Day 38: the Justice Prayer Room
After attending the 10 a.m. prayer meeting in the Global Prayer Room, I drove over to the Justice Prayer Room for the first time. I fell in love as soon as I walked in the door.
The Global Prayer Room is big, loud, and bright. It just got new carpet, new chairs, and a new stage treatment. It’s a far cry from the first prayer room. That prayer room started in a small trailer. (The stinky carpet is legendary.) Whenever longtime IHOPers mention the old prayer room, they fondly call it “little, rough and ugly.”
That statement literally sums up this new prayer room. It’s tiny and can probably seat only a hundred to two hundred at once. There’s a motley mix of blue and orange chairs. The walls are made of hideous brick and wood and concrete, and some of the ceiling panels are missing. The worship teams are small and are still learning how to do Harp and Bowl well. But this place is the more beautiful for its rawness. I can only imagine how delighted the Father is by the praise and prayer offered up from this small room.
This isn’t very good quality, since I was doing the “cue up Photo Booth, flip the Mac around, and blindly take a picture” thing, but you can see the glorious ugliness of the JPR.
The Justice Prayer Room started this Monday. Dave Sliker is directing the JPR; you can read his vision for this prayer room here. To briefly sum it up, the JPR is a training prayer room for interns, students, and anyone on staff at IHOP–KC who isn’t quite ready to sing on stage in front of 24/7 TV cameras. But the JPR is more than a live prayer lab. It is a fully-functional prayer room that will focus on praying for justice (i.e., against abortion, human trafficking, etc.).
The JPR will be open 6 a.m. to midnight every weekday with foreign-language intercession meetings on the weekends. GPR worship teams generally play twelve hours a week (six 2-hour sets), but JPR teams have only two sets a week. This is so that more teams can be created and more people can get on the teams. The schedule is flipped, too; when the GPR has an intercession meeting, the JPR will have a devotional meeting. If you’re in the mood for one or the other, you could theoretically keep going back and forth between each prayer room all day. (I don’t recommend that, though; it’s good to have a varied “diet” of prayer meetings.)
I’m excited about coming here. I’ll be more likely to take my laptop and work in here than in the GPR. I’d be less likely to succumb to “mic fright” here, too. I’m really looking forward to seeing new worship leaders, singers, musicians and intercessors develop and then go out to other HOPs, ministries, and nations. Eventually this prayer room is going to be as high-caliber as the Global Prayer Room … at which point IHOP will open another prayer room and the process will begin again. I love it!
In reading your blog I am deeply disturbed by so many things that I don’t know where to start. How are you fulfilling the great commission by spending all your time praying and hanging out with other Christians? Praying is something we do with our lives as we live everyday. Jesus never set that kind of example He was busy doing the Fathers work and took time to be alone with the Father. No where did I see any emphasis on the Lord in anything you wrote. Rather I see you following some kind of idea someone had and since it sounds great to pray 24/7 it really keeps you from doing what you are really suppose to do. Changing the real world one person at a time as you live your daily life. Think about what I am saying. You really sound like someone who is sincere and you love the Lord. What good can you do if you are not out there with the rest of us.
Okay, I just drove for seven hours and my brain is fried, but I’m going to try to respond.
I read your comment and thought (and prayed) about how to reply to your question about living the Great Commission through life as an intercessory missionary. The way I will answer your comment is with three questions: (1) What should the balance of prayer and works be? (2) Do you believe that we can actually accomplish anything for the Kingdom of G-d out of our own strength? (3) Do you believe that prayer works?
Let me explain what I mean. You emphasized a lot of action in your comment—I assume you mean getting out and doing ministry, evangelizing, etc. I agree completely that this type of ministry is vital to the life of a believer. We are all called to minister to “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40); we are called to passionate and active, not passive, Christianity. Y’shua spent much of His three years of ministry doing good works for His Father’s Kingdom, touching thousands of people. Yet as you yourself pointed out, He took much time to be in prayer. I believe that just as much as He sought direction in prayer, He also prayed for the people to whom He was to minister that day, asking G-d to prepare their hearts for the message of the Kingdom.
