Ministry Update: Launching NIGHT WATCH!

On September 1, 2019February 18, 2022 By CaitlynIn Ministry Life

Hey, friends! It has been too long since I’ve written… tbh, I was swamped for a while with our summer programs and I didn’t fight like I should have to make Fragrance Arise a priority. But in all our discussions and prayers about building the house of prayer and strengthening the prayer movement, I’ve been freshly aware of the potential of this blog, and I’ve been convicted that I can’t afford to let it sit on the back burner.

So I am coming back after my unnofficial hiatus with the best news ever: Today, September 1, The Prayer Room Missions Base is extending our hours into the night! For 6 years, we’ve been 18/7 with live prayer and worship 5am-11pm every single day. We’re expanding that that to 1am every night, making us officially 20/7 and one step closer to our goal of being 24/7! We call this addition the “Night Watch”, and eventually, the whole overnight portion of our schedule will be the Night Watch.

This is incredible. We are so thrilled and grateful to the Lord that He has given us the strength to be able to give Him this offering. Tonight at 11pm, instead of praying a closing prayer and turning off the lights, a fresh worship leader (me!) will come on stage and we’ll keep going another two hours until 1am. And then we’ll do it again the next night, and the next, until we’re able to go longer and never turn off the lights at all.

Since our early days of starting as a one hour 5am daily prayer meeting in our director’s living room in 2005, we’ve known that The Prayer Room was called to a 24/7 house of prayer for our region. Over the years, we’ve added slowly, very careful that if we added a set to our schedule, it would be on every day of the week, and we would be able to sustain it. We don’t experiment with adding hours for a season; if something gets added to our schedule, it’s there till Jesus comes back.

We’ve been faithful to that model since day 1, but that means that every step is very slow and strategic. We’ve been 18/7 for 6 years, knowing that whenever we took our next step forward into the night, it would be a big deal.

The plan has always been to add one set at a time into the night: first 11pm-1am, then 1-3am, and finally 3-5am to make us 24/7. Our strategy to shore up these new sets would be to launch an internship at the same time, and fill that prayer room with young adults with passion for worship in the night. After the internship, some would stay on the night watch, and we could start another internship and go get more.

This is what we’re doing this semester. Today, in conjuction with launching our new Night Watch hours, we’re also launching our first-ever Fire in the Night internship! This is a part-time 14 week program for young adults centered around those night hours. Here’s the schedule:

Class 8-9pm Tues/Wed/Thurs
Class 3-7pm Sat (including an hour for dinner, food provided)
Encounter service 7-9pm Sat
Prayer room 9pm-1am Thurs/Fri/Sat (we chose weekend hours because these are mostly people with jobs!)

While they’re in the prayer room, they’ll be serving on three sets each, which will be a mix of worship leading, ushering, and prayer leading. For more info, including class content, see our website at tprdfw.com.

As of today, we’re launching with 5 interns! (I’m a little leery of putting that number out there, because it ALWAYS fluctuates the first few weeks–ask me at the end of the semester how many we ended with!) I’m so excited to see these hungry ones encounter Jesus in the night.

To get this internship off on the right foot, I put together a short playlist of songs from that specifically talk about the night watch. They’re all from the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, where they’ve been doing 24/7 live prayer and worship since 1999 – so they know a thing or two about worship in the night! The songs from the “Simple Devotion” album were actually all written and recorded by the night watch worship teams.

If you don’t see it below, here’s the direct Spotify link.

There is one other song that is deeply precious to the night watch in Kansas City (written by Chris Tofilon) but it was never released on an album so it’s not on Spotify. I pulled a live recording from youtube and edited it down to six minutes from an hour-long set. This one is called “Psalm 134 (Bless the Lord)” and the Psalm it’s based on is literally ALL about the night watch – the priests who stand and bless the Lord in the house of prayer through the night.

“Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD,
who stand by night in the house of the LORD!
Lift up your hands to the holy place
and bless the LORD!
May the LORD bless you from Zion,
he who made heaven and earth!”
(Psalm 134:1-3)

Attached below is the live recording of Psalm 134 (6 min) and also the longer worship time it came from (23 minutes). If you have time, listen to the longer one. It goes into a powerful spontaneous time of what I call throne room worship, centered on the holiness of God. You can also right click to download.

