Developing Global Prayer Networks in the Era of COVID-19
4:25PM Dec 4, +0000
Speakers:
Jonathan J. Armstrong
Merv Withrup
Jason Hubbard
Faly Ravoahangy
Andrew Bair
Hazen Stevens
Jonathan Friz
Keywords:
prayer
people
pray
churches
jonathan
zoom
call
god
ministry
world
prayer meeting
connect
unreached
real
join
hubbard
facebook
foster
younger generation
leaders
And let me also introduce our speaker today. Dr. Jason Hubbard is the founder and director of that the Light of the World Prayer Center in Bellingham, Washington. He is also the director. Do I have that title correct? for the International prayer Council, a ministry that was started by John Rob, John Rob continues to work directly with Dr. Hubbard in the international prayer Council. Dr. Hubbard, we're super grateful to have you with us to speak to us about how to use digital tools to advance prayer ministry. Let me offer a brief prayer. And we'll give our full attention to Dr. Hubbard. Let's pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that we can gather as your children, and that you always answer the phone. I was just thinking about that. Isn't it extraordinary that when we call heaven, the boss answers, and so we praise you for this incredible opportunity and privilege that we share as your children to speak and commune directly with you. We ask God that you would we ask God that you would unleash in your children, like never before a spirit of prayer fullness, and that we would offer up ourselves to you as obedient sons and daughters, to pray for the things that you direct and the things that you intend to do in the world before you return. God continue to give wisdom to Dr. Hubbard as he presents and as we attempt to be discerning, we ask that your spirit would help us to be discerning, following the presentation as well, to know how we can best serve in leading prayer networks. We ask these things in your name, amen. Welcome, Dr. Hubbard, we're all yours.
Such an honor, are starting to be with you and each of you on the call. What an appropriate time, I think to be talking about fostering prayer on digital platforms, in the midst of this Corona virus, who could have predicted this kind of a scenario, as most of us are sheltered in place right now. The question is how do we pray with one another. And that's the predominant, you know, culture of prayer in the New Testament is praying together with each other. And we certainly are aware of our need to for a supernatural intervention, to deal with this crisis. Scripture is clear that God releases his power in response to the prayers of his people. And so when we pray, according to God's will, and for His renown, His activity always increases. He always responds. So just as churches have turned to digital platforms, to host their Sunday morning services, I see that today, we're now in the midst of a prayer revival in the nations of the earth with the use of digital platforms really seen that want to share some of those testimonies with you today. I'm not a technical expert. And I confess that to Jonathan, before I accepted this call, I am connected to the right people, though, to help you with that. So I'm hoping that maybe we can send out some information to get you some expert help on the technology side. But today, I just wanted to inspire you a little bit about what God's doing. It is amazing, what's happening today. I think we're all aware. Let me just start obviously, with the most familiar and I think successful platform we're seeing in America today is of course Facebook, one of the ministries that has seen great impact through the use of Facebook and Facebook groups is called Pray America. They have over 3 million subscribers in our nation, daily they're sharing real prayer, real time prayer points with one another. praises of answered prayer to build hope and sharing, equipping resources to help those connected to become more prayer devoted. growing in Scripture based prayer, Spirit led prayer, worship fed prayer, Christ exalting prayer, been a great platform for that. Facebook groups, obviously, they allow you to ask for and receive prayer the moment that you need it. So that ability to communicate with people so easily and do so at or near the moment of their need, fosters those bonds that we couldn't really have any other way. There are many people that you're probably not going to see in person all the time, but you can be united with them through these kind of platforms and heart and mind, spirit by conversations and prayers that you share with them through faith. book what a gift. This is a, I think, often much more efficient than a typical churches email chain that will do to send out prayer points. So many people today are, their email boxes are so full, they're not even seeing the prayer points, let alone praying for them. So this is it just comes quicker. So many people that are connected on Facebook, I think the older generation, the younger generation today is more focused with Instagram and some of the other things we'll talk about. But very important that we think about Facebook and how to use that in our prayer ministries. I think too, for me just having a learning to have a prayer now lifestyle is important. I think most of us can relate to that, you know, we say to somebody, hey, I'd love to pray for you. How can I pray for you, and we commit to that, but then we forget to do it. And so it's always so much better to pray for them in the immediate. And my wife just says it's amazing per ministry on Facebook. She asks for prayer points per prompts, and that she prays immediately for them. Often I'll send them a written prayer for them on that platform. So that's a good, good way to do things. Facebook Live also is another great vehicle to foster prayer events. I serve on a board of a ministry called America Prays which is different than Pray America. But they do work in tandem. And this ministry has the vision to unite and equip 40,000 local churches in 24/7 prayer to see a national spiritual awakening a national Christ awakening. So during this crisis season, we lost 21 days of prayer. We invited people to join us in prayer at 4:14pm cry out to God on behalf of our nation. And we had an average of 20,000 people joining us every night. In United for several nights were over 50,000 people from all over the nation. Each night a national prayer leader would share a short devotional. And then the next 20-30 minutes were devoted to pray for our nation people praying from their homes, but connected and united together around common themes praying for the loss praying for healthcare workers. For this virus to be eradicated. There was time specific time for confession, repentance over sin as beautiful. Another thing I've seen at the global level, great tool that's been used to connect prayer leaders is WhatsApp groups. Thousands all over South Africa have created these