Prayer @ Strawberry Field

BOILER ROOM OF PRAYER LAUNCHED AT STRAWBERRY FIELD
Former Children's Home Now Part Of Worldwide Movement Of Prayer Among Youth

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND (ANS) -- John Lennon could never have "Imagined" what has happened to the Strawberry Field children's home in Liverpool, England, immortalized by The Beatles 40 years ago, since it officially closed its doors back in May 2005.

The famous red gates of Strawberry Fields.
Photo credit: www.24-7prayer.com

An enterprising venture in prayer among young people is revitalizing the site in Woolton, Liverpool, made famous when John Lennon wrote the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" after playing there as a child. Lennon spent much of his youth playing at Strawberry Field, which was close to his Aunt Mimi's Menlove Avenue.

An internet report at: www.24-7prayer.com says the famous red gates of Strawberry Field, The Liverpool children's home that became world famous after The Beatles 1967 hit song "Strawberry Fields Forever," has just re-opened its doors as 24-7 Prayer's Liverpool 'Boiler Room' -- a "hothouse of prayer" if you like -- operated in association with the Salvation Army.

The report states: "This legendary site, where John Lennon spent time as a child, has lent its name to businesses, literary publications, sporting events, and even a memorial in New York City's Central Park (near John Lennon's home of his later years)."

So what is the significance of this site becoming a 'Boiler Room' of prayer?

The website says: "Strawberry Fields was a place of joy and beauty for John Lennon during his childhood. Now, with excitement and expectation, we re-open the site as a place of joy and beauty for many of his fans as well.

"That Strawberry Fields is not being shut down for good is a victory in and of itself. The children's home was shutting because it is preferable that children be cared for by foster families or small group homes rather than in large institutions.

"But Strawberry Fields is not only a site with a rich heritage of mercy and social justice -- the site remains, to this very hour, a center of pilgrimage to Beatles and John Lennon fans worldwide."

24/7 Prayer's organizers say: "Our prayer is that some of these pilgrims may find One greater than Lennon at the gates of Strawberry Fields..."

Their website says it all began with a six-month-long prayer effort in the city. As Liverpool churches 'passed the prayer baton' to one another week after week, something amazing happened: Gary and Dawn Lacey, Salvation Army officers, were presented with an open-door opportunity to keep Strawberry Fields open as a 'Boiler Room' and a Salvation Army center for community action.

Now, as the six months of prayer draws to a close in November, organizers sense that the adventure has only just begun, and they feel the Spirit's invitation to chase after Him.

The website explains that 'Boiler Rooms' are Christ-focused community centers that 24-7 Prayer is establishing all over the world. Part of the dream behind the Liverpool Boiler Room, which is being run by the Salvation Army, is a longing to establish a place where anyone can come and find a 'home' with God.

The site says: "Jesus told us that his Father's house has many rooms, and that one is one being prepared for each of us. At the Liverpool Boiler Room, we foresee the youth, the homeless, the churched and un-churched, the loud and the quiet, the creative, the contemplative, the hyperactive, the sinners and the saved sinners alike gathering for prayer, community and outreach."

Strawberry Fields now houses eight prayer rooms of different shapes, sizes and themes -- including a Global room, a Liverpool room, and the 'Tabernacle.' There's also a chill out/drop in area, and studio art space.

"Walking in, you cannot fail to be hit by the presence of God and a huge sense of as yet unrealized potential, just waiting to explode," the site says.

PRAYER AT THE LIVERPOOL BOILER ROOM


Prayer at the Liverpool Boiler Room. Photo credit: www.24-7prayer.com

Gary and Dawn Lacey (projecti56@aol.com) are now running the Boiler Room. As things get moving at the Boiler Room, Liverpool's 24-7 community are gathering friends and dreamers around themselves in order to form a small Boiler Room team -- spreading the word through Liverpool's network of churches, and seeing the church mobilized to prayer like never before!

"Last week we gathered together as a team to prophetically pray over a diary of 2006, and to say that God turned up would be a massive under-statement," said Anna Beaumont. "In faith, we envisioned a year of prayer in Liverpool."

On Friday, December 9, local organizers are holding a 24-7 party at the Liverpool Boiler Room to celebrate the success of the previous six months, and to welcome the next chapter of this adventure: an entire year of non-stop prayer in the Liverpool/Merseyside area in 2006.

"THE VISION" BEHIND 24-7 PRAYER

According to its ministry website. the words of 'The Vision' were written late one night on the wall of the first ever 24-7 Prayer Room.

"It wasn't a big deal," says Pete Greig, "... just a very personal thing -- trying to work out the call on my life and why I was awake at 3a.m. praying when sane people are all tucked up in bed!"

"But somehow the words of The Vision escaped that Prayer Room! They must have been copied off the wall by someone and sent as an email to a friend."

Greig recalls: "I didn't realize any of this until someone in Canada emailed my own poem to me saying they had come across it and thought I might like it!"

Before long 'The Vision' was being printed in magazines, remixed by DJ's in New York and Sweden and even choreographed in Spain! At that stage no-one knew who'd written it or where it had come from, and originators wanted to keep it that way. (They only went public when "certain rather dodgy 'ministries' started implying it had come from them.").

In August 2001, 'The Vision' was published in a magazine called 'The Way' which circulates a staggering 100,000 underground churches in China. The very same week the words were quoted by thousands of American young people at an event called 'The Call' in Washington DC. In August, The Vision was also filmed in Central London (the TVisionMix).

Originators say: "We were amazed! Somehow the words scrawled on our Prayer Room wall had taken on a life of their own. The Vision had become a personal mission-statement for many -- a generational call to arms.

