Diocese of Down & Dromore

"Dromore Cathedral and Down Cathedral this year both celebrate 400 years of life and witness from the issues of letters patent by King James I in 1609. What better way to celebrate our role in the dioceses than to lead in a call to prayer.

24:40 for 400 is 40 days of prayer from Sunday 20th September to Sunday 1st November 2009

Read on to find out how your parish can get involved."

Introduction

24:7 prayer began as a room dedicated to helping people to take part in non-stop prayer in 1999 It is now a world-wide phenomenon. Churches and communities all over the world determine to set aside periods of time usually seven days of 24 hour prayer to seek God, to pray for their community and to invite God's blessing on a proposed season of action. The model has been adopted and developed by many church traditions in ways which relate to their own strengths and challenges their weaknesses.

What it is and what it is not!

24:7 is an active, participatory focussed period of extended prayer involving a community and a space. It generally involves creating a time table of individuals who agree to pray for an hour at a time in a particular space. The space is enriched with Bibles, Prayer Books, Reflections, Posters on walls, sources of music for personal worship, Journals to enable people to write their own prayer needs and to pray for the concerns of others, Information about local needs and initiatives, and creative prayer spaces. With this design in mind it enables younger people, creative people, reflective people and imaginative people to contribute to the experience of others.

• 24:7 is not a prayer meeting

• it is not a clergy-led event

• it is not a predictable process

• it is not a chore

Local experience is that when the first 24 or 36 hours are partially filled with people, those who have participated sign up for more and more and the whole period is filled without much effort. People volunteer for the 2 am to 3 am session! Often the hardest section to fill is the 8 am to 9 am sessions! We will supply further ideas to help you fill your team in later correspondence.

Who can take part?

We hope parishes from each area deanery will take part.

• Perhaps you are part of an ancient church with a monastic tradition lost in time

• Perhaps your parish has never before tried an extended prayer time, even for an evening.

• Perhaps you share a boundary or ministry with another parish, or have several churches in one group, and you would like to help them identify with one another, then you could do this between the churches.

• Perhaps you have a youth group or active group of younger members who would like to make their mark on parish and diocesan life.

• Perhaps you just want to have a go!

How much time can I have?

Ideally we would like ten parishes to take the idea on board for 4 days each starting at 8.00 pm in an evening and ending four days later. We are willing to consider periods as short as 48 hours (quite a good duration for a start to this ministry). Where parishes have personal security issues regarding all night vigils we will be open to scheduling a parallel 12 hour daylight only period for you.

What happens after your 24:2, 24:4, or 24:40?

Immediately or shortly after your 24:4 [or 24:2] we would love you to consider taking part in some local initiative, This could be a street tidy up, a community event, an outreach event or another expression of Christ's mission in your area. This means that a season of prayer will precede a season of action. Your event will be supported in prayer by the other churches taking part in the 40 days of prayer.

For further information contact:

Dean Henry Hull: henryhull@downcathedral.co.uk

Dean Stephen Lowry: dean@dromore.anglican.org

Or your Area Dean to express your interest as a parish