Now that is just my belief. We do not know what He actually said in most of His prayer times. But all of the apostles learned from the Master, and we can see that they spent hours laboring in prayer for their churches and for souls to be saved—just as they spent hours preaching, teaching, healing, and ministering to these people. They balanced and intertwined prayer and ministry. It was one and the same for them. Jude said to constantly pray in the Spirit (Jude ; James said that “the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16, in context to praying for one another, but still valid for prayer in general); Epaphras, one of Paul’s students, prayed without ceasing.
Paul is a great example of this because he talks so much about prayer. He visited the Romans, the Ephesians, the Thessalonians, the Colossians, etc., but he also constantly prayed for them. He valued prayer for distant people and congregations as much as physically serving and witnessing to them. Paul prayed for Israel in Romans 9:1-3 and 10:1: “I tell the truth in Messiah, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Messiah for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh … Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.” Were Paul’s impassioned prayers for the Jews less valuable to G-d than when he actually preached to Jews (Acts 22:20)? He is praying that souls would be saved. Is not G-d perfectly able to save souls whether or not Paul was actually there preaching to them?
Before you start thinking I am saying outreach ministry is unnecessary, I want to say no, it is necessary. I am simply trying to address my second question: do you believe we can actually do anything for the Kingdom by ourselves? Think about this for a moment. If we witness to someone, it is really up to the Holy Spirit to move on that person’s heart (and up to that person to accept the message). If we love and bless our neighbor instead of yelling at her because her dog barked all night, it is because the L-rd has changed our hearts to be loving and forgiving. If someone else gets promoted above us at work and we don’t complain, that is G-d working humility in us. If we have a huge teaching ministry and see thousands of souls saved every week, it is the Word working in our hearts to pour out of our mouth and to pierce the hearts of the listeners.
This is not to say that we believers can just sit back on our couches and watch TV, trusting that the Holy Spirit will go out and save souls without our participation in our church’s evangelism ministry or whatever. We are called to fulfill the Great Commission and that means missions, evangelizing, feeding the poor, prison ministry, etc. But when you think about it, all we really do is say, “L-rd, I love You and I will serve You. Please come and work through me as I do this activity.” G-d allows us to participate in fulfilling the Great Commission, but that fulfillment is ultimately up to G-d. All of our activity is powerless without Him. We could preach a thousand sermons and sing a thousand worship songs, but if we don’t have love for G-d and for others that’s cultivated in the place of prayer, our activity is meaningless and powerless.
That’s the beauty of His Kingdom—it is built on weak people saying yes to G-d and asking Him to be strong through them. That’s the Sermon on the Mount. It’s totally counter-culture. Counter-Church culture, in fact. We in the Church emphasize what we’re doing for the L-rd so much, often forgetting that the power of G-d is not dependent on our power or our amount of activity. He lets us take part in what He’s doing, make no mistake; I could go off on a tangent about intercession and how G-d actually changes His actions based on our prayers (Exodus 32, Joel 2, etc.). But we are like small children building a treehouse with our Father. He is the Creator who built the entire universe, yet loves to let us “help” him.
The third question: How much does G-d value prayer, really? Do you believe that prayer works? To the human eye, prayer is one of the most powerless, foolish things in the world (1 Corinthians 1:27). This is true for many in the Church, even if they don’t realize they think about prayer this way; I know I had this view for years. Think about it. We are talking to an invisible Being who has all power and knowledge and does whatever He pleases (Psalms 115, 135). We can only trust that He loves our weak words and will act on them. Our prayers have power because He allows them to have power; He allows us to move His heart when we ask for His own will to be done. He has made us priests and kings to Him, able to approach the throne with our petitions (Revelation 1:5-6). That’s crazy. But it’s true. And if it’s true that prayer is valuable and powerful—what if we actually pray for people to know Y’shua as Savior? I can pray for souls to be saved in Kashmir or Japan or somewhere I’ve never been. G-d will honor that prayer; who knows if a church will be strengthened or a back-slidden believer will return or a drug user will see an angel?