WhatsApp groups and they share real time needs. They're praying with people and united prayer for their neighborhoods, unsaved family members missions and Gods also using these WhatsApp groups I'm seeing to unite different prayer leaders from different streams across the body of Christ. They're now sharing prayer points in the region's nation's key resources. There's other apps out there Signal, Telegram that people are using as well. But I think the WhatsApp has been the the one that's been most used most commonly and fairly secure. also serve as the as Jonathan mentioned, I serve as the executive coordinator for the International Prayer Council. And this is one of the largest relational prayer networks of networks in the world. We serve probably 3500 to 5000 different prayer ministries around the world. We're connecting these folks in these ministries through an E-newsletter first, that's been very successful, just real time prayer points of things happening in different nations around the world. And then we're distributing that through social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, you know, etc. And we also developed what's called prayerhub.tv. And this is a pioneering project. It's not fully developed yet, but it's going to be an app where people can jump on that app, it'll be secure for issues of things going on in places of the persecuted church. And it's partnering with the world person or in Birmingham. In the UK, they're piloting also a virtual House of Prayer, in a Facebook group with 800 plus members already, and it's growing. This prayer hub apps also going to include a marketplace focus for mission organizations, it's gonna be able to connect people in organizations with others who have these similar prayer interests, prayer passions, so I'll get that out to you the website, you can take a peek at that. But these things are beginning to really get some traction, I think. And the idea is how do we get informed intercession so that people can know how to pray according to God's will. Now, first, obviously, it's scripture based prayer, we pray the Word of God but what's going on in our world that we know where God is saying, hey, I want to bring change I want my kingdom to come in this arena, I want to see justice or wrong things made right. certain areas of the world, I want to see more disciples made amongst mass numbers of unreached, unengaged people groups. And so these tools, I think God's using to help us to be able to know what's out there, and then pray, as best we can by the Spirit, you know, obviously, for God's glory, and for our joy, according to God's will, so that He will respond to that and releases power. Of course, we surrender that to the Lord. And so that's the idea. This is an amazing thing. Let me talk next about a great platform that we're using here today called Zoom. familiar with this as well. And great place to gather people to see one another and pray together now in agreement. This last week share a quick story, we were part of a Passover prayer gathering, where we had 100,000 individual devices connected. We prayed for three hours from 145 nations. Facebook Live was used for English, YouTube was used and translated live into 26 other languages in real-time live translation. And we had a secure zoom link for our Chinese brothers and sisters. And I think this is probably one of the You know, the China church, Chinese church today probably one of the strongest praying nations in the world today. The only one that I see it's even greater than that would be Indonesia. What was amazing on this call, and I do believe this was historic, I would say in some sense, unprecedented. As a scholar, I'm hesitant to use those kind of words. If you study church history, however, I actually think it was. Here's why. We had Egyptians, believers, we had Arab believers. We had Jewish believers, together with internationals, and the generations connected 100,000 in real time prayer in unity. We saw these Egyptians confessing to one another, a reconciliation happening between Arab believers and Jewish believers. An actual Passover Seder, you know, which we would say is probably the, you know, we think about the Last Supper, right? The Last Supper that Jesus celebrated with his disciples, I believe, as a Passover Seder, really the fulfillment of a Passover, and then the foundation for New Covenant communion. And here we are in agreement, or this is convergence of the nations coming together, felt like, in some sense, Isaiah 19 mandate of Egyptians and Assyrians and Jewish believers coming together around the gospel. Just amazing. It was this platform that brought us together, this couldn't have happened any other way, especially in this season. Praise God. In Germany last week, we hosted a zoom per call, and 1 million people joined together. astounding numbers in Germany. I mean, if you've been to Germany, for those that are from Czech Republic, this is a move of the Holy Spirit, I would say. So we're planning another gathering just to get you aware of this as well love to have all of you joined to kind of see what this looks like and pray with us. Next week on May 1, we're partnering with GO 2020 global outreach day, which is an evangelism ministry. And the International Prayer Council is partnered with them to help create canopies of prayer and united prayer for these evangelism efforts. And that's going to happen on May 1 5am Pacific time and this vision is astounding as well. They want to mobilize 100 million believers in United prayer asking each of these that are praying to pray for five unbelievers in their circle of influence. Who don't know Jesus hoping to see over the next decade a billion new Christians new believers coming to the family of God audacious staggering vision. However, we and we thought you know, this is never gonna happen. We've been mobilizing towards this for about a year now already. There's no way we thought this could ever happen apart from the supernatural grace of God and yet because of the virus now it's almost like God has been pushing this And, you know, I'm not sure how to really describe this yet, and we'll see what really happens. But, you know, we're expecting hundreds of thousands on this call, again, will be translated into 26 different languages across the globe. major, major prayer leaders of big networks is going to be joining in. We just heard from Reverend Mohan, he's the general superintendent of the Assembly of God in India, literally millions of churches, they're going to be joining in at least getting the word out to their churches to join. So again, we'll see how many but love to have you be there to be able to kind of see how this works. We're gonna pray around the globe, region by region, the sharing, you know, short messages on, you know, the power of prayer and scripture based evangelism and so praise God for that.