Psalm 134 (Bless the Lord)

Psalm 134 (Bless the Lord) & spontaneous

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What I’m Reading: Unceasing

On March 20, 2019February 10, 2024 By CaitlynIn What I'm Reading

(Full disclosure: I love to recommend resources to help you in your journey, and when I do I use Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through my links, I may receive a small commission. But if there’s a resource you want, I encourage you to get it wherever works best for you!)

As I’ve mentioned several times on this blog (HERE and then HERE), The Prayer Room is currently running a part-time worship school. One of the students’ assignments is to read Unceasing by Billy Humphrey, the director of the International House of Prayer Atlanta. It was really important to us that in addition to their music training, our students were also getting the DNA of the house of prayer and we couldn’t think of a better book to assign than Unceasing. Today, continuing my What I’m Reading series, this is the book I want to talk about.

IHOP-Atlanta is the only place on the continent outside of IHOPKC running 24/7 live prayer and worship. They’ve been doing this since 2006 and have a strong and fervent vision for the worth of Jesus and the importance of night and day prayer in this generation.

I’ve skimmed through Unceasing before (or at least the old edition entitled Until He Comes) but today during my prayer meetings I took some time to read through it thoroughly. It’s a pretty quick read at only 137 pages, and it clearly lays out the theological and historical foundation of the house of prayer from several different angles.

The first chapter is called “It’s Happening!” which I love because that’s exactly what comes out of my mouth every time I start gushing excitedly about the prayer movement. “It’s happening! GOD is DOING it! Everywhere, all at once, in our generation!”

When we talk about the 24/7 prayer movement, we first must realize that this is a sovereign move of God that is actually occurring right underneath our noses. There are houses of prayer and praying communities pursuing 24/7 springing up all over the world, and although some of them were influenced by IHOPKC, many have never heard of it, and even the ones who are familiar all have their own stories of how God called them into this. (At The Prayer Room, God clearly spoke to our director, “Start a daily prayer meeting tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m. and don’t stop until I come back!” and we started the next day in his living room, only later realizing that we had been commissioned to be a house of prayer not unlike IHOPKC.)

In the 1980s there were only a handful of ministries in the world pursuing night and day prayer. Today there are close to 20,000. (He’s said this in the book Growing in Prayer as well as many other times.)

GOD. IS. DOING. THIS.

When we discussed chapter 1 in the school the first week, our students were enthralled by the story of the 24 houses of prayer within one Chinese house church network, all going 24/7 (yes– to my knowledge we’ve got exactly two in the US, and this one corner of China has 24). These Chinese house churches had never heard of any Western expressions of 24/7 prayer, and simply attributed their vision to their desire to see the gospel spread through the nations and go back to Jerusalem. They knew if they wanted to see a move of God that massive, they had better throw all of their energy into as much prayer as possible. The Holy Spirit stirred in their hearts that 24/7 prayer was a logical, rational act of partnership with the Kingdom of God.

Chapters 2-7 walk through the biblical and historical origins of the house of prayer, from the tabernacle of David that was birthed in the lovesick heart of a shepherd, to the cycle of Old Testament revivals that happened every time the Davidic order was reinstated, to Jesus’ zealous declaration that “My house shall be called a house of prayer!”, to various historical monastic expressions of unceasing prayer, to the state of the global prayer movement today. The weight of the biblical and historical evidence is staggering: God deeply desires 24/7 intercession and adoration, and there are certain things in His heart He will not release until His people pray night and day.

The second half of the book develops the core theological reasons for unceasing prayer, if the example of the tabernacle of David wasn’t already enough. These reasons include:

speedy justice as promised in Luke 18:6-7 (fun fact, this verse was the dramatic marking moment for me to devote my life to the prayer movement)
the salvation of Israel and watchmen set on the wall to see God’s purposes for her fulfilled (Isaiah 62:6-7)
ushering in the Kingdom of God (specifically the “not yet” of the Kingdom– yes, 24/7 prayer and worship is a key part of the drama of ushering in the return of Jesus and the dawn of the next age!)
the Joel 2 mandate for prayer and fasting in the face of impending judgment.

In my opinion, the heart and soul of the book is chapter 8, “The Single Most Compelling Reason”. That reason is simple: JESUS IS WORTHY.

“What is Jesus worth to you? How can His worth be measured? …How can we attribute a price to Him who is matchless, without comparison, without equal, the very definition of beauty and rarity?

…He is worthy of worship every second of every minute of every hour of every day. When I’m asked why we do night-and-day prayer, the answer is simple: Jesus is worthy of it. When the question comes, ‘How can you worship Him twenty-four hours a day?’ the simple answer is, ‘How can we not worship Him twenty-four hours a day?'”

