To be honest when we sensed the prompting of God to do this, it was a real step of faith for us. We are a Presbyterian church, and while we have some real "pray-ers" in the church, often when we call people to prayer it's always the same 6 who turn up! This 24-7 week has been different. We set the room up to have a broad appeal for youth through to our more elderly folk....

 

We dedicated it after church and kicked off praying straight away. There has been someone praying in the room almost non stop ever since - people just keep on signing up!

 

I really didn't expect it to go this well! I thought "well even if we have 20 people sign up it's still more prayer going on than we usually have."   But the response to this has just been incredible from young men who have signed up for 5 hours in the early hours of the morning to a 90 year old lady who's a founding member of the church coming to play her part.	"I went in and as soon as I opened the door I felt the presence of God - He was reaching out for me so I started to pray."

People have gone into the room saying "I don't know whether I'll be able to last a whole hour," and have emerged saying "the hour just flew by, I don't know where the time went!" and have signed themselves up for a two hour stint. 

 

Some have been moved to tears as they have read the prayers posted at the wailing wall.   There are prayers of re- commitment stuck to a large cross - paintings depicting peoples thoughts and responses to God. There are prophetic words stuck on the walls that people have received as they have prayed.	"We had a combined service with our various congregations all coming together to pray for our community - our nation and the nations."

I was so thrilled on Pentecost Sunday. We were getting set up for our
church service and a young guy I had never seen before came up to me wanting
to tell me about what happened to him in the prayer room. I was flat out
trying to get ready for the service, but I said I really want to know and
handed him a pad and paper and suggested he write down his experience.

Here's what he wrote:

"Hi my name is Sam and I'm writing about the prayer room. Well I went to the prayer room with two of my mates.

Isn't this cool! I was just blown away when I read it. Praise God! He is at work in our little Presbyterian Church.   We had gone all out for the Global Day of Prayer - decorating the church auditorium with all the stuff out of the prayer room - and having a combined service with our various congregations all coming together to pray for our community - our nation and the nations.	"There is no doubt in our minds that this has been a significant time for our church."

We included a feedback/testimony time from the prayer room. It was great to hear of how people had connected with God in a fresh way in that room. There is no doubt in our minds that this has been a significant time for our church.

 

We finished the day off with a banquet celebrating Pentecost Sunday and the birthday of the church during which a friend came up to my wife and said "why are you guys going to all this trouble - organising all this stuff - you're gonna' burn yourselves out, and what's it all for anyway?" (he hadn't even bothered to come and look at the prayer room let alone pray).

We hadn't read Sam's letter until we got home, when we did we knew what it was all for. We know that this side of glory some of what we do will look like stupidity to some, but we are convinced God is doing something here and we are greatly encouraged.

 

In many ways we know this is just the beginning of something for us.

 

Report by Neil White, Discovery Christian Centre, Hamilton, New Zealand