so... what is it that we do?
my husband and i are overseers (would that be the right title?) of a house of prayer that is starting in redding and that is connected to bethel church. the vision of the ministry is to serve the entire city of redding. being a part of bethel church, we have bethel as our main covering and have our prayer meetings in a room on their campus. right now we have 16 hours of prayer meetings, but overseeing the building of a community dedicated to prayer, worship, and intercession is a very full-time job. we have found, at least to my surprise, it to be a lot of administration and a lot of pastoring of people. we have monthly teaching meetings with our staff, monthly intro meetings for people who are wanting to get involved, worship practices, leader meetings, and home groups we oversee, as well as the counseling and pastoring that comes in one on one sessions too.
the house of prayer here is called the watch of the Lord. we affectionately refer to it as "the watch" and are considering transitioning it to that as the main name of the ministry. do we have a website? yes and no. we have one at this point for our team, but not one open to the public at this point. did i ever even think of needing to develop things like a website when we dove into this ministry? absolutely not! (my husband, the one who sees more of the needed details of structure i am sure saw this and many other things as needed parts of our "job.") however, our house of prayer is similar in general style to the house of prayer in kansas city called ihop. check it out and you will have a little bit of an idea of what we do, but they do it on a much much larger scale.
why a house of prayer? what is a house of prayer?
well, simply put, it is an earthly model of the unceasing worship and intercession around the throne in heaven. it is also based upon the model of the tabernacle that king david established during his reign, where 4000 musicians and 288 singers ministered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to the presence of God bringing both songs of adoration and petitions before Him for justice on the earth. it is also rooted in the passage in luke 18 about speedy justice when there is night and day prayer. you know it... the parable of the persistent widow:
now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them?
"i tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. however, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"
luke 18:7-8
so i know you are all wondering... how do we feed the kids?
by our own choice, our income is based solely on support, similar to a missionary. (we do supplement with a few private music lessons we each teach one afternoon a week.) some have even coined the term "intercessory missionary."
why do we do this?
well, for one we would like to be a blessing and not a burden to the body of Christ in our region. second, we know full well by the amount of work it is already taking to build the house of prayer that it isn't a job that can be done by one or two salaried positions. it takes a lot of people, just like in the days of king david, to staff a 24/7 gig! third, we believe this is real, we believe the Lord is doing this all over the earth, and we realized at the beginning that we could be an example to many many others who feel night and day ministry to the Lord is their full-time calling.
...if we can do it, surely they can do it! (family of 6 now, remember.)
we have found the dynamics to be very similar to when both moses and david received the heavenly vision to establish on earth what they saw happening in heaven. they would cast the vision and some people's hearts were stirred. these people built the house of prayer in their generation. have you ever wondered why God gave all the gold and silver from egypt during the exodus to the people and not simply to moses or aaron? He doesn't just want a job done. He wants the hearts of His people connected to it. this is why money plays such a dynamic role in our relationship with God. Jesus even said in the Sermon on the Mount:
for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
matthew 6:21
it's a team ministry
some will be called to give their time for the mission, others may be called to an administrative role, and then there will be those who fund it. all three receive the same reward when it is all said in done because all three joined their hearts with the Lord to see His vision accomplished. in the Bible, it is extremely rare to find a situation where it was 1 man called to accomplish the mission. God is into teams. why? because He is into people being connected with one another and loving one another.
so, this is what we do.
this is what helps shape my perspective and the context in which i blog. you are welcome to ask questions and, if you heart is so stirred, to join with us in one of the 3 parts of the team we are building to build the house of prayer here.
the road to how God led us here is for another post, another day.
charis