Billy Humphrey, “Unceasing,” p 77, 79

This is it right here.

If every other reason fell away–if David never built his tabernacle, if there was no global prayer movement, if the return of Jesus was still a thousand years off–He would still be worthy of 24/7 worship.

I love the way Unceasing tells the story of Jesus’ humility, that great Philippians 2 descent from the highest heights all the way to become “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-11) Jesus’ humility is one of my favorite things to write about because I see the crux of His beauty right there in His radical love. His worth and His beauty is directly tied to what He has done. “Worthy are You… for You were slain.” (Revelation 5:9)

In response to all He has done and the beauty of all He is, is there any offering too extravagant? Is there any passion too extreme? Is there any commitment too radical?

In light of Jesus’ great beauty and worth, 24/7 prayer and worship just makes sense.

It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Find Unceasing on Amazon.

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Ministry Update: Growing in Musical Strength

On March 17, 2019February 19, 2022 By CaitlynIn Ministry Life

Once a month, I send newsletters to my ministry partners (learn how to partner with me here!) about my life as a full-time intercessory missionary at The Prayer Room Missions Base, and I’ll be posting a few highlights from these letters on Fragrance Arise.

A few weeks ago, I shared a huge need/prayer request in my post “What I’m Praying: Crazy Supernatural Provision for a Dorm and Finances“. We’re still praying for God to break in and supply monthly partners as well as a dorm building where we can house some of the single young adult members of our community. I encourage you to check out that post and join us in prayer!

In other news, our part-time Forerunner Music Academy is at its halfway mark! I’m so proud of these 21 students as they are falling more in love with Jesus, being stretched in boldness, and gaining music skills both vocally and on instruments.

The past few weeks, our IHOPU externs/teachers Daniel and Tyler have become very intentional about bringing FMA students to join their worship sets, and a few of the students have even started leading their own sets. The explosion of new singers and musicians on stage makes me SO happy! These students are falling in love with the prayer room and learning to encounter God in a deeper way through their new skills. I love watching God woo their hearts into His story and His zeal for His house.

Here’s a short clip of Daniel leading four of our FMA students in a set! It’s unusual to have one instrument and five voices on stage, but these guys just went for it and it was wonderful. The whole room was getting blessed!

Here’s another FMA clip– students practicing developing spontaneous choruses for intercession in harp and bowl class!

I’ve been inspired by the musical swirl that’s happening around the base to learn more as well! I’m now playing keys on the Wednesday 5-7pm set led by Daniel. It’s my first time learning to follow someone else’s leadership as a musician, but Daniel is very patient and encouraging and I’m really excited to grow in this area. I’ve also started trying to learn guitar again with teaching from Chris, one of my fellow missionaries—mostly because I want to be able to keep the fire on the altar if the power ever goes out. It’s happened before, and I’ll be ready!

I’m learning guitar– follow my Instagram to see the journey!

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House of Prayer Spotlight: Andy Sanchez, Intercessory Missionary

On March 3, 2019February 19, 2022 By CaitlynIn House of Prayer Spotlight

Andy and Vina Sanchez with their daughters (oldest to youngest, from left) Ava, Ana, Abigail, Adalie

House of Prayer Spotlight is a monthly feature of Fragrance Arise (and honestly, probably my favorite series)! Every other month features interviews with different houses of prayer, and the in-between months feature interviews with my fellow staff members at The Prayer Room. God is doing so much in the house of prayer globally (check out my House of Prayer FAQ for more info) and this series aims to shine a light on what it looks like in different places.

This month, I am featuring Andy Sanchez, who serves with me at The Prayer Room Missions Base. He’s an intercessory missionary who raises support to do this full-time, and he’s also a family man with a wife and four beautiful little daughters. Andy was a full-time public school teacher simultaneously serving on volunteer staff at The Prayer Room for years, holding onto a promise that God would one day transition him into full-time ministry at The Prayer Room. That moment came in early 2018, and it is a joy to run alongside him as he serves the Lord and this house so excellently and faithfully!

What is your role at The Prayer Room?

I am a full-time missionary at TPR and serve on the Senior Staff. I am the Director of Staff and I oversee part- and full-time missionary staff and volunteer staff. I get to teach theology in our Immerse Internship, School of Supernatural Ministry, Forerunner Music Academy, and in our Daniel Academy, which my four daughters are a part of, I teach 1st and 2nd grade.

