11.23.09
Posted in 24-7 Prayer, church
at 12:28 pm
This last weekend our church spent another twenty-four hours in prayer. There’s always a buzz of activity in the days leading up to a prayer room. We’re decorating, reminding people about their shifts, and trying to find people to come and pray at 3 AM. We always have people “on call” who open the doors and greet people as they come in. This time my shift was from 10 PM – 2 AM. The first two hours were empty, so I would pray.
I have no idea what makes that room so special. But I feel like God really does come and meet us there. It’s moving to read through the journal on the table, or see the scribbled prayers on the wall, or to picture our church members on their knees before the big wooden cross in the room. Our team leader was telling me that he thought that the prayer rooms are the most important thing we do as a church.
It’s also one of the craziest things we do. Marcus prayed four hours straight and when I saw him the next day he said he felt like four hours wasn’t enough. My two hours flew by – I felt like I just got started. Our newly-baptized believer came out of the prayer room with wide eyes and said she’s going to sign up for more hours next time. My friend Simone was giddy at church when he told me he just did his first hour alone in the prayer room.
And so every other month or so (should it be more often?) we all take our turns in the prayer room. Some of us will write, some will pray out loud. Some will sing and some will listen to music. Some will shout and some will be still. But all of will come out somehow changed.
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04.12.09
Posted in 24-7 Prayer, Ancona, church, culture
at 3:03 am
Kyle is in the prayer room right now singing his heart out. I’m sitting just outside, waiting for my hour to start. It’s 7 AM, Easter Sunday morning. I look over the list of people who have signed up to pray and see that Kyle is going on his fourth hour of prayer. The early morning hours are always hard to fill, and who ever is on call has to pray if no one shows.
There’s a part of me that thinks we’re nuts for doing this. There’s nothing special about the room. We decorate it, and sometimes have a theme to help people to focus their thoughts. There are some candles and a big wooden cross. But it’s just a normal room. But at the same time there is something very un-normal about it.
I’m in a country where Easter is barely a religious holiday for most people, and really not much of a secular holiday either. I saw a poster in the center of town for an art exhibit that is opening up tonight. It’s just another day. I’m preparing to preach a simple Easter message and don’t really feel very Easter-y.
So I’m faced with this blah feeling about Easter, and this morning that feeling collided with the wonderful insanity of the prayer room. Ho-hum faced off with holy. Shrugged shoulders met bended knees. A yawn met a whispered prayer.
Guess who won?
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12.07.07
Posted in 24-7 Prayer
at 5:04 am
Our team recently embarked on a slightly new adventure here in Ancona. Many months ago I read Red Moon Rising, which is the story of the 24-7 prayer movement that began here in Europe. Our team passed the book around, and at our planning meeting in July we decided that we wanted to try to create a prayer room here.
So we pulled all of the stuff out of our little office, and Heather and Heidi worked on remodeling in it into a place for people to come and pray. We got volunteers, some from our church, some from neighboring churches, and some from no church at all, to come and spend an hour at a time in the prayer room. When I first printed out the sign up sheet with 48 blank spots to fill, I was more than a little overwhelmed. How would we ever fill them all?
But slowly, they got filled. People came to pray. If someone missed an appointment, there was always someone to fill in. For 48 hours, prayers were lifted up, shouted, sung, painted, written, and whispered. And it was incredible. People came out of the little room in tears, thanking us for setting it up and asking us to let them know when we do it again. Everyone said that an hour flew by.
Prayer has obviously always been a focus of the ministry here. But for 48 hours it was the focus. It was all we did. I have no idea what God is going to do with that. We’re in a culture where, at least some people, are accustomed to popping into a church for a prayer now and then. The idea itself wasn’t all that strange, but I think the intensity was.
And I can’t wait to do it again…
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