IT’S TIME TO PARTY!!

Saturday 13th February 2010, 24-7 prayer UK will be hosting a huge party in central London to gather together and celebrate the extraordinary things that Jesus has done in and through the past ten years since that first prayer room in Chichester. We want to mark this moment – 24-7 prayer’s tenth birthday party “I AM 10″ – with as many of 24-7′s friends and family as possible.

WE’D LOVE YOU TO BE THERE!

In ten short years, 24-7prayer rooms have spread like a virus from humble beginnings on the South coast of England into more than 100 nations around Planet Earth, as well as into almost every denomination in the United Kingdom. It’s been an incredible journey (so far!) for many of us.

Memorable moments for me along this journey would probably include;

+ our first 24-7 prayer room in Romford early in the year 2000. A young guy called Peter blu-tacked a huge painted sign over the door for people to read as they left the prayer room and headed back home or to work or school. The sign read, ‘Welcome!‘. Having prayed our prayers, we become the prayers themselves, and sometimes we become part of the answer.

+ the first week of prayer with Christian Members of Parliament (MPs), staff and researchers in June 2004. I especially remember meeting with 20-or-so others in a Cabinet Office board-room, to pray for the Government… I admit, I felt slightly over-awed, and also slightly worried when the security guard we prayed for crashed to the floor, overcome by the Holy Spirit. The guard, it turned out, was delighted.

+ reading the following feedback from a sixth form student at the end of a week-long prayer room in her school last year… “I have to be honest and say I never knew what I believed in God, if I did or not, but I feel a ‘enlightenment…” And then discovering that a 14-year old girl we’d prayed for, who’s foot had been in plaster, had been miraculously healed. Awesome!

+ visiting 24-7 prayer rooms in all kinds of weird and wonderful places… in a skate-shop store-room in Torbay, in a tent outside the Leeds University student union bar, in a hexagonal chapel beside Canterbury Cathedral, in a trendy Nottingham city-centre student-cafe, in a tiny shop-front next door to a sex-shop in the West End of London, in a building that used to be the children’s home where John Lennon went… and in a classroom in my daughter’s secondary school. There are so many to choose from.

+ visiting with a few of the new communities that have emerged out of these, and other, prayer rooms. Countless coffee conversations, dreaming and scheming about developing new rhythms of life together as missional communities… in Reading and Colchester and Stanford-le-Hope and Gloucester and so many other places…

What your memorable moments would be? I wonder if they would they be encounters you’ve had in 24-7 prayer rooms, experiences of God’s presence, tastes of His grace and holiness? Would they be answered prayers… or ways that you have become part of an answer to your own prayers as you’ve reached out to others? Would they be words of peace and comfort in the middle of suffering? Maybe all of these, maybe other things?<

IAM10 is about three things: Firstly, it is about gathering together, as friends and family, reminding ourselves of our identity together and our love for one another. Secondly it is about looking back, about the telling and hearing of our stories. As we gather them and assemble them, like a jigsaw puzzle, we find that our stories form part of a wider ‘God Story’ in the UK.

Thirdly, IAM10 is about looking forward, into the next ten years. The writer to the Hebrews encourages the believers to “throw off everything that hinders…and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” (Hebrews 12, NIV) and we feel there is something in this for us. Over the last year or so, we feel that God has been marking the race out more clearly ahead of us, giving us fresh vision and direction, and IAM10 feels like the perfect time to ‘go public’ and explore this together.

Having briefly reflected on the past ten years together, we will look ahead to the next ten, and commit ourselves to following wherever the Lord leads us – probably in many wild, pioneering ways!

The party is still being planned, but here are some of the things that we’re working on – hopefully this will whet your appetite:

LOOKING BACK:

• a visual timeline of 24-7′s story so far
• plenty of time and space to catch up with old friends and make some new oness
• story-telling opportunities, all together and in smaller groupings, from the past 10 years
• and lots of party games!

LOOKING FORWARD:

• fresh vision and direction for 24-7 prayer in the UK
• news about some of the crazy/exciting opportunities facing us in the next couple of years
• workshop sessions around key areas: developing longer-term Boiler Room communities and churches, mobilising young people and students through prayer in schools and universities, loving mercy and acting justly and engaging locally – with an emphasis on anti-human trafficking, prayer and mission across Europe, prayer and mission into the Muslim world, and probably more.
• opportunities to learn and train with 24-7 prayer

So… our day together will be full of life and colour, fun and laughter. We’re planning to create a huge ten-year visual timeline of 24-7′s story-so-far, which everyone will be able to contribute to. We’ll also have lots of space for telling and hearing stories, space to catch up with old friends and hopefully make some new ones. We’ll make time to pray and worship together, inviting a few good friends to lead us in this.

At heart, IAM10 is about “clearing the path for the long distance runners…” (Hebrews 12, The Message), as well as offering encouragement and learning/training opportunities to help these runners go the distance. It is about the long haul. It is about choosing to remain fully in Christ, and responding to his choosing of our lives, so that we can “bear fruit that will last” (John 15, NIV) For some it will be a new commissioning to go… to relocate… to recommit… to maybe engage in one of 24-7′s learning opportunities

The Details:

DATE: Saturday 13th February 2010
VENUE: St Mary’s Crawford Street, London W1H 1PQ (Near Marylebone, Baker Street and Edgware Road tube stations. Click here for location & travel info
TIME: 12.30pm-5.30pm and 7.30pm-9.30pm
TICKETS: Tickets can be purchased by clicking on the big red button

We can’t wait to see you there!