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This article was originally published in Edition (5) of Prayer Magazine, Jan-Mar 2006. The term “Boiler rooms” are today synonymous with the 24-7 Prayer Movement. They are places where the fire of God is sought, prayed down, prayed in and prayed out! It was Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the London-based preacher of the 19th Century, who is generally credited with first coining the phrase in relation to prayer. A visitor to Metropolitan Tabernacle, London was one day taken on a tour of the premises by Spurgeon, who commented that he wanted to show him the boiler room. He took him to the place where prayer was going on ceaselessly. Boiler rooms are found in many places – in buildings specially obtained for 24-7 prayer, in youth centres and in church halls. They are places that are set apart solely for prayer, and which are open and manned 24 hours a day by praying people. Typically they will be places filled with many kinds of creative aids to prayer on a wide variety of issues. Particularly, but not exclusively, young people and children regard these as places where they can come to pray in a context in keeping with their culture. Hence the mixture of creativity, colour, styles and aids draws people in to an atmosphere of prayer that is refreshing, challenging and frankly ‘mind-blowing’. It becomes a new experience. One situation I was involved with developed a zone approach to prayer. We had a zone for sitting at the foot of the cross; another for giving thanks, with lots of pictures of creation. A third zone focused on praying for prodigals, with a sheep fold and cut-out models of sheep for writing the names of individuals prayed for. Another was in the form of a promise tree, with promises from Scripture hanging as fruit. We created a UK zone based on a prophetic word by John Mulinde about darkness being over the land, but the light of God breaking through. We had a world zone, with a map and pictures from many parts of the world. We took the door off a cupboard, put some iron railings in front and made it a place to go into, sit and pray for persecuted Christians and the persecuted church. Finally there was a place for a mirror, where we asked the question about the difference we individually could make to God’s world, and a contemplative zone to listen to God. The idea of having rooms set aside solely for prayer is not new. Individuals have rooms in their own home. Some churches have had them for years. Recently conference and mission centres have allocated and dedicated rooms just for prayer. But how one uses them defines how seriously one’s approach is to prayer. The first group to have a ‘boiler room’ approach in recent years was the group that birthed the 24-7 Prayer Movement in Chichester. They continued for a few weeks. Later young people in Reading acquired an unused property and developed it as a 24-7 Prayer base, in that it was open 24 hours a day seven days a week for a couple of years – until the owners of the property wanted the use back! This became the innovative model for many others in this country and in other parts of the world. Visit the 24-7 website for more information (www.24-7Prayer.org) Want to make prayer exciting and invigorating, so that it becomes an experience rather than a chore? Set the youth fellowship or children’s church to work on creating a boiler room in your own building. If you like this article, why not subscribe to Prayer Magazine - Click here to Subscribe {LINK : https://www.prayermagazine.
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