Southampton House ofPrayer (SoHOP) is a prayer initiative organised by Christians from across several churches. We have set our hearts on moving towards God every day and we are learning to pray in all kinds of ways for our city, our nation, and our world. We are organised into a network of small houses of prayer (small-HOPs), usually no more than 6 people. So far there are 7 of these and each has its own rhythm of meeting and praying. We also run a daily prayer line for the city (by text) and something we call “Pray 168”-a prayer rota for people to commit to a specific hour slot each week. So far 50 slots are taken but we are aiming to ge tall 168 hours covered every week. We also help to run a monthly city prayer meeting.
Following the advice of the 24-7 Prayer Communities team, we began our journey in 2018 by calling out for anyone interested in a 24-7 prayer room to come forward and join a discernment community. We met each week for 9 months, 20 people from 12 different churches. We ate together, learnt together and prayed together. We hosted our first prayer room from January 2019 for 24 hours each week and then in September 2020 were organised into small-HOPs (communities of 6 or less) We continued our links with the 24-7 Prayer family and in November 2020 were officially recognized and commissioned to serve Southampton in prayer.
