A Call to 24-7 Prayer for Europe March 20, 2010
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Here’s an article by Lyndall Bywater- it’s too good an opportunity to miss if you ask me!
Remember: the only way we can raise up “a faceless army of young people” is if we lift up our voices and cry out to the Father… He can’t answer our hearts desire if we don’t ask of it, so why don’t we sign up for a prayer slot? Or why don’t we take up the challenge and run a prayer room as we’ve done in the past? Being part of a prayer room in the past is great, but if it’s not affecting up presently, has it had any impact on us at all? Just think about it, I’m speaking to myself here too… connie :]
“Dry bones hear the word of the Lord…I will put my Spirit in you and you will live and I will settle you in your land.” (Ezekiel 37)
Twenty years ago, Pete Greig stood on Cape St Vincent praying towards Europe, envisioning ‘a faceless army of young people in every nation awaiting orders’
Ten years ago a continuous prayer movement exploded among young people, and spread like ‘wildfire’ across Europe through years of prayer, mission teams to dark places, and Boiler Rooms of intense prayer and mission.
Last year 200 of us gathered in Amsterdam from 16 European nations and God spoke! Now is the time for a new day for Europe, and we start on our knees in the place of prayer. If the presence of the Lord is not with us then we can do nothing.
Europe is the prodigal continent!
In just a few short generations we have squandered our God-given heritage. However, we may have left the Father, but He has not left us. Within 24-7 Prayer we firmly believe that this is a ‘kairos’ moment of opportunity for Europe. The Father is calling us to ‘rekindle the romance’ and return to His embrace in the place of prayer. He is also calling us to ‘recover the ground’ through Spirit energised action. God does not inspire so much prayer for fun. He is raising up an army that will follow the Holy Spirit wherever He leads us.
Dare we dream of fresh waves of mission and church planting?
Dare we pray for the raising up of workers to establish ‘colonies of heaven’ in the darkest, unreached places?
Dare we imagine an expression of church for every culture, tribe and tongue in Europe.
The vision is simple – a worldwide season of 24-7 Prayer for Europe. Urgently and unashamedly we want to call people around the world to pray for the prodigal continent – we need your help.
If you are a European Christian, whether in Greece, Russia, Spain, Iceland or anywhere in between, we want to ask you to give some time each week to pray for your continent. If you are elsewhere, like the first Macedonians, we want to urgently call you to ‘come over and help us’ in prayer. We want to call the hundreds and thousands but also the two’s and three’s and lone pray-ers to join us – everyone can play their part. We need your help.
The vision is an army of love, power and humility which exists to see a continent return to the Father’s love. The dream is that the glory of the latter ‘house’ in Europe will eclipse anything we have seen so far. The starting place is on our knees – please join us in praying 24-7 for Europe.
When?
Friday 26th March 2010 – Sunday 26th September 2010
Where?
Wherever you are …wherever in the world … you can take part!
How?
Start out at the web site:
http://www.24-7prayer.com/signup/europe
(A new European website to support the season of Prayer will be launched shortly)
Then do any or all of the following:
Sign up to receive our inspiring and informative weekly emails, to help fire up your prayers for Europe.
Sign up to pray! You can register as a Prayer Room, a church, a prayer group or just as yourself. You can pray once, you can pray once a week or you can pray once a day throughout the 6 months …however little or however much, Europe needs your prayers.
Check out the resources section on the site to get info on every country in Europe, as well as some of 24-7 Prayer’s excellent resources on how to pray creatively.
Tune in to the voices of 21st-century saints with a heart for Europe. What are they saying about why we need to pray right now?
… and then tell us what you can see God doing in this prodigal continent. Encourage us with your stories and challenge us with your dreams.
“Stand with us wherever you are in the world and lets pray together. Let’s pray for revival, lets pray for God to move in Europe, lets pray for God to get hold of hearts, lets pray for new leaders to be raised up in every field of society. We have an opportunity, let’s gather together and seize it!” Pete Greig, 24-7 International
Revolutionary Prayers- Pete Greig December 5, 2009
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Do our prayers have the power to change our nation? Yes, of course they can. If only we would believe in them that is. I have to say I’m shocked, and saddened, by the state of the Church. As we are a prayerless people we have become powerless. We can’t accomplish anything without first asking God to intervene… here’s an article, “Revolutionary Prayers”, written by Pete Greig the prayer champion, it’s well worth reading…
“Can our prayers change nations? Did prayer really help bring down the Berlin Wall? 20 years ago today the world watched stunned - from the Kremlin to the White House - as the wall which had separated East from West for more than quarter of a century came crashing down. And remarkably one of the sparks which detonated this seismic change was.. a weekly prayer meeting!
…Growing up under communism, in a mining village near the East German city of Leipzig, Markus Laegel (today one of the leaders of 24-7 Germany), remembers those prayer meetings as a formative moment when he realised the power of prayer. His father worked, like most men, in an open mine where his minimal wage was supplemented by daily bottles of vodka. With almost nothing to do after work other than drink, Markus remembers a generation of his father’s friends all being reduced to alcoholism while their families struggled to survive. Times were desperate living under one of the most repressive regimes on earth.
