The House of Prayer movement : Recalibration necessary?
Just exactly what is a house of prayer? What’s a church? What’s the difference? Is it a pit stop or a destination?
Earlier this decade I founded and led Revolution Church in Manitou Springs, Colorado prior to taking it through a transition from a church to a house of prayer.
As we were in the midst of the transition, I received what I believe to be timely and divine wisdom from my Father-in-law:
“John, do you understand that you are not transitioning from a church, you are transitioning into a church.”
I feel strongly that it’s time to revisit the call and purpose of the house of prayer movement. I believe the many developing houses of prayer in the nation are at risk of marginalizing their power, purpose and effectiveness. Houses of prayer are a closer model of the church that we see in Acts than what we see in traditional churches in our nation today, and they need to wrap their arms around that identity and the responsibility to help with the reformation that will soon be upon the church.
Simply- the house of prayer movement cannot fulfill its purpose as a para-church movement.
In fact, to deliberately promote a dividing line between the function of the church and the function of the house of prayer will significantly threaten the coming reformation to the landscape of Christianity. Biblically, the church IS a house of prayer for all nations. There is to be no division, no difference.
Mark 11:17 (NKJV) Then He taught, saying to them, "Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations’? …‘ "
I believe the house of prayer movement just may be one of the most significant and critical strategic missions of our generation. However, if a prime purpose of the house of prayer movement is to stimulate and facilitate the radical recalibration of the Christian church at large, then the house of prayer movement itself must quickly recalibrate and embrace that mission.
I met with a mega church pastor a few years ago who’s friends with Mike Bickle, the Director of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Missouri. He mentioned that his strong opinion several years prior was that IHOP would have to eventually function as a local church if it was to grow and develop with the necessary New Testament power. This, in fact, did happen. It had to.
Scripturally, the church is the New Testament structure for Kingdom advance. It only makes sense to embrace that and enjoy the all too important Holy Spirit infusion and governmental authority that only flows to and through the church. Apostles, prophets, etc. receive their authority as they function in the church.
It has become common to intentionally distance houses of prayer from the general church mission. A lot of energy goes into differentiating their role from the role of the church. For example, people who visit a house of prayer might be encouraged to “tithe to their local church and give offerings to the house of prayer.” This is a simple yet obvious and practical example of what I mean. Also, they generally don’t meet on Sundays so as not to interfere with people’s participation with their traditional church. There’s a clear dividing line. In fact, many houses of prayer require or strongly encourage their people to also attend a ‘regular’ church on Sundays.
The primary purpose of the church is to be a house of prayer for all nations. All Christians should pray as a primary ministry every day. The church’s very identity is that of Holy Spirit fueled prayer. To communicate that such activity is reserved mostly for the intercessors and a special segment of Christianity will further validate the belief that prayer is not to be the key driver for the majority of Believers.
The goal is for every church to first be a house of prayer for all nations. For this to happen, we cannot communicate that all of the emerging houses of prayer are not churches because of their deep focus on prayer. Just as my Father-in-law shared, houses of prayer are very much churches indeed, and shouldn’t shy away from that identity.
A pit stop or a destination?
I shared an insight with a good friend of mine. I asked, is the house of prayer to be a pit stop on the journey or is it the core destination?
Let’s say you and your family plan an exciting trip to Orlando. That’s your destination. All of your plans and excitement revolves around the time you will spend there. You save thousands of dollars with the intent of investing most all of it at the theme parks and other entertaining places. You have enough space for thousands of photos on your camera. Memories are sure to be made.
Destination: Orlando!
You pack and load up the family in the car and start the long drive to beautiful Florida. Several hours into the journey it’s time for a pit stop. You pull into a gas station and fill up the car. The family goes inside and uses the restroom and spends a few dollars on soda and snacks. Then, they hit the road again.
At the gas station, nobody felt as if they had ‘arrived’. Nobody took any photos. Nobody was especially excited. Only a few dollars was invested in the mission of that convenience store.
The question for house of prayer leaders: is your ministry, your ‘church’, a pit stop or a destination? Do people develop their lives and plans around their participation in your ministry? Or, is it a pick-me-up or a splinter ministry that they participate in on a low level?
We need houses of prayer, which are actually an excellent model of the New Testament church, to become destinations (and not pit stops) all around the world. Places of high level investment. Prayer fueled churches that have strong apostolic, governmental leadership.
I believe as we kick into this calibration that houses of prayer will not only be functioning 24/7 but they won’t shy away from being the primary Sunday morning experience for the body. We’ll see current traditional churches become more focused on their primary ministry of night and day prayer.
Another related point is this: If we are to see houses of prayer function governmentally as New Testament churches, if they are to initiate and facilitate city-wide transformation, then they must be fueled by supernatural vision.
Someone mentioned something to me once that caused a good amount of concern. He said that he developed his particular house of prayer perfectly and without any deviation on the model of IHOP in Kansas City. He mentioned that there was no difference at all. The model was a carbon copy. How can this be?
Certainly it’s appropriate to utilize certain principles and even some of the models that are inherent with the
house of prayer movement, but to default to another person’s revelation with no personal vision at all makes little sense.
For example, IHOP regularly prays what they call the apostolic prayers. The prayers of Paul, for example, that he declared over the church. I read something that was right on recently, “The apostolic prayers aren’t apostolic prayers for you. They were apostolic prayers for Paul. He had the burden and passion for a specific people in a specific region and his heart overflowed with love for them.”
Now, of course, it’s great to pray scripture, and I often pray the apostolic prayers myself. But, to default to repeating such prayers while there is a void of personal apostolic revelation and passion for a particular people and region has limited effect. To pray without personal revelation, without a personal burden can be quite a struggle. My book Revelation Driven Prayer addresses this at length.
I would never counsel a leader to setup systems that are simply mirrors of what has been done somewhere else. I don’t think it’s usually appropriate to launch a ministry if we don’t have unique, creative, supernatural revelation for that season, for that region, for those people.
God is way too creative and massive to ever default to another person’s revelation. In part, it’s for this reason that houses of prayer have limited themselves to impacting a small segment of the church. We need to see revelation explode and watch houses of prayer become city-impacting houses of power that are driven by supernaturally delivered directives of God himself.
As we see houses of prayer become revelation driven, and break their addiction to petition and deviate from the ministry cookie cutter, they will develop into a beautiful prism of ever changing colors on the landscape of the city church.
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