I believe I am changing the world through prayer. I do not want to minimize the need for ministry. There is nothing like seeing someone give their life to Y’shua on a street corner, or going on a missions trip to give away Bibles, or, in my case, helping write and edit books about the Bible that touch people’s lives in many nations. But prayer is just as valuable in G-d’s Kingdom and in fulfilling the Great Commission. So I must disagree with you. I am doing what I am supposed to do. As long as I serve the L-rd by actively walking out His commandments and saying, “Yes, I want You to use me to help fulfill the Great Commission,” I am changing the world. Because it’s not me and it’s not what I do (whether it’s primarily prayer or missions). It’s Him.
P.S. You view what I do as “following some kind of idea someone had.” It’s true. The idea came from King David, who I believe had it originally from G-d (yes, he wanted to honor the L-rd, but G-d had worked in his heart to produce this desire.) David’s tabernacle had 24/7 prayer and worship (1 Chronicles 15-17, 23-25).
There’s a long tradition of 24/7 prayer throughout Church history. 24/7 prayer produces missionaries too, not navel-gazers. For example, the Moravians held a 24/7 prayer meeting that lasted for one hundred years and produced passionate missionaries who went out to many nations.
P.P.S. My comment is longer than the original post. The post wasn’t meant to be an exhaustive examination of the biblical basis for 24/7 prayer. I was just excited that another prayer room was opening and wanted to talk about the nuts-and-bolts for other people who were interested. I’m not sure how much of my blog you’ve actually read or if it’s just this post. If you want to read more of my thoughts on prayer, I have labeled many of my posts with the “intercession” tag. Feel free to comment on the blog with additional questions, or you may email me for further clarification.
Jenn,
I appreciate your lengthy response and I too am a bit tired today but let me try and respond to you. 1) I do believe there is a balance between praying, living the Christian life etc. this includes works, 2) we can do nothing without Christ who strengthens us and 3) Yes I believe prayer works.
What I do object to however is a theology that gives you the premise that if you pray 24/7 that somehow this is going to convince God that He needs to answer your prayers. This takes the power out of His hands and literally puts it in yours that somehow you are going to control the hand of God by something you do. I realize you have cited scripture but again I will use Paul just as you did about his thorn in the flesh. Now I know that you would agree with me when I say that he spent time in prayer asking God to remove this. But you and I know that the Lord did not remove it but instead used it to teach Paul something about His character. So in this case prayer did not change things (Pauls prayer). But it did change Paul he realized that some prayers will not get answered. I can bet that Paul did not set up 24/7 prayer rooms for Christians to pray together but instead encouraged the more intimate prayer life of one on one prayer with the Father in Jesus name along with sharing the gospel through your life and your faith by the works you do. Also Davids Tabernacle was a forerunner of Jesus and now that the perfect has come we no longer need the imperfect. Why would you resurrect this it would be like reinstating the animal sacrifices when we both know that Jesus was the fulfillment of both these practices. The Church is not Israel and I do not read the Gospel according to King David either. We are not suppose to change the world Jenn we are suppose to change lives, one at a time. This world is not going to get better all you have to do is read the Bible it is dying, corrupt and evil. But their are those who need to know that their is Good News and so we share it. I share it everyday as I work as a secretary, as I interact with vendors, as I live with my family and enjoy my friends and my church leaning on the Lord throughout my day. If I focused on any one of these things my life would be out of balance. I can also tell you that once upon a time I too followed a cause and devoted my life, my family to it and got only heartache because the ministry was flesh and mans ideas, not God’s. They too said to pray, they too worked on the mission field, they too sacrificed, fasted etc. But there was no accountability and the Word was taken out of context to serve an agenda a mans agenda. Be careful and study to show thyself approved. I can tell you are a sincere and good person, but so was I and still I was deeply in the wrong so much so that my faith and the faith of thousands were shipwrecked and left on the rocks of disillusionment. Paul talked more about False Prophets than just about anything in the epistles. Spend some time reading and pray about that. I wish you peace I really do.