Currently, I am managing our Base Operations Department and I also handle the audio/video recording, editing, and online posting. I am also the unofficial tech support guy.

[He also serves at least 30 hours every week in the prayer room, including shifts as a section leader, prayer leader, and worship leader. He taught himself to play keys so he could serve musically!]

How did God lead you into being involved?

In 2006, I was starting a lunch-break Bible study at work and inviting a co-worker. He countered my invitation and asked me to come check out his friend’s morning prayer time that had started in his living room. I stuck around and got to see that 1-hour daily prayer meeting evolve into The Prayer Room Missions Base.

In 2007, during one of the early prayer meetings, I remember developing a prayer from the Bible asking the Lord to restore the Priesthood. Suddenly, I heard the response, “I am so glad it only took you ten years to answer the call.” The Lord had been leading me to minister to Him and I had just now come to realize and agree with His plan for my life. I knew from that moment, I was to be a modern day priest and serve in His house for the rest of my life.

The Sanchezes holding down the prayer room on Thanksgiving!

What is meaningful to you about being on staff?

Being a missionary at The Prayer Room makes me feel like I am best friends with someone like a Bill Gates or a Jeff Bezos in their early days of talking about this idea they have that will one day change the world. I get to be in on God’s best-kept secret: the house of prayer!

It is special to me that I get to raise my kids in a godly community that is always talking to God and about God. I spent my 20’s establishing a root system for my family so that together, we can live our lives as an offering of worship. I am really excited to see how my kids will outrun me and surpass anything I was ever able to do.

What has been the greatest difficulty and the greatest joy of being part of The Prayer Room?

The greatest difficulty for me is managing the mental and soul traffic that is constantly going on inside me. I am thankful that I get blocks of hours to be in prayer meetings because some days it takes a lot longer than I would like to quiet myself and engage with the Lord.

A big joy for me has been watching people transform in the prayer room. Over the past 13 years, I have seen so many people encounter the One True Living God in a prayer meeting. Some come in with hurts and burdens and they just melt when they get before Him. Others come in numb and become awakened. It is so fun to watch Jesus do His thing in real time.

Andy’s website, with blogs, teachings, and testimonies, is andysanchez.us. He also sends out monthly email updates with glimpses of family life and ministry life — sign up for Andy’s newsletters here!

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Ministry Update: Forerunner Music Academy and TPR 2.0

On February 17, 2019February 19, 2022 By CaitlynIn Ministry Life

February feels like the month 2019 really got into full swing. We launched our part-time Forerunner Music Academy (FMA) and at the same time launched a massive ministry reset dubbed TPR 2.0!

Forerunner Music Academy at TPR

The Prayer Room has the distinction of being the first IHOPU FMA partner school in the United States! We are using IHOPU curriculum and have been trained in the teaching methods of IHOPU. To spearhead this school, we currently have two IHOPU externs, Tyler and Daniel! Tyler is a current senior in IHOPU’s full-time FMA in Kansas City, and Daniel is an IHOPU FMA 2018 graduate. Both of them are incredible and have stepped so beautifully into serving and doing life with this community. They have been leading, administrating, and teaching like pros and we are so grateful for them.

The school runs on Saturdays for 14 weeks and includes training in piano, guitar, voice, harp and bowl, and theology, as well as Encounter service and 6 hours in the prayer room. We have 22 students, and all of them are so hungry and excited to encounter God and strengthen their skills. Most of them have little to no previous music experience, but they’re going to be able to play worship songs by the end of this semester!

Two of our students in particular came to us in the craziest ways. Brie was in Orlando when she met Brad at a conference. He mentioned our FMA, God gripped her heart, and within a WEEK, she uprooted her entire life and moved here. Sebastian is a freshman at Texas A&M in College Station — about 3 hours south of Dallas. He drives up every weekend to attend our church and take this school. I’m so excited for how both of them, as well as our other students, are saying yes to the call of God on their hearts!

TPR 2.0

The Prayer Room is also launching a fresh re-emphasis on our core mandates with several new components to our weekly activities. We’re calling it “TPR 2.0.” Interestingly, this coincided with similar shifts throughout the prayer movement. IHOPKC’s “Reset” for many of the same reasons is the most well-known, but as we’ve heard from house of prayer leaders throughout the nation we’ve found that God is doing the same thing everywhere. He’s refocussing us on keeping the “first things first” and stirring up a deeper sense of family. In most places, this shift started independently, without talking to other ministries.

