During April, after a year in a small office near St Paul’s Cathedral, we’re relocating the 24-7 UK base to new premises in the City of London – these have also been generously given to us by Christians in the business community. The new base (along with a new Boiler Room in-the-City, for-the-City) is in a famous area of London, where God has moved powerfully in the past - particularly in the days of John Bunyan, George Whitefield and John and Charles Wesley.

We’ll be in the basement of a building on Tabernacle Street, which meets Worship Street (!) and is a few hundred metres from Moorfields – the place where Whitefield and the Wesley brothers broke with tradition and turned to field-preaching for the first time.

 

Staring at these streets it is easy to sense the striking words of Jesus, who responded to the voice of religion as the people shouted his praises, ‘I tell you the truth, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.’ If only these walls could speak…

 

Many equate Wesley’s dramatic ministry with his famous house and chapel on City Road, but John was only based there for the last 15 years of his work (his house is now a museum and a wonderful place to visit and pray in, if you’re interested?).

 

John Wesley’s world-wide work didn’t begin there. Having visited Count Zinzendorf and the Moravian community (who were praying night-and-day by then) in Herrnhut, Germany, where he was deeply impacted by God, Wesley returned to London.	'Maybe this is simply another example of the God who loves to do way more than we can imagine, who loves to give to ‘little people’ like us. Maybe God is laughing loudly again? I like to think so....'

He then spent time with the Fetter Lane Moravians and there encountered Jesus in a fresh way. Shortly afterwards, in 1739, he purchased an empty government building, ‘The Foundery’, which had been used for casting cannons. Wesley and his friends quickly converted ‘The Foundery’ into a chapel and place of prayer, and they launched their new movement on 11th November, 1739. The rest as we know is (Methodist) history… but this is where it all gets incredibly exciting.

 

 

Maybe you’re thinking, as we have done (repeatedly!), “What on earth are the chances of that?!” If we’d tried to plan this (and certainly none of us here are clever enough) it would probably have proved impossible. But with God nothing is impossible…

 

Jeremiah once said to God’s people, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11), and I wonder to myself, “did God plan all this?” Was 24-7prayer ‘just an accident’, way back in 1999, or was there more to it? Certainly, so much seems to have been subtly guided by God as we look back on the last 5 years of 24-7.

 

Maybe this is simply another example of the God who loves to do way more than we can imagine, who loves to give to ‘little people’ like us. Maybe God is laughing loudly again? I like to think so.

 

This all reminds of what someone once said to the famous rock legend, Bono, ‘Get in on what God’s doing and you’ll find yourself blessed.’ True… very true.

 

 

In his introduction to ‘General Rules of the Society’, John Wesley refers to ‘The Foundery’ by saying; “In the latter end of the year 1739, 8-10 people came to me in London and desired that I would spend some time with them in prayer (amazing symmetry with 24-7prayer eh?). This was the rise of the United Society.” He then continues, “It was soon after the consecration of the Foundery that 12 came the first night, 40 the second night and soon after a 100.”

John Wesley

Wesley worked from this base throughout the nations from 1739-1778, before relocating to the now famous Wesley’s Chapel, just around the corner on City Road. To show the great historical significance of this place, the launch of ‘the Foundery’ was celebrated world-wide by Methodists 100 years on, in it’s centenary year of 1839.

 

Maybe it was while wrestling with God on this very ground that John Wesley found himself crying out to God with words that have now become world famous, “The world is my parish”, and “Nothing happens except by prayer…”

But let’s dig a little deeper…

 

Events leading up to the launch of ‘the Foundery’ included the Wesley brothers and Whitefield discovering that the doors of many churches, especially in the Anglican parishes, were completely closed to them. As a result, they broke with tradition and began preaching to the masses in the fields. This took them largely to the poorest of the poor - sometimes tens of thousands gathered to hear the gospel, often with very powerful and unusual signs of God convicting and convincing people of Christ.

 

Here we find ourselves asking, ‘What is the modern expression of field-preaching today?’

