You may have heard myself or others talking recently about a 24-7 prayer vigil. You have probably gathered how the whole thing works; we have a space where people commit to taking one-hour shifts to pray around the clock for 24 hours. However, you may be thinking “What’s the point of it” or maybe “That’s fine, but it’s not for me”.

Well, I would like to take this opportunity to share my heart and why I think God is calling all of us to commit to praying in this way.

Firstly, prayer is powerful. I have been studying a lot in the book of Luke/Acts recently, and it is interesting to note that everything of significance that happened in the life of Jesus and the early church involved people praying. I guess it seems that God wants us to know that we can’t do this stuff without Him. I can identify with Moses when he said that if God wasn’t going with them he didn’t want to leave the desert.

We need the supernatural presence and power of the Holy Spirit to be the church that Christ intended us to be, and prayer is undoubtedly the key to closeness and relationship with God. Seek first the kingdom of God, and let the Father take care of the details. We can never have too much prayer.

Secondly, I believe that there is value in doing things together. We are created to exist in community. It may not look exactly like the early church in the book of Acts, but that sense of community can be just as strong as we begin to do life together. God has put you in the Bethel family for a reason – both to give and to receive what we need as we journey through life in Christ. Practically, we can’t all be in the same place at the same time. It just doesn’t seem to work. But this is one way that we can all be part of something bigger than just ourselves.

I know that praying for an hour seems daunting for some people. We hope to have a great space with scriptures, opportunities to write prayers, draw pictures, and things to stimulate your thoughts when you pray. I encourage you to be brave and give it a go.

So here’s the challenge: join me in being part of this. Let’s seek God together and see what He will do. Commit 1 hour of the 720 that God has given you for June 2013. What will come of it? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out.

Caleb