24/7 Prayer and Two Services: New, Culture-Forming Initiatives

Flash back to March and April of 2020. When you read that sentence, your instant reaction might be “nooooo! Not that again!”  I mostly feel the same. But some good things came of those early pandemic months. Some new, life-giving practices (believe it or not) were established. Particularly, I’m thinking about 24/7 Prayer weeks at The Bridge Church.

The very first time we did this was actually a collaborative event with other churches on the north shore. The idea originated from The Bridge and the sign-up sheet was decidedly Bridge-heavy, but there were people from nine different north shore churches that participated. We even went for two straight weeks! I thought it was such an incredible testimony to Christian unity in the midst of a societal crisis that I wrote an article about it for the North Shore News. Of course, they didn’t publish it. Instead, they invited me to spend lots of money to advertise our church in the paper. But still, something new was attempted.

A couple of months later, in June of 2020, we did another week of 24/7 prayer, this time just our church. We built up to it with a sermon series on prayer and a “prayer request campaign” in our community. I looked back at the sign-up sheet from that week. There were a bunch of unfilled gaps, and a couple of us took almost all the nighttime slots, because getting those filled was tough sledding. I actually remember feeling frustrated that week that my attempts to create more of a prayer culture at The Bridge weren’t producing the results I hoped and prayed for.

When we do 24/7 prayer weeks now, the sign-up sheet fills up so much quicker than it used to. I sleep more now than I used to during these weeks (although I still love the middle of the night times!). We are doing far more in terms of corporate gatherings for worship and prayer than we used to. By God’s grace and power, that new thing that was attempted four years ago has become a life-giving rhythm in our church that is providing space for the Holy Spirit to do what only He can.

(By the way, as an important side-note, we’re not done yet! There are plenty of slots left for Friday-Sunday, and we’d love to see some new names on there. We also have a few more times of corporate prayer and worship that we’d love to see people at.)

As I said last Sunday, the primary reason for this is to respond to what God has already been doing in our church by bringing more people through our doors. We want to make space for the Lord to keep doing what He’s been doing. But something I’m also hoping it will do in our church is to create even more of a culture of serving. We have more needs in various areas because of this new change. We haven’t exactly seen a rush of people to step into those areas, but I’ve learned by now to trust the Lord to provide in His timing. I’ve also learned that even if things begin with some bumpiness, that doesn’t mean there isn’t long-term life in that thing. That’s why we don’t need to rely on a flawless first attempt!

Continue to pray with me for our church as we look toward this new initiative of two services. Continue to ask the Lord if there are ways you can step forward and help. Ask Him if there are people in your life you can invite to join us. I can’t wait to see what He does with this new thing.