The Dream
A House of Prayer in Calgary that's open 24-7.
A secret place you can go to spend time with God that's open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Jeremiah 29:13 - You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
The Reason
To have a secret place, not a church, but a place or room where all people can go:
- to encounter God
- to dwell in God's presence
- to love on God and allow Him, on us, with no distractions
- to pray for our city
I know we have had 24-7 prayer weeks in Calgary in the past and we have our Burn worship/prayer nights. But this project is to set up a permanent, long lasting prayer room that will be accessible all the time. There most certainly will be periods of worship and extended times of continuous prayer. But continuous prayer/worship is not the purpose. If it comes, it comes. This project is more about making sure there is somewhere you can go to Focus on God at anytime.
Logistically, this may be tricky. We may need door codes and webcams but God is definitely asking me to do this. The real question is how.
Psalm 27:4 - One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
Dream With Us
Help make it happen. Please email
info@calgaryprayerhouse.com to connect.
Imagine it's 2am and you awaken to God tugging on your heart to pray and intercede. Your family is sleeping so you can't turn on the worship music or crack out the guitar. What do you do? That's right, there is a 24-7 House Of Prayer in Calgary. You jump in your car and head to the address. As you get near, you see a dark building that looks closed but you know it's open 24-7. As you get out of the car to check the open hours, a motion sensor turns the front lights on. There's a sign that says it's open and to punch the door code to get in. But what's the door code? There's a riddle on the door that you quickly figure out because He is your passion and the riddle seems written especially for you. You punch the code and as soon as you enter the building, the lights turn on. You notice the motion sensors and webcam staring at the front door. You take another step and quiet worship music starts to play. The worship music puts you at ease. You notice a large sign that says, "Remove your shoes for this is a holy place". There's no one here, but you abide by the rules. As you walk in barefoot, there are make shift fabric walls leading you into a dark room. You turn the corner to be suprised that you are entering a dimly lit, indoor garden. There are strings of white christmas lights strewn among vines that line the walls and ceiling, and there's a waterfall in the corner, lit up with slow, pulsing directional lights. You hear a waterfall in the background mixed in with the worship music. A banner above reads, "Walk with Me in the Garden". As you begin walking through the garden, you immediately feel God's presence. He loves you so much and is so glad you came to spend time with Him.
As you walk closer to the waterfall, you notice the vines are plastic, the water is fabric and that there's a small fountain in the corner making the water sounds. At the bottom of the water fall is a water pool made from wrinked blue translucent plastic. You notice many smooth rocks lit up from beneath surrounded by paper fish with names written on them. There's a small boulder with instructions and a stack of paper fish for you to add your own. You write the name of your coworker, who's father just recently passed away, on a fish and say a prayer for Her. You then put the fish into the waterfall pond, among the other fish. You notice a guitar in the corner and three other doorways to other rooms. The worship music is nice so you decide to pass on the guitar. Which door? Left or right or middle? You see a red/orangish light coming from the right doorway and feel prompted to go there.
As you turn the corner, you enter a room that has been cut up by room dividers like a maze. As you walk through, you see photos of all shapes and sizes covering the walls. You look closer. There's a photo of Calgary's Chinatown, the Peace bridge, the Bow tower... the Mustard Seed, the Drop in Centre... and then faces, faces of people, families, elderly, the homeless, the lost... The burden on your heart starts to swell as your eyes begin to tear. God loves them all so much. As you cry with God for the lost, you can see that the orange light you first noticed is coming from around the corner of the maze wall. As you slowly turn the corner to see where the light is coming from, you see a large canvas wall. The Calgary skyline has been painted onto the entire wall. And painted on top of all the skyline buildings is fire and flames mixed with the orange and red directional lights shining on the canvas. Your eyes begin to swell until you read the the large grafitti text, "God, bring us revival fire!". The painting is not of destroying hell fire but of life giving revival fire. Now you know why God has awaken you tonight. As you intercede for the city, some time passes.
What time is it? Oh crap, it's 5am. You gotta get home. As you leave, the door locks behind you. Driving home, one question lingers in your mind... What's in the other rooms?
Photos from various 24-7 prayer rooms, and places like boiler rooms (Urban Monastery) and International Houses of Prayer (IHOP) where fires and passion burn for Him.