Many of the questions and more are addressed in our free ‘How to Run a 24-7 Prayer Room’ guide:

Are we big enough to pray non-stop?

Good question! It only takes 24 people to pledge an hour a day to fill a week. If you feel your group isn’t big enough, you can join with other groups or Churches in your area to fill the week together. If you truly feel you are not big enough to fill a week then try a day or weekend to give people a taster of non-stop prayer.

Do we need a prayer room?

Many people comment that they feel the presence of God when they enter a prayer room. Pilgrimage to a prayer room is part of the 24-7 prayer experience. Having a physical space kitted out with arts materials and suggestions for prayer provides a creative environment. As the room begins to fill with people’s prayers and heart cries, it can reveal what God is doing in the lives of your group and helps with accountability as you pass the baton of 24 hour prayer.

Of course, you can also run a virtual prayer room if you’re unable to have a physical space, or are looking to bring people from different time zones together in non-stop prayer.

Wouldn’t it be better to build up gradually?

There’s something about the extreme challenge of 24-7 Prayer that makes it work! There are always a million good reasons to put it off and no one ever feels truly prepared to go for it the first time, but the sheer nature of continual prayer means you have to depend on God from the beginning.

If your group is particularly small then you can register for two or three days with your first room!

Who can organise 24-7 Prayer?

A 24-7 Prayer Room can be organised by anyone with a heart and passion to see people meeting with God. We do recommend though that it be organised with the approval of your Church/youth group/CU leadership. If you are not in leadership, meet with the appropriate people, share the vision and offer to make it happen!

Ideally 24-7 Prayer will be organised by a team of people, with people who can help organise the practical aspects of having a physical or virtual 24-7 Prayer Room, someone creative to bring together creative prayer space vision and activities, as well as someone who is good at motivating and mobilizing people.

How long do we pray for?

We suggest considering these factors when thinking about how long would be appropriate for your community to pray for:

• The strength of your group’s sense of community

• Often what makes a prayer room work is not the number of people you have, but the sense of community within your group. One group of 20 students in Belfast found that they couldn’t stop after their week of prayer and a Church of 100 in London prayed for 15 weeks!

• Your group’s rhythm of prayer

• A week is long enough to be a challenge but short enough to be an achievable goal for most groups. Wherever possible we recommend that groups don’t continue to pray unless they are confident they can fill any additional time. It is better to end a week on a high with a hunger for more time with God, than to continue and burn everyone out.

Can we choose the length of our prayer slots?

You can! There are options to pray for 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hour or 6 hour slots.

What if we can’t stop?

Good problem! Keep it going as long as there is life in it. We suggest that in this situation you organise a monthly review meeting to take the pulse and decide whether to extend for another block of time. Please never announce that you are going to keep going indefinitely unless you have been building up to this for a long time.

What about our other church commitments?

We suggest that you build the practise of 24-7 prayer into your ongoing church life, in seasons.

You might consider building your calendar around the following:

1. A season of prayer (intimacy, intercession, reflection, worship, creative expression, self discipline, fasting etc)
2. A season of mission (this gives a focus to the time of prayer and a fruitful outworking of it evangelistically)
3. A season of fun (a time with fewer meetings, where we have time to enjoy being alive, to model the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, to be with friends and family and renew our strength)

How much does it cost?

Signing up to 24-7 Prayer won’t cost you anything, we offer all our Prayer Room Resources for free.

Your physical 24-7 Prayer Room can cost whatever you want it to. You can make a creative space with inspiration for prayer from what you already have, but we recommend budgeting something towards pens, paper, paints, materials and refreshments.

(If your community would like to donate to the ongoing work of 24-7 Prayer, you can do so here)

Any advice on where a 24-7 Prayer room should be?

Choose somewhere central for those travelling in at night. Make sure it’s also secure and safe for those using it. A phone is an important feature. Remember that there will be noise throughout the night as people come and go so consider neighbours etc.

Ideally the room should be big enough to move around in (there’s a lot of prayer ‘pacers’ out there!) and big enough to take groups without being too enormous for atmosphere and intimacy.

What if it doesn’t work?

No worries! Just stop, relax and realise that even though you didn’t reach your target, you’ve mobilised a time of sustained prayer!