Give me a year
ROOTS 2000 turned out to be the start of something big. A revolution? An epidemic? Whatever you call it, it swept the territory, and, please God, we will never be the same again.
Like most "big" things, it all started somewhere small. The epidemic of 24-7 prayer which has infected The Salvation Army in the UK first caught hold in a bus. This particular bus had long-since finished its career transporting people to and from the supermarket. With computer games downstairs and a fully kitted-out prayer room upstairs, the Message Trust's double-decker had become a mobile tabernacle. In May 2000, it came to ROOTS. It was parked up near the Floral Hall Complex, and to many of the delegates it was probably little more than a novelty attraction. One group, however, really did get the point.
Saturday evening came, and the Arts Centre was packed. Shocking was bursting at the seams, and all kinds of fire regulations were about to be transgressed.
'Listen, guys, we can't fit everyone in, so can a few people volunteer to spend the evening in the prayer bus instead of in the venue?'
Even as he made the announcement, Russell sounded nervous. In an ideal world, a youth venue shouldn't be turning away the very people for which it was designed. The thought of disgruntled shockers loose on the streets of Southport on a Saturday night was a slightly scary one! After all, none of them were going to want to go to the little bus on the Prom, were they?
In actual fact, about 150 of them did want to do just that. For them, an evening in a largish metal box with God was even more attractive than the best the Shocking team had to offer. When, at 1 O'clock in the morning, they were still queuing to get on to the bus, we knew something very special was kicking off.
'If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land' (2 Chronicles 7:14, NIV).
It was as though, in that humble little bus, a heart-cry had started which just wouldn't go away. Christian events are known for their intense atmosphere and emotive appeals, but more often than not the pitch dies down when everyone goes home. But this time it didn't. If anything, the pitch went up. 'When are we really going to start praying?'
Only a few months later, the question was answered. The Territorial Leadership called The Salvation Army in the UK to a year of non-stop prayer.
By late 2000, the 24-7 Prayer movement was already going strong. What had begun as a month of non-stop prayer at the Revelation Youth Church in Chichester, West Sussex, had become almost a year of non-stop prayer and a growing network of prayer rooms, spanning towns, cities, nations and denominations. The Salvation Army's Mission Team had partnered Revelation Church in various youth work projects over recent years, and as we compared notes on this astonishing thirst for God which seemed to be springing up everywhere we looked, we realised that our paths were again converging. 24-7 was God's answer to our new-found longing for simple, authentic, power-releasing prayer.
With the year of prayer set to start at the next ROOTS conference, we realised we would need to present the idea of 24-7 prayer to as many people as possible during the intervening months. The so-called "Prayer Tour" took place in January 2001, and saw a small team of intrepid prayer novices descend on four Salvation Army centres across the country, to expound the vision of 24-7 prayer. These prayer concerts were unlike anything we'd tried before: they were slightly chaotic and numbers varied considerably, but everywhere they went, the team saw people suddenly begin to connect with God in ways they never had before. The thirst was definitely growing.
The scope of the tour was inevitably limited, and there were many places it couldn't reach, but its impact was confirmed over and over again in the first months of the year of prayer, as people signed their corps up for weeks of 24-7 with the words: 'I went to one of the prayer tour concerts, and I know we just have to do this.'
ROOTS 2001 was, for many people, the start of a dream come true. At 10 PM on Friday 4th May, the year of prayer was launched. Over a hundred people tried to squeeze into the ROOTS prayer room, and once again, the Holy Spirit met us far more than half way, as we took the first tentative steps into a veritable prayer marathon.
But God didn't intend us to run even those first few miles under our own steam. Having raised up this remarkable Salvation Army, he knows us too well. He knows our tendency to throw ourselves into activity, to work hard, to 'do our duty', and he knew, too, that we would probably go at prayer in the same way. As Debra Green, leader of the Ivy Cottage Church in Manchester, and long-time friend of the Salvation Army, stood up to prophesy, God's heart was clear. This was not to be yet another programme. This was to be an encounter.
'You have been asking the Lord, "How Long? How long before we see the barren land drenched?"
'The Lord says, "Give me a Year, a year to pray. During the year you will be like the man in the downpour; just standing still under it. There won't be much activity or movement in that year, even though you are known for activity. This is a year to stand under the rain."'
For the hundreds of Salvationists who were already longing for a new encounter with God, hearing Debra's words was like being shown a huge glass of ice-cold water when you're dying of thirst - only it wasn't just one glass God was promising, it was a downpour.
'A year to change lives'
'The prayer room became a very special place for all who entered in. The atmosphere was peaceful and full of the glory of the Lord, and caused some people to burst into tears as they walked through the door. ... At first people were apprehensive about entering the room and wondered how they were going to pray for an hour, but when that hour was over, the search was on to see when there was another time slot available, and some prayed for two or three hours at a time. ... The end result is that prayer has been discovered to be exciting, interesting, desirable and necessary.'
(Report from Gainsborough Corps, one of the first to participate in the Year of Prayer)
The scenes witnessed at Gainsborough were to be repeated over and over again in prayer rooms across the country, in those first twelve months of non-stop prayer. The word most commonly used to describe the 24-7 experience was 'life-changing'. For many people, it was the first time they had been invited simply to meet with God: no agenda, no activity, no duty, no obligation, just an hour in the company of their Heavenly Father. Those powerful, precious moments left them changed, and left them wanting more. Most of the corps who did 24-7 during that year have kept it as part of the rhythm of their church life.
It is difficult to measure the success of prayer. People go aside to be with God and, as with an iceberg, 90% of the substance is beneath the surface. We will never know how many lives were altered forever in those temporary tabernacles. The best balance sheet will be a renewed, refreshed, radical Salvation Army, whose very DNA is prayer.
