Belfast Prayer Room Now OpenFriday 14th May 2010

Royal Avenue, at the heart of Belfast, pulsates with commercial life. Big name chain stores line the thoroughfare - Marks & Spencers, Boots, Easons. Recently, in addition to all the usual products on offer, those who work, browse, socialise and shop along this high street have found a place to pray.

The prayer room, located a couple of doors down from Easons, opened on Tuesday 4 May. Visitors stepped through the door into a welcome area for tea, coffee and chat. From there they could go beyond the curtains into the prayer space where lighting effects, music, words and images helped them reflect on themes of identity, hope and forgiveness. This ground floor had been designed with the casual passerby in mind. Upstairs; the more committed find encouragement to pray specifically for individuals and for church life.

The Methodist church has been involved with the 24-7 prayer movement for around 5 years now and a couple of years ago we were given the opportunity of using an empty unit in the city centre of Belfast, as a prayer room! We were blown away by what God did through it, with the help of around 20 churches and organisations. Since then 24- 7 Prayer has seen this high street prayer happen in Newtownards, Lisburn, Lurgan, Shannon, Cork, Ballymena and Downpatrick. In all these situations the power has been in the churches working together to pray for and with their contexts.

This year for the whole of the month of May and hopefully into June we have had another chance to do something bold (and a little crazy) in Belfast and have asked churches to partner with us. The story of Nehemiah has really struck a cord with us of how Nehemiah enquired after the state of the city, and was moved by compassion to pray and fast and then mobilised into action to rebuild the wall. There is something significant in the way that Nehemiah engaged the services of each household and got them to work at their place in the wall and take ownership. In this way each Church helps to build the wall of prayer again around our city, and get the chance to experience something quite unique – a prayer space right in the centre of a city.

At the time of writing we are 10 days into this initiative and excited about what God will do in and through this space made available to Him and though the lives of the hosts making themselves available to be used by God. The room itself has a few purposes, one is to intercede for the city, another is to provide a space in the middle of a busy city where people might encounter God for the first time, or afresh through the themes of hope, identity and forgiveness. One of the most significant parts of the room is the prayer request wall where people leave their own personal struggles and/or the names and situations of friends and family they wish others to pray for. As you stand before it there is a realisation of the brokenness of this world and how much people need God to break in.

For the first ten days members of the University Christian Unions from around Belfast kept the room open during the nighttime hours. At first we thought it wouldn't be possible to be open at night, but the students offered to take responsibility for this. Once the student exam season starts, the prayer room opening times became 8am to 6.00pm every day except Thursday when it will be open 8am to 9pm. (We are willing by arrangement to open the room for those who wish to pray at other times, contact Gillian gillian@24-7prayerireland.com)

I was struck today that we don’t really take God’s promises concerning answering prayer seriously enough. If we really, as churches, got down on our knees to cry out to God for the city, what might we see change in the lives of individuals and communities? If you haven’t made it to the prayer room yet, do come and be part of building the wall of prayer around the city of Belfast.

This piece by Gillian Best has been adapted from a Methodist Newsletter article .

 

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