to celebrate the first in-person 24-7 Prayer event since Covid-19.
After many years of friendship and discernment, we officially partnered with Waverley Abbey with a vision to create a new abbey for a new generation – a hub of encounter, education, enterprise and engagement.
The launch of 24-7 Prayer Peru quickly became a powerful opportunity for churches across the nation to discover the power of non-stop prayer.
Our daily devotional app, now reaching hundreds of thousands of English-speakers, was launched in Spanish to bring daily devotional content to the Spanish speaking world.
We created the 24-7 Prayer Podcast to share some of the incredible stories from the adventure so far.
The arrival of 24-7 Prayer Australia and New Zealand means that there are 24-7 Prayer teams on all six inhabited continents!
There are official 24-7 Prayer teams in: England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Sweden, Canada, USA, Peru, South Africa, Lebanon, Malaysia, Iran, Australia, New Zealand, and Colombia.
When we started that first prayer room back in 1999, we had no idea that the prayer would continue for 25 years! God has taken us on a wild adventure, from the nightclubs of Ibiza to the cathedrals of Vienna, in prayer rooms, caravans, churches and schools, creating apps and books, courses and charities. We celebrate the God of the immeasurably more, who has done beyond what we could have asked or imagined.
