[30] Culture of 24-7 prayer

As we try to concisely describe what we have discovered about the identity of the House of Prayer we reflected a bit on what we hope our culture will be like. What culture are we developing and what is the culture of 24-7 prayer? 

It’s like asking what is our DNA - we teach what we know but we reproduce what we are.

Beginning with worship

It has become our culture to make time to just focus on the Lord when we meet together. And so tonight we began with a time of silent prayer, holding hands. It is simple, but it gets us focussed quickly and seems to connect us together. We've done this once before and noted that it is an example of our culture as a group. 

After this time, one of the group shared a dream he recently had where God was kissing him over and again. It seemed so undignified. God was saying to him our British culture of reserve gets in the way of His culture.  Interesting that we are thinking about culture tonight!!!

Treasure Chest

Within the context of worship we passed around a small jewellery box, giving the opportunity to share more about what God has been saying to us about what He has created in us to bring out now, to bless the house of prayer and the city of Southampton. This is not the normal British culture - talking about ourselves like this. But we need to dwell on this and accept the work of God in our hearts. Some people had nothing further to add since last week, but others had discovered more or were not here last week. It was both moving and a privilege to hear from each one. Glory to God for what he is putting in us!

We are planning to make a prayer diary to circulate within our group. Each day it will have one person and their gift to pray for so each month we systematically pray for everyone in the group.

Presence - Prayer - Mission - Justice - Joy

All along, the core vision of the house of prayer is that our first passion is to seek God (presence) that we will pray alot but also the life of the House of Prayer will result in practical expressions of mission (taking the Good News to people) and justice (righting wrongs). 

In pairs we studied Isaiah 56:6-7 and Mark 11:15-17. We looked for where the ideas of presence, prayer, mission, justice and joy appear in these verses.

Richard noted that in Hebrew, the word that gets translated as 'presence' is actually 'faces'. See the Online Hebrew interlinear bible, for Psalm 16:11. This is more personal than just being in the presence of God. There are many references to the Lord making his face shine upon us. e.g Psalm 80:19.

We shared our observations and particularly got excited that it begins and ends with presence and joy. Joy is not something we have to work up - it comes when we spend time in His presence.

Looking ahead to 24-7 Gathering - Vienna

Some of the group are going to the 24-7 Global Gathering in Vienna next week. We prayed for those who are going and we prayed for those who will be meeting as normal in Southampton.