At The Prayer Room, we have launched:

PRAYER FOR REVIVAL – We believe that God wants to do more in our region than He is currently doing, and in part that’s because He’s waiting for the intercessors to cry out to Him for revival. Accordingly, we’ve added a cycle of intercession for revival to around 30 devotional (worship only) prayer meetings from 9am-5pm every day. That’s a LOT more intercession happening on a weekly basis!* I blogged on Wednesday about praying for leaders to be aligned with God for revival during this intercession time.

REVELATION TEACHING – When The Prayer Room began, God gave us a clear word about focussing on Jesus’ return, and we want our community to get firmly grounded in the study of the end times all over again. We’re taking 2 years to go through the book of Revelation in our weekly services, with discussion groups immediately after each teaching, and we’re being very intentional about engaging and following up with visitors in the groups. You can follow along with us on our Facebook page or on our recent messages page.

CONNECT NIGHTS – To break up the intensity of the Revelation study and to help our community thrive, we’re going to have a community “connect night” every two months in place of our Saturday night service. Next week, we’re watching The LEGO Movie with “extreme popcorn”!

To hear our director Brad Stroup cast vision for TPR 2.0, check out the Facebook video of Encounter service that night.

I am so excited about all three of these components. I love the added energy of the revival intercession times, and I love the format of the Revelation teaching. It’s so much fun to see eschatological newbies become encouraged that Revelation isn’t meant to be scary and they really can study it and discover the beauty of Jesus in the climax of history. Breakthroughs of fresh clarity are already occurring; this is going to strengthen our community so much these next two years!

*I bet some of you harp and bowl junkies are really curious as to how we’re doing cycles of revival prayer during devotionals in a simple and sustainable way! Here’s what it looks like in our prayer room:

At the midpoint of the set, the usher chooses a prayer topic related to revival. We have about 20 options preset on slides that the usher can choose from. They announce the topic on the mic and invite anyone who wants to sit in the open mic seats to pray for this topic. (Staff are required to pray.)
The usher prays for the topic. They can pray a short rapid fire prayer, a longer apostolic prayer, or anything in between. The worship leader sings a chorus based on their prayer.
Anyone else may pray on the mic next. Again, they may pray long or short, with or without a verse. This sets the bar low and makes it easy for anyone to engage.
After ALL the people have prayed, the worship leader sings a chorus, usually the same chorus again.
That’s it! Usually it takes 5-10 minutes. It requires very little training, and it can be done even if there are only a worship leader and an usher in the room. This is how we are following the Spirit’s nudge to be more intentional about daily praying for revival in our region.

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What I’m Praying: Leaders Aligned with God for Revival

On February 13, 2019February 19, 2022 By CaitlynIn What I'm Praying

Thirty seconds before sitting down to write this, I was on the mic in our prayer room praying for leaders in our region (Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas) to know how to partner with the Holy Spirit in revival. God has so many things He wants to do in this region, but there are some things He will not do unless His church, led by her leaders, partner with Him in ushering it in.

I was praying a specific passage for these leaders:

“…that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy…”
(Colossians 1:9-11)

It takes a sovereign gripping for the church to catch the vision for what God is up to and decide to fully throw their lot in with it. We need to pray for our leaders, both directly above us and in our region and nation as a whole, that they would be supernaturally able to discern which way the Spirit is moving and would increase in the knowledge of God–not just general theology, but specific insight into what He’s doing now. We need God to give our leaders clear vision and strategy to partner with Him.

What a loss it would be to miss a move of God because we didn’t recognize a divine moment in history.

At The Prayer Room, we launched a new initiative a couple weeks ago of adding more times of prayer for revival into our schedule. We have prayer meetings 5am-11pm every single day, and we decided that for the foreseeable future we will add a brief cycle of intercession for revival into the midpoint of every devotional set 9am-7pm every single day. That gets us praying for revival 30+ more times a week than we had been previously. (EDIT: A few weeks later, we decided to add this prayer time to EVERY devo in the schedule.)

The thing is, God has set us as watchmen on the wall in our region–and probably you in your region. It’s a hugely central part of why our prayer room exists. If we want to see revival–real revival, capital R Revival–it’s on us to be faithful in intercession to call it in. Specifically, if we recognise that that church in our region isn’t spiritually prepared for revival, we need to spend significant focus praying for God to prepare the soil of our hearts, like fuel waiting for Him to send the spark.