But the figures are worth noting:
What evidence is there, then, of a changed, revived Salvation Army?
Prodigals
The Year of Prayer was launched with a powerful time of prayer for those thousands of people who have walked away from God. ROOTS delegates were invited to write the names of so-called 'prodigals' on a postit note and stick it to a cross. The only trouble was, the wooden crosses didn't have a "postit-note-friendly" finish, so no sooner were they stuck on than they fell off. As the crosses were carried out, and little bits of yellow paper rained down, it was an astonishingly prophetic symbol of the essence of 24-7 prayer: life-changing power amid creative chaos!
Prodigals crosses have been a feature of Salvation Army prayer rooms ever since. And what's more, the prodigals are coming home. It's not unusual to read reports of people being prayed for in a prayer room during the week, then turning up out of the blue at the meeting on Sunday.
Connecting the generations
The free, flexible style of prayer in a 24-7 room means it is accessible to anyone and everyone. For an army which often organises its activities according to age-group, prayer rooms have been a place to cross long-established boundaries. Time and time again, we have received moving accounts of children praying for older people, of grandparents coming to a better understanding of their grandchildren by reading the prayers they have written on the graffiti wall, and of generational barriers coming down as never before.
Church Unity
24-7 has also proved a catalyst for greater church unity. All Christians, regardless of denomination or churchmanship, believe that prayer is important, and the stylistic variety of a 24-7 prayer room means it welcomes all kinds of prayer, from the silent and meditative to the noisy and exuberant. So, in many communities, the Salvation Army prayer room became a meeting place for Christians who had previously struggled to find anything they could comfortably do together. In several places, Salvationists are now being asked to co-ordinate the inter-church prayer-life of their community, and are finding that the Army's respected, trusted position means they can bring people together.
Passion for mission
Time spent with Jesus will eventually leave us more Jesus-shaped. Even an hour in a prayer room tends to leave its mark, and that mark will usually include a more urgent passion to see people's lives changed by the good news of Jesus. Many Salvation Army prayer rooms have themselves been 'spiritual labour wards': places where new lives of faith have begun. They have also been places where new sparks of mission have been ignited, and many of our successful local mission initiatives had their births in 24-7 prayer rooms.
24-7 prayer has undoubtedly helped us reconnect prayer and mission. It has taught us to fuel our activity from a deep well of time-consuming prayer. But it has also not allowed us to retreat into the quiet place as a way of avoiding engagement with our world. We have found that no-one can spend an hour tuning themselves to the heart-beat of their creator and redeemer without emerging more desperate to reach the world he so loves. We have learnt that we will need to be the answer.
In short, we have learnt to put prayer at the centre of our mission, and mission at the centre of our prayer.
'Give me years'
ROOTS 2002 did not see us calling for a second year of non-stop prayer. Instead, it became a time to thank God wholeheartedly for all that he had done, and to sign up, as it were, to a new, long-term commitment to prayer in our movement. We dropped down a gear, but only so that we could begin a much longer, much more challenging journey.
24-7 prayer continues to be the main-stay of our prayer strategy. Most weeks of any given year are covered by a corps, somewhere in the territory, running 24-7; and as they do, others catch the vision and decide to try it for themselves.
Encounter with God generally leaves people with a desire to pray more - a recognition that our participation in prayer should not just be 24-7, but 24-7-365. As a result, our 24-7/SA Prayer Network has grown exponentially, since we launched 24-7 in 2001. Almost 1,000 individuals have now committed to praying regularly for the Salvation Army and for the nation. We resource them with newsletters and prayer diaries, and they resource us with faithful, persistent, ground-breaking prayer.
But encounter with God also leads to a desire to know him better, and to become better at prayer. The more we do 24-7, the more people ask for teaching and training on how to pray effectively. For this reason, our 'Prayer Warfare' training programme is becoming more and more popular, and we are endeavouring to hone people's skills, so that their prayer will impact their communities in a more powerful way.
And now we find ourselves looking to an even longer-term future. If we have seen weeks, months, a year of non-stop prayer, why not years? We are now dreaming about houses of non-stop prayer, otherwise known as 'boiler rooms'. If prayer is to become the driving force of our mission, then we will need engines of prayer across the territory, which will keep us moving forward for years and years to come.
'Give it away'
The global nature of the Salvation Army means that the news of 24-7/SA was bound to spread far and wide. Ever since the very early days of the year of prayer, we have received requests from other territories, asking for information and resources on how to implement the idea in their own countries. It is, therefore, a real joy to see some of those dreams come to fruition.
The Australia East Territory began a year of non-stop prayer in June 2002, and they have not stopped since. A large proportion of corps and centres have taken part, and many lives, not to mention many corps, have been transformed. New mission initiatives have also sprung up, including an annual outreach to school-leavers, partying on the Gold Coast at the end of the academic year.
Other territories, including USA South and Canada, have investigated the 24-7 idea at the same time as launching their own ROOTS Conference. Others, such as the Netherlands, have sought our advice in setting up their own prayer networks. Still others, like Latvia, have invited us over, to help them launch new prayer strategies, and to pass on some of the blessing which we have received in such great measure.
We haven't cracked prayer. It is a privilege to be sought out and set apart as an example of what God can do when a territory begins to commit itself so unequivocally to prayer, but we do not labour under any delusions of grandeur. God has been kind and gracious enough to touch us and to teach us, and we must share that wherever possible, but he has his own ways of stirring his people, and we need simply to watch and marvel at his master strokes, wherever we find them.
We look forward to all that he will do, in the Salvation Army and across the world, when his people pray.