Faithful Passion
It’s an historical week in the 24-7 Prayer world, as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first prayer room starting in a small town called Chichester in England and going viral. What began as a bunch of radical young people getting together to seek God, has turned into a global prayer movement. 25 years of night and day prayer, that is truly epic!
You can explore the story of how the movement spread here.
The ripples of this were felt here in Aotearoa in those early years. The Salvation Army movement had a year of unceasing prayer across their churches; prayer rooms popped up everywhere, and a fresh hunger was stirred to seek God in prayer.
I was a young, dreadlocked youth pastor at the time, and the ‘Vision’ poem wound up in my inbox. It stirred me deeply, and before long, we had a prayer room set up behind an op shop in Karori, Wellington with ‘the Vision ‘poem written on the wall. It felt epic to have our little youth group radically pursuing God in night and day prayer. This is what I had signed up for! Karori is a safe, affluent suburb but we weren’t going to live safe lives; we were hungry for God and wanted to live radically for Him! We longed to see His kingdom come! C’mon!!!
Twenty years later, it’s a privilege beyond words to be part of this prayer movement. You see, it's one thing to be passionate about God for a year or two. It's another to steward that passion and stay faithful in the pursuit of God for many years. Over the last twenty years, I have seen many of my mates who I thought would never simmer down, lose that spark in their eyes, lose their passion, and drift away. Others have remained faithful and still have a fire in their belly’s!
This prayer movement has remained passionate, wild, and hungry for God. It has been faithful in its passion for prayer, mission, and justice. That’s no small thing. Prayer is incredibly contested in our lives (we’ve now got a trillion-dollar industry in our pockets trying to grab our attention at any moment), and it's an incredibly contested space in the church.
The living legends that have led 24-7 Prayer have navigated attacks of the enemy, discouragement, temptation, the dramatic ups and downs of life… and yet have kept Jesus at the centre and remained faithful to Him. They have continued to radically seek Him. They have continued to love and serve the church, cheering it on to prioritise prayer, mission and justice. They have been faithful in their passion, and as a result, we see this movement not waning but growing. If the Moravians could pray night and day for one hundred years, then in some ways, we are just getting going!
It's worth taking a moment to celebrate what God has done, and to thank Him. It’s worth taking a moment to pray for all those who lead this incredible movement, that they would be encouraged and strengthened. And, it's worth taking a moment to pray for Aotearoa, New Zealand, that we would be a church marked by deep devotion to Jesus, with a passion for prayer because we are passionate about Him, His Kingdom and His life.
Lord, let it be!
C’mon!!!