Friday Review . . . 24-7 and Transit

In September, 1999 a small group of people in England decided to try praying continuously for a month -- and didn't stop until Christmas. Their experiment has now spread to more than 60 countries and fills several large, interconnected weg pages, starting with www.24-7prayer.com/cm.

The purpose? In their words:

The dream behind 24-7 is to turn the tide of youth culture back to Jesus. It's a big dream -- maybe an impossible dream. We recognise that the Body of Christ in the West is bleeding young people. Something has to change. But clever strategy alone is not the answer. Never has been. History shows that the tide turns when God's people pray. That is why God is mobilising prayer movements like 24-7 (and others).

As far as I have been able to tell, the web page began as an organizing center for prayer rooms around the world. People in more than 60 countries, to date, have signed up to staff a prayer room continually (in shifts) for a week or more. At the time that I was writing this, there were 19 prayer rooms praying in 6 countries.

As you would expect from a youth movement, the web page is huge. It is also filled with inspiring, and frequently, beautifully written content. As you would also expect from a web-centered, youth movement; it has evolved. The next step were Boiler Rooms.

Boiler Rooms are described as Millenium 3 Monasteries. They are communities centering around prayer, evangelism and mission. There are currently 16 Boiler Rooms in 7 countries. One of the newest, Kansas City, is the first in the U.S.

The next step for the Boiler Rooms was Transit. Transit is a nine-month, residential, intensive, discipleship traning program. It relies on life in community, missionary service and classroom instruction. The link in the previous sentence goes directly to the syllabus page for Transit on the U.S. 24-7 web page. This link is to the International Transit web page.

The 24-7 web pages are overly complicated and can be difficult to navigate. I think it is worth the trouble. If anything will restore your faith in the future of the church -- these pages will do it. They tell the story of a significant number of young people, literally worldwide, who are willing to live dedicated lives of mission, service, evangelism and prayer.

I have added a few links directly to internal pages to make prowling around a little easier.
Main FAQ page
What is a Boiler Room?
U.S. 24-7 News Page
24-7 Values and Methods
24-7 Mission Teams

Has your church ever sponsored a 24-7 prayer room? A search on "Presbyterian" on the 24-7 web page turns up all of 12 results. A search on blogger for 24-7 prayer produced almost 7,000 results. I didn't check all of them, but I didn't see any member blogs in the first 17 pages of search results.

If you have any experience with the 24-7 prayer movement or have mentioned it in your blog, let me know. Either leave a comment or I can be reached directly at JusticeSeekerOK@aol.com.

JusticeSeeker