‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb,’ says Psalm 139, one of three verses St Peters Farnborough used to meditate on during a week of 24-7 prayer this summer. They asked God how he might want them to use their church building to better serve the community.

The organiser, Elaine Garvican, reflects on the journey: “The week of prayer went brilliantly. Initially we had some gaps in the timetable, but on the Sunday, a woman stood up on and talked about her hour that morning, how easy it was to pray, how fast the hour went and how close she felt to God in there. After this, the rest of the hours got booked up, right through till Friday when it closed. By Thursday, we had a waiting list, but no more hours in the day. It’s great that people are starting to get really excited about prayer!

In the prayer room itself, we had different prayer stations, helping people to focus their prayers. There was a book on the table for people to write their thoughts and prayers, and a big graffiti wall, which was well covered!

We also created a cardboard cross, with coloured acetate sections, so light shone through it, seemingly lighting it up. At the top, in gold and silver it said: ‘Lord Jesus You Are…’ and the people wrote names or descriptions of Jesus in gold and silver on the black, around the cross. It looked really striking. Some people wrote ‘formal’ words, like ‘Saviour’ and some descriptive ones like ‘My best friend’ or ‘constant’ or ‘everything.’ It was lovely.

We also had a ‘prayer tree’, and a prayer station to help people pray about the church itself – we’re currently exploring how we reorder the church building, including replacing the pews with chairs, and leveling the floor. This is a great opportunity to think about how the new church building can serve the community. To help people pray about this, we had Bible verses on a sign and people were asked to think about them, and then ink their thumbs, and use their thumbprint to ‘colour in’ the outline of the church. ‘ Here’s some of the responses to the prayer:

“I have had a fantastic time in the 24-7 room. It was rewarding and challenging…. I especially loved the exercise thinking about Jesus visiting and wanted to see my community.”

“We loved it, it was a very special time with God.”

“The prayer room is awesome and inspiring! Praise God!”

“Prayer room was great! 2 hrs was too short!”

“It was a most uplifting hour…”

“All the wonderful prayer stimuli – what a beautiful way to start the day!”

“Just lovely, felt God’s presence so strongly, love the continuity as we hand over too! Very powerful experience…”

“It’s brilliant to hear how people have been impacted and impassioned to pray.”

Lets watch this space for what God does next in Farnborough! To register your 24-7 Prayer room, click here, and to share with us your stories and photos (and poetry, songs, creative stuff, etc) email us at uk@24-7prayer.com.