The Moravian, 24-7 Prayer and me and 'Miss Daisy'

Something quite profound happened to me when I visited the Moravian Church at Brockweir during the recent Border Prayer Room project.

It wasn’t simply the church with its history tracking back to the early 18^th Century and Zinzendorf’s estate at Hernhutt in Germany, or even the sweetness of the presence of God there, or the prayer stations in various pews which took the pilgrim on a journey to a deeper faith with their questions and challenges.  It was the meeting of two lives lived separately but somehow and strangely connected through two great movements of prayer. This was the meeting of myself and the Moravian pastor Thom.  He has the Moravian church in his blood and as I met him it felt that through 24-7 Prayer I do also.  He was taken first to the Moravian Church in the USA by his grandmother who later moved to California and to a church plant there when he was 15 yrs old.  It wasn’t just the story of his journey but the joining together of two histories, ancient and modern that overwhelmed me.  I was completely undone and continue to be in that state of not totally understanding what I’ve experienced here. 

It felt like this was the end of my pilgrimage from Chester, down the border to this point.  Though my destination was to be Chepstow here I found the end of my personal journey, and yet the end is the beginning! I’ve had to come to the end to reach the beginning point.

Thom put it well when he described what I felt by quoting T.S. Eliot – ‘What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning.  The end is where we start from.’

But what did this mean?  I didn’t yet understand.

The next day I came to Chepstow and saw the point where the River Wye enters the River Severn.  Then together these two rivers, who both have their origin on Plynlimon in Wales, enter the sea.   I heard the Lord speaking to me about the coming together of two great prayer movements.  And in this tumultuous coming together of the two rivers I had something of an explanation to what I felt when I met Thom.  The Moravians, as he told me, didn’t stop praying at the end of a hundred years.  As a church worldwide they carry on the prayer vigil that began in Hernhutt.  

So this river of prayer continues to flow and into it come many tributaries.  24-7 Prayer is but one, but what a great flow of prayer it is and totally in keeping with the Moravian ‘model’ of prayer leading to mission and justice which leads us to prayer and so on.  And so, onwards the two rivers, the Wye and the Severn, break out into the Bristol Channel and into the sea.  Likewise the prayer continues. 

The Moravian church, is still praying.  The 24-7 Prayer movement is still praying.  Both continuous, and both leading those who chance to open their hearts and lives to pray, into a place of no return. 

There’s no turning back for hearts that burst with a desire to change the world or at least the streets in which we live. This is a tide of mission and justice that breaks the banks of our ‘normal’ tidy lives.   The river can’t turn back, even when the tide turns the river continues to flow downstream and into the sea.  The prayer, even when the tide of opposition rises, even when friends forsake us, even when the body is weak, it continues.

 It continues.  

It continues on into the heart of God and accomplishes that which it set out to do. 

And so I thank the Lord for having met Thom.  For it was at this juncture, this meeting, that my life, my river joined with the great and ancient river that flows now on into the sea of prayer that has its origins in the heart of God.

The Border Prayer Room Project Final Report

It was a vision dreamed up in the heart of God and given to His Bride through the obedient work and prayerful dedication of Yvonne and Paul Mason.   All the way through to the end Yvonne referred to herself simply as God’s secretary or PA.  She heard what the Spirit was saying and followed His instructions.  When He said “wait”, she waited, when He directed her to contact a certain person in a certain place, she did so, without question but with abundant confirmation from a few trusted advisers.  From the time of the projects conception to its completion was exactly two years and that is the time scale that God gave Yvonne at the outset.   She’d had a picture of the Wales/England border with points down the length of it joined together by stitches or sutures.  The places were strategic, why the specific locations is only known by the Holy Trinity, and chosen by Him.  Each place would be twinned with another across the border being the site of a prayer room operating for 24 hours with blessing prayers being prayed across the border to its twin in the relay.  The effect of these blessings freely received and freely given upon both the spiritual atmosphere and consequently in the physical realm was profound.  We saw and experienced the coming together of two nations divided throughout history by wars and oppression which had led to deep seated animosity and resentment.  To see these border people coming together with one heart and mind totally committed to what the Lord was speaking to them about being one in Him was truly humbling.  Where Yvonne had started out intent on obeying God’s voice others had taken up and were likewise obedient to the move of His Spirit and prayer rooms were conceived and born in places where 24-7 Prayer had hitherto been unheard of.  Of course there were places where prayer was already active and there were places ‘on route’ where the Holy Spirit was clearly stirring and releasing treasures which had been hidden in darkness for generations.    There were several locations where 24-7 prayer rooms had functioned in the past and were very comfortable with setting up a creative and interactive space for people to freely engage with God in prayer.  In either case our prayers joined with theirs as heaven touched earth revealing the glory of God all down the border-lands.

 Concurrent to this there was a team who walking Offa’s Dyke which is the ancient border between the two countries.  These intrepid saints covered approximately 176 miles through rain, wind and sunshine over 14 days, starting at Prestatyn in the North and ending at Chepstow in the South.  They visited as many of the prayer rooms as was possible on route, were given food and accommodation wherever they stopped for the night and made friends along the way ... some of whom even walked with them a while.  Every step that they took was a prophetic declaration of blessing to bring unity between the nations where there had been age old disharmony.  ‘How blessed are the feet that bring the good news’ – indeed!

Also following the route were Andy Hughes (Urban Saints Wales), Greg Levers (Children’s Evangelist) who led children and youth prayer sessions in each location splitting the work between them with the help of Jon Price (Church Army) and Chris Deer (Hymn translator/Worshipper).  It was thrilling to hear the young people engaging with prayers of blessing across what once was described as a divide.