Just pray
The 24-7 prayer movement began almost by accident in 1999. Some students started a prayer room in a warehouse on the south coast of England and it soon attracted a crowd – young people flocked there to pray with words, graffiti and music.
A poem by Pete Greig, scribbled on the wall of the warehouse then took on a life of its own, reaching people all over the world. As a result, there are now more than 10,000 prayer rooms worldwide, committed to praying 24-7, 365 days a year.
This month Ruth Sanderson talks to the movement’s founder, Pete Greig, about his new book, How to Pray, described as ‘a simple guide for normal people’.
In his book Pete says, “Throughout history, whenever God was about to do a new thing, he first mobilised his people to pray, and he is currently doing so on an unprecedented scale.” He articulates that we are living in “an exciting and important time to be learning to pray”.
With a bigger-picture lens, 2019 may be an exciting time, but it can also be a difficult one for churches. This month Pip Florit explores the concept of church planting in Ireland, identifying PCI’s response to reach out to communities in the midst of changing demographics and lifestyles. She says, “…if the body of Christ is to grow, new churches and new expressions of church are needed.”
One person who has had a greater opportunity than most to experience the breadth of our denomination is our Moderator, Dr Charles McMullen. PCI press officer, Mark Smith, chats to Dr McMullen about the unique bird’s-eye view he has had of PCI this year. Although acknowledging that, following decisions at last year’s Assembly, he has encountered both “support and heartache” at a local level, he insists “there is a tremendous heart in our Church.” He speaks warmly of how inspired he and wife Barbara have been by the Presbyterians they have met on their travels.
There are undoubtedly many challenges ahead for our denomination, but if, as Pete Greig believes, these are exciting times, then we need to prioritise prayer, remembering that Jesus himself is praying for us and cheering us on. Perhaps we as a Church could take inspiration from the poem that started the 24-7 movement: “This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause... that they might one day win the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters…They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: ‘COME ON!’”
The Presbyterian Herald is the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. It provides a forum for debate and discussion on a wide range of topics and aims to challenge and encourage Presbyterians, as well as inform them about what the wider Church is involved in. It has a readership in excess of 25,000 and is distributed throughout Ireland.
To find out more go to www.presbyterianireland.org/herald