…When Markus was 13, word began to spread about a weekly prayer meeting at the church of St Nicholas in Leipzig. It was said that people were daring to cry out to God for an end to the oppression of communism. That simple prayer meeting had begun several years earlier with just a handful of faithful Christians on a Monday night, but now it started to grow. Exactly a month before the wall came down no fewer than 70,000 people gathered around the church to intercede for peace. The government was alarmed and threatened to shut the church down. Doctors were so concerned that they set up an emergency clinic in the building, expecting the prayer meeting to be showered with bullets…
So many people were expressing their protest in prayer that the State was preparing for war. Markus Laegel remembers guns on the roofs of churches and tanks in the streets. But when the Berlin wall eventually fell one communist official made a surprising admission to a journalist: ‘We were prepared for every eventuality,’ he said, ’but not for candles and not for prayers’ Red Moon Rising
…The Swiss theologian Karl Barth, who was arguably the pre-eminent theologian of prayer in the 20th century, said that ‘To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising.‘ Twenty years after the prayer-fueled uprising that brought down communism in Eastern Europe, we find ourselves living under the subtler oppression of unregulated capitalism and secular humanism. Maybe it’s time to to rediscover the spirit of those Leipzig Prayer Rallies once again.
…To pray for the Kingdom of God to come on earth is to invite an uprising, a regime-change, a revolution. It is subversive. But sadly we’ve reduced ‘Thy Kingdom come’ to a religious catch-phrase, short-hand merely for a few less people leaving our churches, and a few more homeless people receiving a tuna sandwich on Friday nights. By contrast, the former Dutch Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper clearly understood the revolutionary implications of Christian allegiance (and I can almost imagine his hand trembling with a mixture of terror and excitement as he wrote these words):
There is not a square inch of domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘It is mine!’
24-7 Prayer exists to welcome Christ into every ‘square inch of domain of our human existence’. This means that, whenever we see the tyranny of enemy occupation at work in our own lives we try to pray for Christ’s Kingdom to come instead. Wherever we see oppression, amongst the poor, in our educational systems, in goverment, or even in the church, we use our free wills to say defiantly: ’Not my will but your will be done’.”
Check out http://www.24-7prayer.com/features/1116 for the full article…
Prayer as Justice August 8, 2009
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In the mafia-run walled city of Boys Town, Mexico Kelly Greene is praying with women and men caught up in cycles of prostitution, poverty and drugs. She knows that prayer is a dangerous, dirty business, but she’s modeling Christ’s love, mercy and justice and lives are being changed. http://www.24-7prayer.com
The Prodigal Continent By Ian Nicholson July 26, 2009
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If you haven’t read this article already you really should! For the full story, visit http://www.24-7prayer.com/
If I were you I’d also sign up for 24-7 Rewind email bulletin. Updates are sent to your inbox every week, keeping you posted with the latest on the 24-7 Prayer Movement.
All over the world the Church is growing, except in Europe that is. Europe has turned its back on our Beloved; its people have rejected Jesus and are so resistant to the Gospel. Even though Europe has turned away from God, our Father hasn’t given up on us. He is willing us to get back to where we belong; in His arms. Pray with me that the prodigals will come home. Pray that they will come when He calls, before it’s too late. Pray for the Church, that we’d welcome them in with open arms. Our Father doesn’t want them left out any longer.
The Prodigal Continent By Ian Nicholson
Published: May 5th, 2009
“But while Europe was still a long way off the Father saw it and was filled with compassion. He ran to the people of Europe and threw his arms around them and kissed them ….. kill the fattened calf, let’s celebrate for this son of mine was dead but is alive; he was lost but is now found again. interpretation of Luke 15
Because Europe is not a pre Christian paganism but a paganism born out of the rejection of Christianity, it is far tougher and more resistant to the gospel than the pre Christian paganisms …. Here without possibility of question is the most challenging missionary frontier of our time. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin in “Can the West Be Converted?”
… As much as there are reasons to rejoice at what God is doing in Europe, there are still many more reasons to soberly press on in God’s plans for us all. The last 50 years have seen an implosion in church attendance in Europe. In 1959, 50% of children in the UK went to Sunday school. Now it is nearer 4%. Half the UK’s churches have no teenagers attending. For the vast majority of Europe’s young people, Christianity is no longer a relevant option in their lives. It is perceived as belonging to the past. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin was surely correct in declaring that Europe now presents the biggest challenge in world mission today. Europe is the prodigal continent, recklessly squandering its godly inheritance with devastating arrogance while the church grows in every other continent on earth. But the loving Father is waiting, wooing and watching. He has not given up on us!
… The last nine years have filled me with a dual sense of urgency and hope. The urgency is simply that this is a ‘kairos’ moment of opportunity for Europe. God does not inspire so much prayer for fun. We have to believe that this is breaking the ground for a harvest to come and commit ourselves to following the Holy Spirit wherever He leads us. Personally, I dream of a fresh wave of mission and church planting which lays foundations for millions to come back to the Father in unreached cultures and inner cities. I envision a fresh mission move from Europe into the Middle East. I dream of an expression of church for every culture, tribe and tongue on our wonderful God-shaped continent.
Thousands of prayer rooms have heard whispered requests and thoughts for individuals, towns, cities and nations across Europe. This is the tip of the iceberg. God is able to do far more than we can imagine, ask or think. The future is hope-filled!”
Pete Greig- signs of the times June 10, 2009
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