We have about 20 different prayer topics related to revival that we may pray from during these intercession times during our devotionals. Praying for leaders is just one of them. I’m sure other revival topics will make an appearance as What I’m Praying posts in the coming months and maybe even years.

God, fill leaders in our region with the knowledge of Your will. Give clear vision and specific divine strategies for how to partner with You in everything You want to do.

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What I’m Praying: Build His House

On January 30, 2019February 19, 2022 By CaitlynIn What I'm Praying2 Comments

Build His House

“Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.”
(Psalm 127:1)

Continuing my What I’m Praying series, recently I’ve had it on my heart to pray for God to build specific houses of prayer.

A few weeks ago, a friend from Kansas City who now serves at a house of prayer in another state reached out to me to ask a few questions about how to logistically strengthen their house of prayer and how to impart vision for it. As we’ve been talking, I’ve begun carrying a prayer for that ministry to be strengthened and be renewed in fresh vision, with supernatural grace to move forward stronger than ever.

Yesterday, I heard from my director, Brad Stroup at The Prayer Room, who was leading a house of prayer leadership gathering in Orlando, that he met the directors of that house of prayer – the very one my friend and I have been praying for – and that they were so encouraged by the gathering and felt strengthened with fresh fire and vision! It looks like Brad might even travel there on a consulting trip to offer his expertise in the administrative logistics of building the house.

When I heard all this in our team meeting, and then heard the name of the house of prayer and realized it was the one my friend was at, I freaked out and started crying.

GOD IS BUILDING THE HOUSE. In one weekend, He broke in, sent fresh wind, and loudly affirmed His commitment to see that house of prayer thrive and be a beacon of His glory in that region.

Ever since I launched Fragrance Arise a few weeks ago, I’ve been privileged to connect with houses of prayer and Burn 24/7 groups all over the world (mostly on Instagram — follow me if you’re not!). I’ve loved praying for these houses of prayer, keeping in mind Psalm 127:1 – “Unless the Lord builds the house…”

It has to be Him. This whole movement is supernatural from beginning to end. The fuel in our tanks is completely Holy Spirit. We need Him to break in and give us grace to keep going, divine ideas to grow, and supernatural provision to sustain us. And every moment, we need more of His presence to move among us.

If you’re part of a house of prayer or a praying community, please leave a prayer request for it in the comments, and take a moment to pray for the other ministries represented. Leave comments encouraging and praying for others. Let’s lift each other up and ask the Lord to build His house all over the earth.

God, build Your house of prayer all over the earth! Impart vision, provide resources, and give grace to keep going. Let Jesus have His inheritance in us.

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Tools for a Life of Prayer: Scheduling Time for Prayer

On January 20, 2019January 20, 2019 By CaitlynIn Prayer and Worship2 Comments

I’m going to say something fairly obvious, but super important: If you want to develop an actual prayer life, make time in your schedule to actually pray.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to just rush through life dominated by the “tyranny of the urgent” – giving priority to whatever pressing need or perceived need happens to be in front of you. That may be a work or school task, a family or relational obligation, or even simply, “I’m tired and what I need to do right now is watch five hours of Netflix.”

When we live like that, our times of prayer usually get crammed in around the edges, during car rides and in the shower, and at the end of the day, we realise we never gave God a real block of focussed attention.

It’s like when friends say “Let’s do coffee sometime!” and then “sometime” never comes because no one ever actually put it on the calendar. You want to be friends, and you certainly meant to do coffee… but at some point, someone has to actually initiate a time and a place or else it remains just a good intention, choked out by the million other demands on your time and attention.

There’s an old story that illustrates this point very well:

A professor of philosophy stood before his class with some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks about two inches in diameter. He then asked the students if the jar was full.

They agreed that it was full.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly and watched as the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The professor then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They chuckled and agreed that it was indeed full this time.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. The sand filled the remaining open areas of the jar.

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar signifies your life. The rocks are the truly important things, such as family, health and relationships. If all else was lost and only the rocks remained, your life would still be meaningful. The pebbles are the other things that matter in your life, such as work or school. The sand signifies the remaining ‘small stuff’ and material possessions. If you put sand into the jar first, there is no room for the rocks or the pebbles. The same can be applied to your lives. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are truly important.

(I borrowed this version from a short article by Julie Isphording, but it appears all over the internet in various forms.)