I want to be very clear and say that I do not believe prayer, 24/7 or otherwise, convinces G-d that He needs to answer our prayers. That is a performance mentality and is totally not Biblical. But I believe G-d loves and values corporate intercession and worship highly.
Again, I do not believe the L-rd needs our prayers to complete the work of His Kingdom, just as He does not need our ministry activities to spread the Gospel. If He wanted to, He could cause His Son to appear in the sky right now and thunder the Gospel from Heaven, saying, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life; I AM the living G-d who died for the remission of sins; repent and worship Me.” He could fulfill the Great Commission in an instant; He doesn’t need our help. But He has chosen to let us take part in the advancement of His Kingdom through ministry and through prayer, which are both sacrifices of voluntary love and obedience. As such, they are both valuable to G-d. And they move His heart because He ALLOWS them to move His heart.
When Moses pleaded with G-d to spare Israel in Exodus 32, the L-rd relented—changed what He was going to do—yet He was willing to let Moses have that authority before Him in prayer on behalf of a nation.
The L-rd values that kind of Mosaic intercession on a corporate level. He commanded corporate intercession through the prophet Joel.
The passage continues with a command for corporate intercession:
So the L-rd values corporate prayer and allows it to move His heart in a powerful way, even choosing to change His actions. He also values unceasing corporate prayer. In Isaiah 62:6–7, He commands us to pray for Israel without rest: “You who make mention of the L-rd, do not keep silent, and give Him no rest till He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” Again, He does not need our prayers; He does not need us to remind Him of His promises to bless and save Israel. But He values it when we pray in accordance with His will. And for some reason He has chosen to run His Kingdom in this way: if we pray, He moves—not because our prayers are powerful, but because He delights to honor them and to do His own will.
I think an environment of 24/7 prayer aids us in remembering to seek His will for the nations and for our neighbor. Obviously not everyone has that kind of an environment. I will say clearly we do not need such an environment—but it can be helpful, especially in training people how to pray and how to love prayer. I know I will not be at the International House of Prayer for forever. But it is an excellent training ground to give me a hunger for prayer, both individual and corporate, both devotional and intercessory.
Such an environment is not (or should not be) all inward-focused. I value prayer so highly in my life not just because the L-rd commanded it, but because it is the place out of which my ministry flows. Prayer causes me to love more. Using Paul as an example again, he spoke about the kind of love believers are to have in their lives:
When I pray for unbelievers to be saved, I grow in love for them. When I pray for unity in the Church, I grow in love for believers. I am less likely to burn out if I do everything out of love instead of obligation, and my works are more likely to withstand the fire in the day of judgment. We’ve all seen people who’ve faithfully served in ministry for years and years, yet because they spent so much time pouring out and not enough time in prayer (whether personal prayer or corporate prayer), they get tired and even bitter. Now, although I will not always feel the warm fuzzies for the homeless or prisoners or even my neighbor, I am still commanded to actively love them. But what I am saying is that I will be more likely to approach ministry out of love and less likely to burn out.
As for Paul’s thorn in the flesh: it is true that the L-rd ordains some things for certain purposes and will not change. But I think you are taking that verse out of context. Paul wasn’t praying for souls to be saved, which is definitely within the L-rd’s will at all times. This was a personal issue. I think Paul, who labored in prayer with and for many churches, would be the first to tell you how powerful prayer is and how corporate worship and intercession unites communities and churches.