They add: "The Vision made us realize that God was doing something with our prayers, something immeasurably bigger than we could 'ask or hope or imagine.' Perhaps it's another indication that the Spirit really is moving across the nations, uniting the generation with one dream, one passion and one Commander in Chief."

WHAT IS "THE VISION"?

Here is The Vision in its entirety:

"The vision is JESUS -- obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers

choose to loose
that they might one day win
the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive inside.

On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row -- guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days, they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centers.
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon.

How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed."

THE PURPOSES, PRINCIPLES & PRACTICES OF A BOILER ROOM

The ministry website explains that a 24-7 Boiler Room, such as that wehich exists at Strawberry Field, "is a simple Christian community that practices a daily rhythm of prayer, study and celebration whilst caring actively for the poor and the lost."

The Two Purposes of a 24-7 Boiler Room (are that it) "exists to love God in prayer and to love its neighbors in practice. These purposes are contextualized in community and expressed in a defined location.

The Three Principles at the heart of every Boiler Room (are that it) "is a living community committed to being Authentic: True to Christ; Relational: Kind to People; Missional: Taking the Gospel to the World.

A boiler Room also has Six Practices: every Boiler Room Community applies the three principles practically through six core activities:

-- A Boiler Room is true to Christ by being: "A prayerful community practicing a daily rhythm of intercession, contemplation and Christian worship" and "A creative community where artistic expressions of prayer and worship may take the form of art, sculpture, new music, poetry, dance etc.

-- A Boiler Room is kind to people by being: "A merciful community where the practical needs of the local poor are met and where liberation is championed," and "A hospitable community where pilgrims are welcomed, meals are shared and where friendships can flourish across boundaries of race and culture."

-- A Boiler Room is committed to the sharing the gospel by being: "A missional community existing for the sake of those who don’t know Jesus both locally and cross-culturally. To act as well as to pray," and "A learning community of training and discipleship, where people are growing in their faith, their life-skills and their ability to lead."

HOW DID 24-7 PRAYER GET STARTED?

The ministry site says: "24-7 Prayer started by accident in September 1999, with a bunch of young people in England who got the crazy idea of trying to pray non-stop for a month. God turned up and they couldn't stop until Christmas!

"From there the prayer meeting has spread into many nations, denominations and age groups. Hundreds of non-stop prayer meetings now link up here on the web to form a unique chain of prayer."

24-7 has become a worldwide, non-stop prayer movement (see: www.24-7prayer.com/). According to organizers, there are 3 dimensions to the movement.

They say: "First of all we're a network of Prayer Rooms determined to pray like it all depends on us and live like it all depends on God until the tide turns in our generation. A Missions movement quickly arose out of the Prayer Rooms as we received requests to take teams to 'high places' in youth culture."

They also run Boiler Rooms -- houses of continual prayer (24-7-365) like Gen X monastries, and similar to the one now operating at Strawberry Field.

Participating groups pledge to pray 24 hours a day for a week or more in a dedicated prayer-room. They then 'carry the baton of prayer' for that period. The prayer passes from location to location in a neverending flow linked up by the Worldwide Web.

"We are a virtual community praying in real locations. Right now someone, somewhere is praying 24-7," organizers say.

"The dream behind 24-7 is to turn the tide of youth culture back to Jesus. It's a big dream -- maybe an impossible dream. We recognize that the Body of Christ in the West is bleeding young people. Something has to change. But clever strategy alone is not the answer. Never has been. History shows that the tide turns when God's people pray. That is why God is mobilizing prayer movements like 24-7 (and others).

"We're seeing thousands of young people from Alaska to Australia praying together for their friends and their heroes in a focused and persistent way. 24-7 targets youth culture at a local, national and international level; addressing demographies (like skaters and clubbers) as well as geographies (schools, communities, nations)."

Organizers say 24-7prayer is not for experts.

"It's for those who find prayer a struggle. 24-7 is a model that works! It has proven unusually successful at mobilizing people -- especially young people -- to pray like they've never prayed before. People learn to pray... by praying!

"24-7 captures the imagination. Young people today are more likely to turn up at a prayer meeting at 3 a.m. than at 7.30 p.m.! Why? Because it's extreme. The dare is to be alone with God for a whole hour -- maybe even in the middle of the night. 24-7 makes prayer easier. The arts play an important part. Many say that 'an hour feels like 10 minutes in the prayer room.' "

Organizers of the Liverpool Boiler Room have the following prayer requests:

-- For a team to be formed who can devote themselves to city transformation through the Boiler Room

-- For Gary and Dawn Lacey (projecti56@aol.com) to have wisdom and impact and they embark on this new phase of their life

-- That Beatles fans and other pilgrims would be impacted by the love of Jesus when they visit Strawberry Fields

-- That Strawberry Fields could be a place of intimacy and transformation to all who visit, especially people who don't know Jesus.

** Michael Ireland is an international British freelance journalist. A former reporter with a London newspaper, Michael is the Chief Correspondent for ASSIST News Service of Garden Grove, California. Michael immigrated to the United States in 1982 and became a US citizen in September, 1995. He is married with two children. Michael has also been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
Send this story to a friend.
ASSIST News Service is brought to you in part by Gospel for Asia. GFA's vision is to train, equip and send 100,000 native missionaries into the most unreached areas of Asia. By God's grace, more than 14,500 native missionaries are now serving and planting six churches every day! You can help sponsor a native missionary for less than a dollar a day. To learn more about GFA and their work among the Dalits (Untouchables) of India please go to their website at www.gfa.org or in North America call 1-800-WIN-ASIA.
ASSIST News Service is brought to you free of charge and is supported by friends like yourself. If you would like to make a donation (tax-deductible in the US) to help us continue this service around the world, you can do so by logging onto our website -- www.assistnews.net -- and making the donation by credit card or by sending a check to ASSIST, PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA .