Have just come back from my shift on the 24/7 prayer thing - Jeanette took over, which I'm a bit worried about, given that she's driving to Doncaster tomorrow! Am half wishing I'd insisted she go home and tried to do her shift as well. She probably wouldn't have let me anyway, though. And I do feel pretty dreadful now I'm home! Felt okay while I was there, but I haven't actually slept hardly at all since Thursday morning.
So, 24/7 prayer. Are we insane or what? The idea, for anyone who doesn't know, is that prayer should be going on 24/7, generally in a designated 'prayer room', for a specified period - usually a week, but generally a weekend in our case. So people take shifts - put their names down in advance, on a thoroughly voluntary basis.
Now, the first time we did this, I didn't agree with it. I felt that we were generally quite busy people, and the sensible way to get more praying done would be to prioritise better, not try to 'create' time artificially by ditching much-needed sleep! In an ideal world I still think along those lines. But in the real world, I've changed my mind.
I had a look at the official web site - at time of writing, http://www.24-7prayer.com, and while I don't agree with everything on there, their central argument for doing it is quite a good one - "It works". So they claim, anyway. And I have to say that these weekends are pretty much the only time I'll spend more than an hour praying at one go, which allows me to cover stuff that I'd normally never get to. Because people, by and large, don't priotise well, and don't behave in an entirely rational fashion, having a 'special' weekend, or week, can actually be effective in getting them praying. Brian pointed out that it can also kick-start people's normal praying - help them get a bit more on-track.
Obviously there's a risk involved, in potentially making yourself overtired - not fun when your daily activities are challenging enough as it is! But taking risks is the only way to actually use and develop faith, which is pretty important. It's worth a shot. And so I've changed my mind - this is a good idea, and we should go for it.