Staying the course

I've attached two articles that I thought were relevant to the House - encouraging us to stay focused on what we are called to.



This past week, God has been speaking to a number of key 24-7 activists through dreams. The Bible tells us to expect the Lord to speak supernaturally in this way, and there is one particular dream we want to share because it is both an encouragement and a warning to this community.This dream was given to Tim Hewitt, a dear friend, and echoes remarkably the word the Lord spoke to us ( see below) at our recent ‘Feast’ in Seville - even though Tim had not been there to hear that message.



"My wife Anna and I went to Ibiza last week, to go back and see everyone. It was also a kind of pilgrimage to seek God about moving to be part of the 24-7 community on the island. On Friday morning I woke up after having a dream. This is really unusual for me. Through the dream God seemed to be speaking about the urgent need to strengthen values and distinctives. He is calling us [24-7 Prayer] back to the core of who we are."



At the recent 24-7 Feast in Spain God challenged the 24-7 Prayer community to live up to our name as a people of prayer. The message to stay true to our original call and to keep intimacy with Jesus at the foundation of all the fruit and good works inspired by prayer was received with passion. However Tim’s dream goes beyond simply confirming that word to bring a sober warning:



"I also felt like God was warning us that this could be a year of disease. Sounds quite dramatic, I know, but I didn’t feel in any way that it was physical or for anyone specific. It was warning about not letting ‘disease’ creep into and through who we are (from within or from outside), and what we’re about. By coming back to prayer we will be vaccinated. I felt that the ‘disease’ wouldn’t be a passive thing but that there maybe people attacking us, some of those wont even know that they are doing so. I woke up with a real sense of urgency about this all, it felt quite important."



God’s word is not designed to sow fear but faith. He’s calling us to love him more, to feast in His presence so that all our mission, creativity and communities are an overflow of intimacy with Him. The only we as a family and movement can make sure that what we are spreading is the good news of Jesus, nothing else, is to take the words of our Savior seriously in our own walk of prayer in the prayer life of the Church:

"Remain in me and I will remain in you." John 15:4



Petes' word:

As Pete Greig perched himself on a tall stool and lent forward to catch the attention of the crowd with his story, a sense of expectation grew within me. I looked around the room at the many faces gathered for the 24-7 Feast and I felt like everyone was holding their breath as Pete began to speak…



Pamplona, Spain is famous for the festival of San Fermin, more commonly known as the running of the bull. Thousands gather from the 7th – 14th July every year for a right of passage that can be traced back to the 13th century. An animal rights group was so incensed by the spectacle that they approached the council with a unique proposal: cancel the running of the bull and we will provide you with an alternative, animal friendly event that will attract the tourism you’ve come to enjoy.

Hmmm… what could equal such a daring race? Why, the running of the naked people! Sadly rather than replacing the traditional event the nude run is now merely a foretaste to it. The day before the traditional festival people turn up, strip down and run the traditional route minus the bulls and without a stitch of clothing.

When Bob Jobe and his intrepid filming team recorded this unorthodox sprint they were surprised by the answer of one Australian guy, in reply to the question, “Why are you running?” With a grin the Ausie shouted, “No idea mate, I saw everyone turn up, take all their clothes off and run that way. I thought I better join in!”

As everyone enjoyed the irony of the tale Pete’s face grew serious. “It’s easy to get caught up in a movement of the Holy Spirit and totally forget why you’re doing it.”

His words rang out clearly and their import struck home. There was silence as everyone considered this truth. Movements of the Holy Spirit can be fun, adventurous, challenging, exciting and fruitful, but if we loose our focus on the impetuous that gave birth to our first steps, where are we moving to?

Pete continued, “I remember the story of Napoleon inspecting his troops. As he made his way to a cowardly and pathetic soldier who shared his name he looked him in the eye and said, ‘Live up to your name or change it!’” Again Pete’s words echoed around the room: 24-7 Prayer, live up to your name or change it.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article that’s currently slipping down the news archive. It was called Eight Years, One Month and 28 days of Unbroken Prayer. In it I celebrated the fact that we are part of an unbroken prayer meeting embarking on it’s ninth year helping Churches learn to pray in creative tabernacles across the globe. Incredible when you stop to think about it! So why then, when all this prayer is happening, would God’s word to us be ’live up to your name’?

24-7 Prayer Rooms have been a birthing place for so many great initiatives that have built the kingdom of God. In Macedonia the 24-7ers felt moved to organise a protest and petition as part of the Stop the Traffik campaign that grabbed the attention of local law enforcement and the American embassy. In Finland one group felt compelled to leave the prayer room and go preach the gospel and see people saved at a New Age festival. In South Africa last year I heard a woman speak who had seen people empowered to break their drug addictions through time in prayer. All these things are good; social transformation, mission and setting captives free. One of the things I love about this movement is that it’s full of people willing to become the answers to their own prayers when God says, ‘Go’. Hence these encouraging testimonies…

Pete Greig has a beautiful, bubbly wife called Samie. They married because they were in love, their love led them to intimacy and from that intimacy came fruit: two gorgeous sons Hudson and Daniel. “Did I marry Samie as a strategy to bear fruit?” Pete asked those of us at the Feast, “No, I married her because I loved her and I wanted to be with her. Then we celebrated when that love produced such a wonderful result. Now that we’ve been fruitful do I abandon loving my wife and pour all my attention into my boys? No! If I did that my marriage would shrivel and die and the family that loves and supports our sons would fall apart.”

Behind every story of fruit in the 24-7 movement is a story of faithful, persistent prayer. We often tell stories of encounters and answered prayer on the Island of Ibiza, but what we sometimes fail to highlight is that the community there spend an hour a day praying. We love telling stories of Kelly Greene befriending prostitutes in Boys Town, Mexico but forget the faithfulness of Kelly who prayer walked it’s walls for 15 months before she doing anything else. We love the stories of miracles and healing from Churches praying in prayer rooms around the world but if we only pray in hope that something will happen we’ll miss the true amazement of intimacy with our Father God.

24-7 Prayer is not about new forms of community, it’s not about mission and it’s not about social transformation, creativity or even miracles. 24-7 Prayer is about prayer. As I remember the Feast in Seville (the friends I made from many different nations, the night of feasting, dancing and celebrating all God has done) the deep personal challenge to keep my life rooted in prayer has travelled with me back to the UK. God is speaking to us. We have an opportunity to respond in our own lives and in the life of the Church. Lets continue to push on and, “…pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” (Eph 6:18) I cannot wait to see where this renewed wave of prayer will take us.