24-7 UK Steps Up Involvement in ParliamentPhil Anderson - 16 Jan 2008

“Who are you here to see”? The security guard at the entrance to Portcullis House fixes me with an officious stare while passing my coat, bag, and pocket contents through an airport style x-ray machine. Behind him, two policemen with sub-machine guns (still a pretty rare sight in the UK) keep a watchful eye on proceedings.
“David Landrum”, I reply, trying to sound as if I do this every day.
“OK, you can go through.”
On the other side of the glass barrier, Dave is waiting for me. We grab a coffee and sit down to talk about what has brought us both to this place.

David Landrum co-ordinates Christians in Parliament and Prayer for Parliament, the main groups bringing together Christians working at the centre of British politics. The story of 24-7 UK’s growing connection with the political world is told in the recent newsletter. As is often the case with 24-7, our involvement has been run on a shoestring, has been totally God-inspired and spirit-led, and because of that has met with a favour and fruitfulness way out of proportion to what we have felt able to contribute!

As for me, God first started talking to me about the need for Christians to become more involved in political life over five years ago (and confirmed it with some pretty way-out prophetic stuff too). Then, just as I was starting to respond, God hijacked my life though (you guessed it) the whirlwind arrival of a movement called 24-7 prayer. Since then I have written a book, learnt to drive a double decker bus, helped launch a boiler room, stood in as international operations director, and, oh yes, prayed in an awful lot of strange places at bizarre times of the day and night. It was all brilliant, God-breathed stuff, but doing all this while juggling church leadership, family life, and a career as a freelance consultant didn’t seem to leave much space for political involvement.

Then, in 2006, I received a phone call out of the blue asking if I would consider leading a consultancy project in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (the UK’s ministry of foreign affairs). Maybe government was still on God’s agenda after all. A year into that, Phil Togwell (team leader for 24-7 in the UK) pretty much forced Dave Landrum and I to get together and talk, and things started to happen really fast.

Net result: as of 26th November, I am now working for 50% of my time working for 24-7 prayer in Parliament. I’ll be standing alongside the folks who already pray every Thursday inside Parliament, and helping out with the next Parliament Prayer Week (5th-11th May - get the date in your diaries now!)  For the rest of my time, I’ve started working with Dave on a Bible Society funded project to get Christians in the UK more actively and effectively engaged in political life.

Watch this space for more details on that; but in the meantime please pray for us:

• For wisdom, to know how to make ‘your kingdom come, your will be done’ a political reality;
  
• For integrity, to remain ‘true to Christ’ in an environment where expediency and compromise are the expected norms;
• For protection on us and our families, against stress, ill health, or opposition.