August 2004

Prayer at Home Focus

Prayer was a significant part of Home Focus 2004. For the first time we had non-stop round-the-clock prayer. We committed to this as part of 24-7 London Prayer, a group which is mobilising churches in London to generate an unbroken year of prayer for London.

At Pakefield we curtained off a corner of the main prayer tent to create a specific 'prayer room' and filled it with visual aids and materials to prompt and help us to pray.

By the end of the week, the prayer request board was full up, the graffiti wall was full and there were many prophetic words and drawings hung up all over the room.

Most importantly there was a real sense of the presence of God in that place. Adults, youth and students all came together to meet with God and to pray for our city and our world.

At 2am it wasn't unusual to see up to 20 people praying silently or in groups around the prayer tent. It was a wonderful sight.

Many people said that the 24-7 room was the highlight of this Focus and so 24-7 will be back next year.

The time-honoured early morning prayer meetings, led by Jeremy Jennings, punctuated the 24-7 prayer cycle with the usual dynamic mix of passionate prayer and worship. They were very well attended by a wonderful mix of ages and representatives of the different churches attending Focus. Even one of the Pontins staff became a regular!

The Focus administrators attributed the smooth running of this Home Focus to the increased amount of prayer. So thank you for praying. You made a difference!

We look forward to seeing all of you in a much bigger prayer tent at the Prayer for London event tent on September 10th on Clapham Common.

Calum Lindsay

This article is an edited version of one first published in Focus, August 2004. Reproduced here with permission.