To me, the rocks are the core things I am called to: my relationship with God, growing in the callings and gifts He has given me, stewarding my relationships, etc. My default is usually to fill my jar with pebbles and sand, and over the months, I look back and wonder where my rocks went! Designated prayer time is usually the first rock to go, if we’re being honest. In fact, sometimes I think that God set me in the house of prayer so that I would be “forced” to talk to Him more!

If having an actual prayer life is a value to you, it’s vital to schedule it like an immovable boulder in your daily routine.

Even before I joined the house of prayer, the times my relationship with God was the strongest was when I had daily times set apart to meet with Him. For a while, it was every morning before class in my university prayer chapel. At home, it was often late at night after the rest of the family was in bed. I would sit on the floor with a mug of tea and my Bible and journal, and it was the highlight of my day.

Now, my scheduled times are mostly during my sacred trust times in the prayer room. I love the accountability and community of being part of a prayer room culture corporately.

Whatever it looks like for you, I highly encourage you to put those times in your schedule and treat it like an actual appointment. Give yourself enough time to slow down and not feel rushed, where you can quiet your mind and connect with the Holy Spirit. Keep that time sacred. Worship. Read a few Bible chapters, or maybe just one. Pray through a simple prayer list. As you develop a history of meeting Him in that secret place, it will become precious to you, and you’ll look forward to it and cherish those times with Him.

(Important note: To be realistic, you probably will not keep your schedule 100% of the time–but I guarantee that if you set a goal, you will keep it MORE than you would without a goal at all. Even keeping 70% or 80% of your prayer times is way better than not even trying and keeping 0%.)

Do you have a regular prayer schedule? What times work for you? Tell me in the comments!

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What I’m Praying: Night Watch

On January 16, 2019February 20, 2022 By CaitlynIn What I'm Praying

Today I’m continuing my every-other-Wednesday series What I’m Praying. (On the in between Wednesdays, expect to see posts on What I’m Reading.) The vision for this series is to share a peek into either the “prayer vibe” around our house of prayer, or what’s on my heart personally to pray.

Ever since a bunch of us got back from the Onething conference in Kansas City a few weeks ago, many of us have carried a stronger burden than usual for what we call the “night watch”. On the first evening of the conference, the session ended up being all about honouring those who serve the Lord as worshippers and intercessors in the night, literally flipping their schedule upside down for months or years at a time to keep the “fire on the altar” (Leviticus 6:13) in 24/7 prayer rooms while the rest of the world sleeps.

God began stirring up a holy jealousy in us that we would have a night watch in our city, and we carried that passion home and have made it a central prayer topic in many of our prayer meetings.

The foundation of night watch is found in the heavenly throne room scene in Revelation 4:

“And the four living creatures… day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'”
(Revelation 4:8)

This is the picture that the tabernacle of David was patterned after, with priests on duty around the clock worshipping God. In fact, the second shortest chapter of the Bible, with only three verses, was written out of the place of David’s night watch:

“Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD!
Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD!
May the LORD bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!”
(Psam 134:1-3)

(Check out the video above at 30:50 for a prophetic song based on this passage!)

The reality is that Jesus is actually worthy of unceasing worship. For all of who He is and all that He’s done, as the Creator of the cosmos, the Lamb who was slain, the most beautiful Man to ever live, the infinitely good and kind Bridegroom, King, and Judge– He deeply, intrinsically deserves the fullest praise we can give Him.

Allen Hood likes to say that we give Him 24/7 because we can’t give Him 25/8.

Let’s be a people who continuously push the boundary, saying “How can I give you more of what You deserve? How can I love, serve, and worship you more?” Of course, this is never out of legalism, as though His love and favour depends on us trying as hard as we can– but once we catch a glimpse of His matchless beauty and feel the weight of his love and delight, our hearts overflow with love in return that expresses itself in increasingly radical ways. Like flipping our schedule upside down to praise Him all night long.

Here at The Prayer Room, we are all eager to launch our night watch, but we will only do it when we can do it sustainably. This has been our ministry model since day one: when we add a set to our schedule at a certain time, we add it on every day of the week, and we do not come off of it no matter what. Whenever we begin inching our way through the night toward 24/7 (first 11pm-1am, then 1-3am, then 3-5am), we will count the cost very soberly and make sure that our days are solid enough to survive some of us transitioning to the nights.

God, burn this passion on the hearts of Your people, to see Jesus be worshipped in our city literally day and night. Let us not rest until we give You what You deserve. Bring people to fill our prayer room during the daytime hours so that we can responsibly reassign people to carry the nights. Have Your glory here!

