ePray Global – Mobilising Prayer for Every Young Person
October 24-7 prayer
A Month of Saturating Youth for Christ in 24/7 Prayer
We are part of a worldwide movement, united by a common vision and mission to reach every young person with the gospel of Jesus Christ. At this time, most of us can’t come together in-person to pray, but we can come together virtually in unified, extraordinary, persistent prayer. And for that we are thankful. We have spent the last five months exploring what it is to be a movement saturated in prayer (through our ePray series) and now we will spend an intentional time with God and each other through a month of 24/7 prayer.
For the month of October, we want to see every hour of every day filled with prayer by someone in the Youth for Christ movement.
24/7 prayer is nothing new. In 1727, the Moravian community in Herrnhut (current day Germany) began a 24/7 prayer watch that went for 100 years. Many say this was the birthing of the modern day mission movement. By 1791, this one small community had sent out 300 missionaries to the ends of the earth. That, on average, is nearly five missionaries per year, from one small community! It was Moravian missionaries who, as they departed by ship to the West Indies to preach to the slaves, said “The lamb who was slain is worthy to receive the reward of His suffering.” Would they have had this kind of zeal if they hadn’t prayed? I propose it’s impossible to maintain zeal for the Lord and evangelistic efforts without prayer.
Since then, there have been many 24/7 prayer movements that have arisen, such as 24/7 prayer that started with a small group of students in 1999 in the United Kingdom and has spread throughout the world. Or the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Kansas, USA, which also began in 1999 and has had ongoing 24/7 worship and prayer since then. Many houses of prayer have been birthed throughout the world modelled on what they started. What these prayer movements have in common is the importance of prayer and mission working together. It is not one or the other. Those who pray also evangelise or are involved in some kind of mission, and those who are on mission also pray.
So, my call to you is to look at the month of October in your calendar and intentionally set aside time to pray and to gather others to do the same. You could choose to pray for one hour, two hours or even a whole day. You may choose the same time slot each week. You can pray by yourself but, even better, it would be great if you could gather a group together to pray. You might choose to sign up to pray individually at one time, and with a group at another time! We will also have some “Zoom room” times each week where you can join with other people from your region or around the globe.
We have set up a signup sheet on the 24/7 prayer website. You can access the signup sheet by clicking this link. The most important thing is to work out the time difference for your time zone as the signup sheet is only available in one time zone. We will be using the time zone of the International Office, based in Denver, which is MT (Mountain Time). You can work out the time in your region here.
Once you book a slot in the signup sheet, you’ll receive a confirmation email with a reminder of some of the key details. You will then also receive a reminder email 24 hours before your time slot.
If you have trouble at all with this, you can email Dinushka Fry at prayer_assist@yfci.org. The aim is to have every single time slot filled for the whole month of October. With Youth for Christ in over 100 nations, I believe this is totally achievable.
Despite the challenges of the last couple of years, this is an exciting time in our movement. People are innovating to reach young people where they spend most of their time in the current climate (online), the tide of prayer is rising and young people are ready to respond to the good news of the gospel. Let’s believe that, as we come together in prayer next month, we will see even more youth coming to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Before October 1, you will receive a prayer guide for the month that you may use if you desire, so we can indeed be unified in our prayer. We will also have a new app called “Saturate” (available from your usual app store), which will be launched at the MORE conference, for sharing of more personal prayer points, testimonies and encouragement. We will aim to publish the prayer guide on the app and the website, too.
In addition, attached is this email in PDF form in Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and French so you can distribute to your teams. (We used “DeepL Translator” so you may need to check the translation before forwarding.)
I look forward to joining with you in October.
Your sister in Christ and with great anticipation,
Lyndal Walker
International Prayer Director

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