 

We also see incredible symmetry, and find great encouragement, in the life of the Foundery and some of the 24-7 Boiler Rooms values; simplicity, equality for all (no one could claim any special seat or place), missions training and continual weekly prayer gatherings (at least twice a week), social holiness (which we embrace today as part of God’s justice for all) and it was also a place of pilgrimage.

'At ‘the Foundery', John Wesley, and countless nameless and faceless others, lived and breathed their lives of prayer - they preached, prayed, served, studied and secretly schemed to turn the tide in their time....'

Even the name ‘foundery’ evokes deep imagery - an invitation to become shaped by God and filled with God’s Spirit, like living parables, as in the days of the Wesleys. At ‘the Foundery, John Wesley, and countless nameless and faceless others, lived and breathed their lives of prayer - they preached, prayed, served, studied and secretly schemed to turn the tide in their time.

 

Maybe 24-7 Boiler Rooms will become a new network of places for pilgrimage and prayer across the nations? Prayer rooms that provide real living rooms – places for organic communities of prayer, mission and justice to be born and grow, like grass through concrete, all over the nations in our generation. It is also amazing to see this all unfold at a time when the Methodist movement are returning to their radical roots of prayer, justice and mission.

 

In June this year, the UK Methodist movement start their first-ever year of perpetual 24-7prayer, something that didn’t even happen in Wesley’s day. Maybe he dreamed and prayed that the night-and-day prayer he experienced and loved in Herrnhut would one day spread throughout the Methodists in the UK? No doubt he’s cheering on from amongst that great crowd of witnesses somewhere…	The Foundery building in Wesley's day

This has provoked my thoughts to wander further … Geography appears to have great importance to God. Think of Abraham’s altars and covenants. Later, Jacob encountered God generations after his grandfather, on the same spot at Bethel.

 

David, king for 33 years, grows up in little, dusty Bethlehem, and then God decides that his Son should be born in that same middle-of-nowhere, re-named by the angels at the birth of Jesus, ‘the town of David.’	'God desires a movement, not a monument....'

We could go on – the Reading Boiler Room previously sat on the site of an ancient abbey, and now our UK base is sitting on the site of Wesley’s first base. God loves movement but he also loves land, his creation. God wants us to keep moving but he also wants to keep reminding us God is with us (we humans have a bad habit of forgetting our past!).

 

Church history, sadly, reveals that even the best history-makers and authentic movements can eventually become living (or literal!) monuments, little more than museums to the past. God desires a movement not a monument.

 

So, on the same day that a few of us first began to stumble across this extraordinary symmetry (through some persistent research), a couple of us also popped into ‘The Prophet’ bar/restaurant, just around the corner to Tabernacle Street (ironic, eh?).

 

As we ate, and attempted to engage the waitress in discussions about the name of the restaurant, an older gentleman at the next table leaned across to answer our question, “it’s because of Wesley”. Guess who? No, not John Wesley… although you’re close. Our lunch-time friend was the current Methodist minister for John Wesley’s Chapel on City Road, Leslie Griffiths, who's doing some excellent work in the local community alongside other churches in the area.

 

Another day walking with God. We look back on this and we hear Heaven’s whisper urging us all to remain his faithful, ‘little people’, bright lights in these dark days. We remember the five simple words, spoken to a handful of doubting, mind-blown friends and followers of Jesus, as if they are being spoken by the same Jesus to us now, ‘I am with you, always.’ Remember.

 

What if this was another divine conspiracy, or as Joel would put it, a ‘sign on the earth below’ for the army of the Red Moon? God is pouring his Spirit out on all people, in all nations in our lifetime, like never before in a generation. Keep dreaming. Conspiracy is breathing once again…

 

‘To Jesus, who is able to do far more than we can even ask or ever imagine…’ Ephesians 3:20
                                                                                           

For further reading and research you can check out these web-links:

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap(The Foundery was on Tabernacle St, between Worship St and Bonhill St).