Why I Am Generally Not Excited About 24 Hour Prayer Movements

Disclaimers:

1. Prayer is good. Always.

2. I am always excited when people are excited about gospel prayer, whatever the context.

3. I don't want to douse the flame of anyone's zeal, but merely give insight into the best direction for it.

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Anyone who works in campus ministry is probably familiar with 24 hour prayer movements. The current movement started in 1999 in England and has spread to many different locations. At University of Arizona and Arizona State University there were forty day 24-7 prayer movements during the time I was in school. I have heard of them coming to many different schools. I love the heart for prayer and the desire to cry out to God that is evinced in the zealous people behind these movements. Usually they are trying to spur larger movements of the Spirit in the places they are moving.

So...why am I generally not excited about them?

1. Prayer is treated as an extraordinary act rather than an ordinary act.

Prayer is a discipline, a habit, a part of a well-ordered life. Prayer should fit into the ordinary pathways of life. Prayer should be developed so that it can be continued in long-term. 24-7 prayer localizes prayer in a particular place, at a particular time. Prayer becomes part of an extraordinary movement.

2. Prayer is treated as an act that can be programmed rather than a gift of the Holy Spirit that must be created in us by his power.

If we pray, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit. A prayer movement must be done by faith, not by filling slots.

3. Prayer becomes a gimmick, or its true purpose is missed.

Is God pleased with our prayers because we have managed to put a person at a place praying 24-7? What is the nature of prayer? Where do we see in Scripture that God is more pleased by having constant prayer in a place? The fact of 24-7 prayer (of dubious or non-existent in itself) overwhelms prayer, so that man's work becomes central.

4. Training in perseverance and faith in prayer is missed.

When we are leading others into prayer, we want to train them in such a way that fifty years from now they are still committed to prayer. How does teaching them to participate in 24-7 prayer movements help in this? How does teaching them to start 24-7 prayer movements help in this?

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Prayer must be spontaneous, God-centered, according to his Word, sustainable over a lifetime, and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

A better way to start a prayer movement:

Pray yourself. Invite another person to pray with you. Teach him how to pray. Pray earnestly that God would give him a love for prayer and heart to continue in it. Train him to help another person develop a heart for prayer. Repeat.

It is not very glamorous. It is also much harder. But God powers it, not man. God is at the center of it, not man. God receives the glory for it, not man.