Big Brother Prayer RoomScot Bower - 8 Sep 2010

Some of you may remember that earlier in the summer I blogged about a Prayer Room in Sheffield, England that was running as a Big Brother house, complete with Diary Room and live video streaming housemates were locked away for a week… and prayed 24-7.

Aside from sounding like a crazy, hilarious experiment, one of the most original Prayer Rooms we have ever heard of, and a great way to raise money for charity (the guys raised a massive amount of money for a charity called The Grass Roots Trust which will help school 10 children in Tanzania.) The BB experiment had local impact and purpose too:

We just need more and more and more creative ways of engaging with both prayer and youth culture at the same time!  Why should we be embarrassed or quiet about the way we want to live and the values we hold and the things we are expecting and praying for?  So this was us being who we are and trying to provoke more prayer in ourselves, our youth community, our churches and the wider community in general – and letting everyone and anyone see us do it!  This was certainly not a ‘look at us, we’re great at praying’ – this was much more a ‘we really need a kick up the bum to get us going ‘cos we don’t pray enough, so let’s jump in the deep end ‘cos it’s about time we stopped pussyfooting around.

You can read all about how the week went and why this young church opted to pray 24/7 BB style over on the 24-7 Prayer UK site where Andrea Percy interviews Joel Toombs one of the organisers.