Planning for Pray 168

Pray 168

An initiative that came from Catherine and Chris Knights our friends from Lord's Hill Church. They have a heart for prayer and have linked in with us and SoHOP. The aim is to cover Southampton with 24/7 prayer by asking 168 Christians of Southampton from across the churches to pray an hour a week every week as there are 168 hours in a week. This would mean that effectively Southampton will be covered in prayer all the time. Full details on sohop.org/pray-168

There are some information meetings on zoom where Rich and Chris Knights will be explaining the vision to anyone who wants to come.

• Mon Jan 18 at 12midday - this is hosted by the Anglican Clergy Chapter

• Monday 25 January 11am

• Thursday 28 January 7.30pm

Rich has already publicised it fairly widely, via our website, via Southampton Christian Network and by speaking at the City prayer meeting last Sunday about it. We have 15 people signed up so far and more being added.

Big Ben Chimes

This was brought by Jane Castle to Chris and Ros small HOP and shared with us and I explained about how this is relevant to our Pray 168 foundation and also to our SoHOP foundations. 

Big Ben chimes out the Westminster chimes every 15 minutes. It is the same 5 bells played in various ways. At quarter past it is just 4 notes. Each quarter hour the tune is one bar longer.  There are lyrics to the chime on the hour, based on Psalm 37:23-24:

All through this hour; Lord by my guide; That by thy power; no foot shall slide.' 

The tune and lyrics were first written in 1793 for a new clock in St Mary the Great in Cambridge. It was apparently inspired by a snippet from Handel's Messiah, the part that goes "I know that my redeemer liveth". The same chimes are in many townhall clocks around the country (e.g. Portsmouth Guildhall Clock). The tune is to what I know as 'Play up Pompey, Pompey Play up'! [Saints football fans among us take no offence please!]. The tune is also used in schools throughout Japan, China and Taiwan to mark the end of lessons.

This is a regular reminder and rhythm to acknowledge our Lord over our cities, our nations and our times. Pray 168 is also a regular rhythm taking us to God and holding up our city and nation to Him. It points to our own Southampton Guildhall chimes too of the Isaac Watts hymn (O God our help in ages past) and to our watch bell on the Bargate. God ultimately is in control.

We discussed in our breakout rooms what is the main thing about Pray 168 and this is what we fed back from this:

• Nehemiah - rebuilding the walls. People are stationed all along the walls, praying at every hour for the hour and in doing so are rebuilding up our walls. The prayer is a spiritual chain encircling the walls of Southampton, providing protection, preparation and rebuilding.

• When we pray we remember the chimes of Big Ben and should proclaim them or the spirit of them to keep up the praise of the Lord. Our God should be praised.

• 2 Chronicles 7 verse - '...if my people who are called by my name, humble themselves, and pray...' We are seeking the Lord's face, His presence above all else. We cannot proceed with our plans anymore, with the way things are or have been in the past. We need radical, humble seeking for God and his face only. (These last points were brought up again in our prayers at the end, and very powerfully.)

• The Kingdom of God - we have a call to pray that the Kingdom of God will be brought into our city. We called to pray for the people of Southampton to be under the Kingdom of God, like a net over our city.

• To pray without ceasing, and to usher in revival as nothing but revival will do.

• Pray 168 will get more people involved and provides communication to all sorts of Christians as a way of sharing different ways of praying.

• Pray 168 provides consistent prayer for the whole day - how marvellous to pray for the same theme by 168 different people continually throughout the day - how transformative that will be, for example, if we are praying for the health service like this, or our schools, etc.

• It is a small fire which will take off - it may be small at first as we start but gradually it will burn continually.

• Pray 168 provides a discipline to proclaim and speak out the promises of God - declaring the Word, speaking things out that aren't yet happening and praying them in to being. The continual prayer as if a chisel is chipping away until breakthrough comes. Yes!

Prayer themes for Pray 168

We discussed possible different themes also together which were:

• The NHS

• The poor and needy - encompassing street pastors, homeless projects and a need overall for a breakthrough in community work for the poor and needy that is coordinated across the city.

• Those facing unemployment.

• Children and families

• Education

• ABOVE ALL - SEEKING HIS FACE to understand his character better. Linked with this is praying and being hungry for signs and wonders. 

• Also to pray for the Church to be bold and courageous, the Church to step up/wake up, the Lord to be Lord over us, for us to be totally 100% surrendered and submitted to the Lord.

• The Church - to be salt and light. To light a fire in the Church that will touch our community

• Church leaders.

Email pray168@sohop.org to sign up to pray. We encouraged, asked, stressed importance of our community signing up to pray. We also suggested that we consider night time prayer as we are called to be watchmen, praying without ceasing, in the night and daytime. (At that point one of our community volunteered straight away for an 11pm slot!)

We don't have to go anywhere to pray for Pray 168 - we can't use the Sacred Space at the moment. We can pray wherever we are however we want.

Unfortunately we ran out of time to discuss the 'main thing' about our small hops. We will do this when we meet again.

Armour of God, and close

We left each other reminding one another to keep on the armour of God and put it on daily and to come to the zoom 9pm prayer calls which are every evening, run faithfully by Elaine and Sally. Another regular rhythm aiding us and our city. Also encouraged people to keep up their own individual rhythms of prayer and presence with God.

Then we said goodbye. It was lovely and powerful.