A Year in the Life of 24-7 PrayerAndy Freeman - 26 Dec 2007

“24-7 prayer exists to transform the world through movements and communities of Christ-centred and mission-minded prayer.” The 24-7 Prayer Vision Statement

It’s been another surprising and extraordinary year in the life of 24-7 Prayer.  In October 2007, the 24-7 family met together for our annual Round Table in Seville, Spain.  50 leaders gathered from three continents to draw together what God has been doing amongst us.  

2007 had been a year of contrasts: a year of implementing a new structure for the movement and a year of explosive, almost uncontainable growth.  It’s been a year of answered prayers and stories of healing, but also a year of questions and silence.  As we met together, we felt God prompting us to pray, to take time to listen and to try and make sense of what God was doing amongst us.   

Loving God: The Heart of it All

Every year at the Round Table we hope to corporately hear the heart of what God wants to communicate to us for the coming year and beyond.  This year was no different.  In anticipation for the Round Table and the Feast, there was a growing sense that God’s word to us for the year ahead was quite sober.   The call... 24-7 Prayer: live up to your name.

It seems kind of obvious.  We are among those who, by praying though our particular culture, are led to be people of action as well.  We have gained a reputation for putting hands and feet to our prayers, for cleaning up vomit from the passed-out party tourists in Ibiza, washing the hair of prostitutes in Boys Town and helping young people who wouldn’t normally grace a prayer meeting find passion in praying creatively.

But in the midst of it all (the wild number of hits on our site, the thousands of young people who are being changed by intimacy with God, the missions trips, the flash of being a popular brand,) are we, the core of the community, really and truly living up to our name?  Are we praying like those who believe that it is the most important thing we can do?

Just as Napoleon famously challenged a cowardly soldier who shared his name to live up to it or change it, God, in a firm yet very kind way, is challenging us to live up to our name.   

‘You did not choose me, but I chose you’ John 15:16a

Loving each other: being a movement

As we met as a Round Table we were conscious that 2007 had been a year of implementation - of a new structure and way of relating to each other across nations.  In London the year before, a new International Leadership Team had been commissioned.  Three streams of our movement had been recognised - Prayer, Communities and Operations.  Finally, a new structure for leadership had been proposed and implemented at national levels.

We continue to work at including all the diverse nations that are part of 24-7 Prayer.  We face challenges of terminology and language.  We talked honestly about our successes and where things hadn’t gone so well.  

Most of all at the Round Table, we were all struck once again by the depth of friendship God had given us, and by the amazing work that he is doing amongst us.  We hope that as we continue to develop, our frameworks and structures will give space for new growth and we cherish and honour most of all our commitment to each other and being relational in all that we do.

It was appropriate that one of the most holy moments of our weekend gathering in Seville (where over 200 24-7 activists gathered) was a Feast, a celebration of all God is doing and an enjoyment of our shared lives within this thing called 24-7 Prayer.  That Saturday night will remain my abiding memory of our time in Seville.

‘This is my command: Love each other’ John 15:17

Loving The World:  Giving ourselves to mission

As a grassroots movement, there is no one way that we do mission, our practical loving of the world around us. The heart of God is endlessly creative and this is displayed in the variety of ways we, as communities, are reaching out to our neighbours.  The common thread seems to be that intimacy with God leads us out into the creative ways he opens for us to make an impact. Rather than prescribed methods of outreach, it’s the listening and the following that is most similar from place to place.  We’ve commissioned two new 24-7 Nations:

24-7 Ireland (which officially launched in October 07) has seen a year of prayer in the Methodist Church, prayer rooms across the island with some incredible stories of answered prayer.  

24-7 New Zealand is seeing prayer rooms across both the North and South Islands.  Jay Lucas told us of the impact on the Salvation Army, prayer rooms in churches and of his dreams for change across the nation.

In Skopje, Macedonia, the Glasnost community of about 25 people was sent out from their church as a new community about 1 year ago.  Recently, they felt God nudging them to step out and say something about the human trafficking in their city.  There are many young women forced into prostitution there from countries around the region.  With just a couple of hundred Euros behind them, they went into the streets with their t-shirts and their petitions.  

As they gathered 2,500 signatures they found a local politician impacted by what they had done.  Staff from the American Embassy showed up wanting to know who had sponsored them and how they could help with something like this in the future.  The Police Department invited them to attend a conference with people working against trafficking and the community saw that a group of Christians cared.  Glasnost, because they followed the lead of the Lord, was able to demonstrate to the city that God values people.  

From the United States, Wendy Andrews brought us news from what God is doing on campuses in the United States.  In Ohio, Allison Brooks has spearheaded a joining together of campus leaders to initiate prayer across their state.  17 campuses joined to cover 40 days of prayer. Next spring 40 campuses in Ohio will cover 40 days of non-stop prayer.  This is a taste of what God is up to at universities in the U.S.

And there are many more stories to tell: thousands of prayer requests gathered from the clubs and bars of Ibiza, Spain, the women who’s lives have been changed in Boystown in the city of Reynosa, Mexico, from the village in Ramsdorf, Germany who have been impacted by the 24-7 Boiler Room there.  Our conclusion is that God is faithful and that God is at work.

‘to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last’  John 15:16b

Living up to our name

So we left Seville and we end 2007, determined once again to pray, and then to pray some more.  To seek out intimacy with God and then to live that out in our lives and in our communities.

“If we will live up to our name, God says that we will look back and shake our heads in wonder at the doors which have swung open to us – into nations and networks we never dreamed of.... today’s nobodies will speak to rulers because they first learned to speak to Him...The Lord longs to give us a new awareness of what is possible, and of what is not impossible, if we will only believe in Him.”

Pete Greig, Friday night, 19 of October 07