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Holy Stubbornness: Don’t Quit on Your Calling

On August 30, 2018February 20, 2022 By CaitlynIn Just Thoughts2 Comments

Building a house of prayer is NOT easy. I’ve heard multiple leaders say it’s the hardest thing they’ve ever done–way harder than planting a church, doing overseas missions, etc. Really, the only reason this place is still standing is that years ago, God graciously gave us a holy stubbornness to NOT QUIT NO MATTER WHAT.

There are so, so many reasons to quit. When the money falls apart, the people wander off, the building gets taken away, other important causes demand attention… there is every good and natural reason in the world to quit.

In the “world”.

But we are not of this world. We don’t think like this world. We are not slaves to things like practicality and pragmatism. We don’t make decisions based only on numbers and logic.

We make decisions on faith.

13 years ago, God called a guy named Brad to start a daily prayer meeting that was eventually supposed to become a 24/7 house of prayer (this is TPR’s origin story). And then one by one, over the years, God called each of us to be part of it. Occasionally, He calls someone out of it just as clearly as He called them in. But MOST of the time… He expects us to plant our feet and not walk away from the thing He called us to. No matter what.

Of course we look at the numbers and listen to reason. Sometimes God leads through reason. But there are times, especially about the big things, when we need to set our face like flint and refuse to back down.

“For the Lord GOD will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.”
(Isaiah 50:7)

For us at The Prayer Room, that means first and foremost day and night prayer, 5:00 am to 11:00 pm with live worship, every single day of the week. We don’t take a day off and we don’t cut corners. We don’t cut the schedule when we’re running low on people–by golly, we’d invent human cloning before we’d cancel a prayer meeting.

For me personally, holy stubbornness means I know I am called to be part of the house of prayer movement. I make decisions based on that calling. I have discouraged guys from pursuing me because of that calling. I arrange my finances and my schedule around that calling. For me, God has been clear that means full-time missionary staff at The Prayer Room. I do not have the right to decide to do something else with my life, no matter how convenient, attractive, logical, or even necessary other options may seem.

The pastor I grew up with, Pastor Danny at Water of Life, calls this “staying on your number”. Years ago, he used a sermon illustration of gym class at school where the coach would tell all the kids to stand on their assigned number on the gym floor. No matter how much you wanted to move or felt entitled to a more favourable number, you had to stay on your number. The phrase has become Water of Life shorthand for staying grounded where God has planted you.

Really what this comes down to is obedience and faith.

“And Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.'”
(1 Samuel 15:22)

In the story of 1 Samuel 15, God told King Saul to completely destroy his enemies and all of their possessions and livestock. When the prophet Samuel showed up, he found that King Saul had done his idea of the right thing, which was to spare the best of the livestock for the purpose of sacrificing it to God. That sounds pretty holy, right? But God’s message to Saul was, “I told you what to do, and you didn’t do it. The excuse ‘I’m doing this for You!’ doesn’t cut it, because I TOLD YOU what to do, and this was not it. To obey is better than sacrifice.”

Obeying what God actually said is better than doing other good things for good reasons that are NOT actually what God said to do. God delights in obedience. It gives Him great pleasure when we trust Him enough to follow what He said to do no matter what, even if there are “good reasons” to do something different.

For us, that means we’re stubbornly going to keep building the house of prayer.
For you, it might be the house of prayer, or it might be something different. Maybe God has called you to overseas missions, or to a church ministry, or to a specific marketplace career. Maybe it’s your marriage, or homeschooling, or fostering/adoption.

DON’T QUIT.

God called you into this for a reason. You said yes for a reason. Remember what that reason was, and hold onto it. Unless He releases you as clearly as He called you… don’t walk away.

Get stubborn. Get iron in your soul. Get a flinty face like Isaiah. Get radically surrendered like Jesus in Gethsemane.

Walk by faith, not by sight.

When it gets hard, He will give you grace to walk through it. His grace is sufficient. He will not let you fall. He might let you come close, but His promise is that those who wait on Him will not be ashamed. I think that means that even if there are moments or seasons of pressure and even embarrassment, in the long run you will not regret choosing to trust Him. You will look back a thousand years from now and be so grateful you kept saying yes. Wisdom will be justified.

It’s worth it. Holy stubbornness that says YES to Jesus no matter what is worth it.

Don’t give up on Him.

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