Book Reviews from Around the World

By Pete Greig & Dave Roberts

I really enjoyed this book. It's not a teaching book on prayer as I had suspected. It's really the story of Pete Greig's life over the last decade or so and how God has used him in launching a movement called 24-7 prayer. Since the book is in story form, it's really easy to read and seems to fly by.

Pete has clearly given his life to reaching an up and coming generation of youth across Europe and around the world. He planted several youth churches in England and God led him to a model of prayer the goes 24-7. They establish a prayer room that is heavily focused on art and creativity. People sign up for hour time slots and cover all 168 hours in a week. It's a pretty basic model but the testimonies of what God did in their lives as they prayed more and more is inspiring.

Eventually groups from all around the world started using their 24-7 model and they found themselves coordinating a network of prayer groups that was praying 24-7-365. As they journeyed into intense seasons of prayer and intimacy with the Lord, they found it fueled a passion for mission and justice. On any given week, there are around 20 groups from around the world praying 24 hours a day for the whole week. They've established houses of prayer that pray 24-7-365 which they call "boiler rooms". The boiler rooms serve as mission centers for the cities they're located in, serving the poor and reaching the lost.

Check out the 24-7 website at www.24-7prayer.com

This book impacted me in three ways...

1. The prayer model itself
It was really exciting to read about young people getting so passionate about relating with the Lord in prayer. They give the youth in their city a room to create and the students seem to really take ownership and encounter God. I'm really considering starting something like this in Boise. It stretched the way I thought about prayer and explored other ways of praying that I haven't had much experience with.

2. The outreach the prayer rooms produced.
This was the most challenging section of the book for me. The prayer rooms go beyond just 24-7 prayer. They turn into a mission center that reaches out to the city their located in. Pete told stories of their teams being in bars and clubs and getting to pray for the sick and preaching the gospel. There were repeated accounts of unbelievers coming into their rooms to pray and find God. Many of them got saved. He introduced this concept of attend the Holy Spirit's meetings. He said that for ever we've simply invited the Holy Spirit to our meetings, instead of attending His. Pete believes that the Holy Spirit meetings are out with the lost and that if we listen, we'll here Him calling us to powerful encounters with Him. The concept was simple enough, but his testimonies were really challenging. It was really good to read about the union of prayer and mission. We almost always do one without the other.

3. The wild obedience of the author.
It was clear from reading Red Moon Rising that Pete Greig lives a yeilded life. He consistently communicates how God is really in control of this ministry. There's a wild, out of control feeling that permeates the book and gives you the feeling that they don't have any idea what God will do next. I've been really stretched to live more and more like this in the last couple years. I tend to be a planner and a goal setter. It's good to read about God doing something really out of the box and without a lot of planning. Pete calls 24-7 an accident. He reminds his readers that the Bible portrays God as wild, like the wind, the fire and the rain. We can't control what He does. It's our job to live in response to His call, not plan out how it's all going to work. I felt stretched to wildly obey whatever He calls us to in life. I've always wanted to live the crazy life - this book just added fuel to the fire.

Bottom line - great book. It's a quick read and worth it if you get the chance.