"Freedom & Joy" - 22 Chinese Pastors experience a Prayer Room - 25 Oct 2016
We received this encouraging update from one of our 24-7 Prayer Asia leaders. It's a beautiful picture of how prayer rooms can be used to build up and encourage leaders:
“These amazing servants had never thought of prayer as being creative or interactive....”
We gathered to retreat in a mountain hostel: it was filled with twenty-two Chinese pastors and church planters, all eager to learn and grow. In the room there were prayer stations around the space, and we challenged the leaders to try experiencing a different form of prayer.
These amazing servants had never thought of prayer as being creative or interactive. So freedom, joy and vision resulted as they experienced the Father’s presence through these stations.
Brother W is a rural Chinese church planter who has worked among the poor for 20 years. At one of the stations exploring our identity in Christ, he stood before the mirror and asked the Lord how He sees him...
He heard the Holy Spirit whisper “Smart!” - an incredible revelation, as Brother W had been called stupid ever since he was a child. As he wrote this proclamation of God, he felt happiness and freedom. At the end of the time, the paper next to the mirror was covered with proclamations like Brother W’s as other leaders discovered more of who they were, in Jesus.
Another prayer station had four pots with different kinds of soil, with an invitation to ask God about the soil in our hearts. One sister, who believed her inner heart was filled with bad soil, received encouragement from the Holy Sprit that her heart is good and producing fruit - she walked away with joyful tears in her eyes.
"The room filled with a tangible sense of hope and faith..."
To replace the habit of complaining to God, we challenged everyone to write down declarations and thanksgiving on a large piece of paper at another station. The room filled with a tangible sense of hope and faith as we shared our encounters with the Lord.
Our community has been promoting 24-7 Prayer in China for 5 years now, and the momentum continues to grow. Recently, at the second 24-7 Prayer Asia Gathering in Singapore, I had a strong sense that Father God wants to birth a new wave of prayer across China. Sometimes, however, I wonder how this could happen in a nation this size.
The Chinese are known around the world as people of prayer - particularly by interceding in the midst of persecution. However, their prayer often takes the form of shouting requests instead of interacting with the Father. Now, we regularly hear testimonies of Chinese people encountering God and connecting with his heart in remarkable ways through prayer rooms.
During our retreat, as we listened to leaders from all over China share testimonies of how they encountered God, a friend leaned over to me and said: “This is how a fresh prayer movement begins in China!”
Inspired to run a prayer room? Head to our prayer pages for ideas and inspiration.
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