From around the turn of the 21st Century and into the ‘Noughties’ the 24-7 Prayer Movement has birthed Prayer Rooms, Prayer Spaces and Boiler Rooms across UK, Europe and now worldwide…using an eclectic mix of creative installation art and music combined with intercessory prayer
Inspired by round-the-clock 100+ year prayer of the early Moravians and Count Zinzendorf…and divided into hourly blocks of time, 24-7 Prayer (and others like them including IHOP) have launched full scale Prayer Movements that continue to increase in momentum (alongside their related ‘Justice‘ and ‘Mission‘ initiatives)…On seeing how this movement has grown (not unlike the Alpha movement), it’s hard not to see God’s hand at work…
Pete Greig, one of the founders of 24-7 Prayer wrote ‘The Vision‘, a kind of manifesto that hugely influenced a whole generation (GenX). Pete is now resident Prayer Instigator at Holy Trinity Brompton (also the birthplace of Alpha…see my last post on this)
Although the oft repeated mantra of those at the fore of these movements is; a ‘Prayer Movement’ births a ‘Mission Movement‘…whether this and similar Prayer Movements actually result in the intentional Making of Missional DIsciples who in turn Make and Multiply More Disciples and Communities remains to be seen…(notice the use of the word ‘intentional‘)
There are 34 Boiler Room communities as of this writing (missional and monastic communities of various sizes) in the 24-7 network…but with over 2 Million People having been impacted in the past 15 years through 12,000 Prayer Rooms in over 123 nations…imagine what could happen if even 10 Percent of those people having been impacted were trained to be Disciple and Simple/Missional Community Multipliers?
Yes that’s right…tithing 10% of the people who’ve gone through the prayer movement by investing/equipping them in Disciple Multiplication training would have resulted in the start-up of perhaps as many as 200,000 new churches (disciple making communities of around 15 or so people- not including any multiplication that would have come through the new disciples in these new communities who would also be making discipling communities of their own who in turn do the same down to 4th Generation and beyond)
At the time of the pioneering of the early Methodist Movement there were at least 3 (amongst many other) notable Catalytic Movement Leaders…
George Whitfield (Evangelistic Pioneer)…who saw a great harvest of new people coming to faith in Jesus through his novel and evangelistic approaches…but towards the end of his life said… ‘my people are a rope of sand’ and ‘Wesley did better because he organised the people’
Charles Wesley (Prophetic Pioneer)…wrote over 6000 new hymns for the movement. New Movements need New Song and a New Sound…this was true of the early Salvation Army (using the pub and street sounds of their day) and of the Pentecostal (gospel) Charismatic and Third Wave Movements (hippy/guitar led/folksy rocky grungy bands)
John Wesley (Apostolic Pioneer)…organised the emerging movement of new people coming to Christ into disciple-making communities of various shapes and sizes including ‘Bands‘ (under 4) ‘Classes‘ (of 12), ‘Societies‘ (around 25-75 range), Circuits and Circuit Riders (like networks) and Annual Connextion (like movemental conferences/festivals)
The Above Three Pioneers of course knew each other…and at times worked in sync…but didn’t always see eye-to-eye with each others ‘methodology, approaches or emphasis’ and at times actually drifted apart or worked completely separately
What can we learn from history at a time when the evangelistic paradigms have shifted in approach to a way of witness that is much more relational and reproducible through key vehicles like Alpha (evangelist)?
What can we put into apostolic practice at a time when the prophetic/prayer paradigms have been reinvented to mobilise an army of young people into intercession, justice and mission through movements like 24-7 Prayer (prophet?)
What is God wanting to do in relation to an apostolic paradigm shift in the way we view church and how we gather new disciple making communities that can also meet anywhere (in the same way that the temporary 10-week Alpha courses do and the temporary 24-7 Prayer spaces do) so that an army of ordinary people can form churches wherever they live, work and play? (apostolic?)
Could it be that Jesus doesn’t just want to just visit for a short 10-week course as people discover Him through Alpha, or for just a short Pop-Up Prayer Space but that he actually wants to dwell with us over a meal in communities of disciples called churches (Pop-Up Churches) that meet all over the place in the same way He did with His original 12 disciples and the Persons and Households (oikos) of Peace they searched for as they travelled from town to town?
Maybe Prayer Movements will once more give birth to the largest Disciple Making and Church Multiplying Movements the world has ever seen afterall?
Maybe those at the cutting edge of fashioning ‘wineskins’ that equip ordinary saints in evangelism (alpha) and prayer (24/7) will work synergistically with those fashioning church ‘wineskins’ that equip ordinary people to make and multiply disciples as Jesus intended?
If ‘working together’ is a stretch too far (pouring new wine into old wineskins)…at the very least… ‘The Right Hand of Fellowship’ and acknowledgment could be granted
Maybe it is possible to see a great harvest of new people realising who Jesus really is…getting caught up in a major movement the likes of which surpasses the Early Methodists, Salvation Army + 1859 Revival and 1904/5 Revival+ Early Pentecostal Movements combined…whilst also changing the landscape of Britain, Europe and the World in it’s wake…
I’ve seen the future…
Maybe you’ve caught a glimpse of this vision already and I’m not the only one?
[This Article is an Extract from Peter J Farmer’s Forthcoming Book: TRIBAL MISSION]
