What better way to celebrate the completion of a global, month-long prayer chain than with a HARDCORE PRAYER PARTY?! At the end of January, missionary movements in cities across North America met for a night to worship and cry out to God on behalf of our cities.
For many, the thought of staying up for 24 hours straight felt intriguing yet daunting. But progressively over the course of the night, God’s presence and power filled the atmosphere and hearts of everyone unsure of what would come.
This was the case for Kylee from Minnesota who was participating in a hardcore prayer party for the first time. “Initially, a 12-hour prayer party was very exciting but a bit daunting due to it being overnight,” she confessed. “However, during this time, the Lord freed me from the quiet idolatry of sleep and rest. Unfettered joy and free expression of worship in spirit and truth overflowed and freed me on a deeper level from the fear of man while I worship. He showed me in a new way how faithful He has been in pursuit of my heart, even when I wasn't pursuing Him.”
Similarly, Josiah went into the evening with uncertainty but desiring to share his personal burdens with fellow brothers and sisters in the room, and to lay them down at the feet of Jesus.
“I didn’t know what to expect for this 12-hour hardcore prayer night,” he explained. “But I was expecting that God would bring some healing in my life. At the start of the night everyone seemed to be doing great except for me. I felt off and was wondering why God has healed others but not me.”
But a couple hours in, one of the leaders asked if anyone wanted to share about how they were feeling after an activity they did, and two people shared some exciting things. Josiah felt the urge to speak up as well, but fear was holding him back.
“We were about to move on when I felt like I needed to share my heart as I was in a very dark place. So I shared that I have been struggling so much with sleeping at night. I haven’t been able to sleep through the night without terrible nightmares for the last 4 years or so.”
As Josiah shared his heart, the whole group listened. When he was finished, they sat him down as they gathered around him and put their hands on him and prayed over him. “The Lord spoke words through all of them and I felt free after the prayer. The truths that they spoke over me and against the enemy stuck with me and I felt the Lord moving.”
God is moving powerfully in and through our missionary movements in North America! Continue to join us in prayer as we pray for breakthrough in our individual cities:
- Pray for the busyness and comfort that holds back young believers to live a radical missional life.
- Pray against the political polarization and how Christianity is involved in it in the eyes of secular young people.
- Pray for us as we enter the scenes of the sexually confused, transgender movement, Upcycling & Vintage fashion, Independent artists and art crawls, Social Activism movements, SXSW festival in Austin, Coachella
- Pray for many people to give their lives to Jesus, be baptized and join our local churches and teams
- Pray that secular people who are leaders in the scene give their lives to Jesus and become strong missionaries!
- Pray for boldness and creativity so that our teams share the Gospel in the scene in relevant ways.
- Pray for a breakthrough in our region! For passionate young believers with a broken heart willing to embrace their missional calling.
- Lastly, pray for unity in our region as our team continues to develop!