One vital point: the primary reason I believe that the 24/7 prayer model is Biblical because there’s 24/7 worship and prayer around G-d’s throne in heaven. I don’t value the House of Prayer reality just because David did it; I was only using David’s tabernacle to show that the faith has had a long history of 24/7 worship and prayer. What I should have pointed out was that David’s tabernacle echoes the heavenly model of worship. Revelation 4 tells us that the four seraphim and the twenty-four elders around the throne do nothing but worship the L-rd “without rest day or night” (Rev. 4:8). And Y’shua, the Son of G-d, eternally stands “at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Romans 8:34). We are invited to enter into both worship and prayer. We are commanded in the Psalms to praise the L-rd. We are also told that we have been made “priests and kings” (Rev. 1:6) to the L-rd—and, historically, priests and kings came before G-d in intercession on behalf of their nation. This reality of prayer is not something that died with Y’shua on the Cross. On the contrary: because of the grace and authority we have been given by His atoning sacrifice, we should come before Him in prayer all the more. This is partly why I value the 24/7 prayer reality. I am encouraged to remember my authority before His throne, like Esther, and to constantly approach Him with bold intercession and the sacrifice of praise.
I’d also like to point out that we often go through heart seasons in our walk with the L-rd. Of course we need balance in our lives as believers—we need a balance of outreach ministry, devotional prayer and worship, corporate prayer and worship, fellowship, reading the Word, etc. But sometimes the L-rd will emphasize a season in our life of just studying the Word and worshiping Him. Next He might send us out to the missions field. Other times we might find ourselves doing both at once. Right now I’m in a season of prayer and of serving my brothers and sisters around me. I do not know if I am called to go out to the nations as a missionary, if I will have a ministry here in America, or if I am called to prayer as a primary ministry. I feel more called to business actually. But right now I am in a training time, just learning more about the Word and about how to serve others out of love and out of the place of prayer.
I do believe that I am a witness to the L-rd in the way I live my life. I don’t spend all day in the prayer room; I have a full-time job, friends, outside activities, and ways I minister to people. I have many, many opportunities to serve others. I don’t want to be rude or seem like a narrow-minded, knee-jerk cultist, but—how do you know I am not walking worthy of the calling and living in obedience?
I am honestly touched by the concern you’ve displayed for how I spend my time. I’m glad you have such a heart for other believers and are jealous that they walk in righteousness and obedience to G-d’s Word. But I have previously studied this model of prayer and believe that it is biblical—based on what the Word says, not what humans say. If I didn’t think it was biblical, believe me, I would not be wasting my time in this fashion! I’m a pretty logical person who constantly analyzes things and I do not want to blindly accept what other people have said about 24/7 prayer. I agree with 24/7 prayer because I have been convinced by what G-d Himself—not the leaders of the ministry I work for—says about prayer. I believe that He says it is worth my time to love Him and love His people through prayer, just as it is worth my time to love through ministry and other activities.
Jenn,
I am very impressed with your commitment and I truly do not believe you are in a cult. I have spent some time reading and investigating IHOP and while I believe there are many wonderful sincere brothers and sisters such as yourself unfortunately the leadership leaves something to be desired. However, I am comforted knowing that you are questioning and analyzing. Continue to do this and guard your heart and your mind against the false teaching that tends to be so subtle. Again I find your exuberance and intelligence refreshing and I wish you well. God Bless!
Thank you, Freebie. Many people take issue with IHOP’s leadership, but I’m glad that you at least don’t believe it’s a cult. I will continue to approach all teaching, not just IHOP teaching, with a Berean mindset (Acts 17:11). I know you will do the same.
Jenn,
I just read through most of these comments and I just want to say, it’s pleasing to my heart to see you respond with such an open heart and love. This is the first time I’ve been here and I followed a link because I wanted to find anything on the new justice prayer room, since I haven’t been to KC since it opened. Keep running!
Thank you, Sean. I hope you feel welcome here; I love interacting with commenters. Hope to see you around!