Donegal Town Day of Prayer

Tell us about how your church got involved in 24-7 prayer?

We started the 24/7 Prayer Day when we volunteered for a stint in the North West District initiative during the year of prayer. It was so successful our Leaders decided to do it each year at Easter.

Any practical advice for a church thinking of trying this model out?

In 2008 our Youth Praise Band were asked if they would like to set up the room and they readily agreed - they had helped out on the previous ones but felt they would like to be more involved and did a superb job. They, along with members of the Churches and Ian manned the room for an hour or so each. We also used a prayer video which was produced by Andrea of photos of appropriate scenes with Bible verses on them backed by music (ie: some of Stuart Townend's).

We found the best way to set up our Church Hall was to divide the room into different sections by using light weight material hung from the ceiling, a roll of wallpaper wrapped around a couple of poles (which are part of the hall) - this also doubled up as a prayer wall for people to write either their prayers or requests for prayer on.

We had bean bags and soft lighting in one area with prayers and texts on the walls around and books available as well - another with comfy chairs beside the window overlooking the river with Bibles, books etc and a reading light. Another section was set up with a cross and under it a basin of water and some stones where you could pray and then use a stone as a symbol to wash away you sins. Then the video set up with ear phones in another section so as not to disturb anyone else and also give some privacy.

How did your church respond?

It is the most amazing experience when you see and feel the change in your plain old church hall to the comfy, cosy, peaceful, spirit filled atmosphere. The young people who were helping could not believe that there could be such a change and ended up staying most of the day. Everyone found the whole day a marvellous experience and one to be continued.

Tell us about the challenges and the blessings.

The challenges are to come up with new ideas as being such a small town it is mostly the same people each year that use the prayer room.

The blessings - being able to provide somewhere that people feel closer to God and experience a deeper spiritual meaning to their prayer life.