I didn't know that, Jason. That's a good piece of homework for me to pick up. So how do I join that call?
Yeah, let me I'll send you the link. But a simple website. Again, that's the best way to do these kind of things is you've got a website, that's your landing page. And then there's one link for Facebook, one link for YouTube. And people just click on they don't need to register. And then all of a sudden, they're right on live again, and it'll be on demand as well to follow if you can't get on live, you'll be able to watch the video to follow. So I'll send you that link. Jonathan, he can get it out to the folks to join us. John, Rob, and myself will be facilitating this with another ministry called watchman ministry, David Damien. And I think it's going to be Nick time. Another way that I think Zoom is gaining traction. Similar to the vision of the Aqueduct prayer project here to see is to see 24 seven unceasing prayer around the clock prayer in an online virtual prayer room. This has been developed already in Australia through young adult ministry called Generation Fire. They've been going 24 seven, obviously, this has been developed, not through Zoom. But through technology with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, you're probably familiar with that as well. Great platform to be able to come on and join in the worship that they're doing, and the prayer that they're doing in real time. This last fall, we partnered with a ministry called 10 days. And we use Zoom to cover and corporate prayer 24 hours a day for a full 10 days. So leaders gathered together over zoom in a Zoom Room, a common Zoom Room, in one hour time slots. And then each of those had several people that joined in. And we rotated each hour, a new group. And we're planning to do that again this spring, getting Jonathan Fritz leads that ministry. And there's the several of these that are popping up all over the world. I think it's fantastic. If we could unite the global prayer community, I mean, we could have literally hundreds of these rooms going I believe, and so need to hear people praying in their heart language, people worshiping in their heart language. And different generations joining together. We could have never done this 100 years ago, but exciting to see how the Lord is using this. And to give you one last thing here and then maybe close we'll have time for some question and answers but in Bellingham, our local ministry, we've got a prayer ministry called Day2Pray, where churches adopt monthly Day of Prayer, to pray around the clock, 24 hours, same day of the month, so the second Tuesday or third Friday. And we have 30 plus churches that participating each taking a day a month. So we have this canopy of United strategic and sustainable prayer, for the glory of Jesus over our community over our schools over our businesses, our families, our neighborhoods. And one of the great tools that our churches use to help people sign up in a simple way online. And they can have access to a prayer guide, they can get reminders of their committed time to pray. It's called Plan Hero. I thought Jonathan, maybe I could just show you this real quick. on a screen share, I'll see if this works. We'll give it a shot here. Just to give you an idea, and several churches use this now and it's just a real simple way for pastors to get people signed up to pray in a committed way. Here we go. Here's one of our churches called Christ the King. I used to pastor here, it's one of our bigger churches, so they're about three 3000 maybe today. Everybody see that?
Yes, sir. It's coming through nice and clear.
Okay, great. So let me just go through this real quick. So data pre initiative CTK Bellingham. You'll notice on here, you click on this, here's the download for a prayer guide. And pull that up. And you'll see on here as a couple tools for worship for yourself, your family and friends, and then we split up our prayer points since in nine different areas. So spheres of culture of real time prayer points and just in our neighborhood, Army in our community. So you can see some of the prayer points there. We look for specific and measurable prayer points. So all these people are signed up, we're going to pray along those lines. Does that make sense? You'll also notice on here, they have a global partners program as well for their missionaries, their print on the fourth Friday of the month, they have over 300 people on their church taking a half an hour, every week to pray, I mean, every month to pray. And they most of these pray for their homes, obviously, all do now, they do have a church prayer room, they can go down there and pray as well. But you'll see the people signed up there, right? every half an hour. So real simple way, what happens to and they sign up, then they get a prayer point. I mean, I get a reminder on a text, or they can get it through Facebook, or an email of their time to pray. So just a real simple way. I love that on how to get more people praying using a platform like this. And so there's a ton of these out there. But this is the one we've found that it's pretty easy for most churches to jump on. Makes sense. Okay, let me close this just one of my convictions from the Lord, is that today, we need to really learn how to connect with a young generation. It's critical that we learn to use tools to foster prayer among a younger generation. I like to call this generation, maybe the 20 year olds on down the digital generation. There's a lot of different, you know, words that scholars are using today, but I just like to call them the digital generation. And I tell you, that is how they connect with their friends and with their ministries in their churches more than anything else today. So for witness for evangelism, for discipleship, and I believe for prayer, this is a critical thing to look at. this younger generation often too has a global perspective. Their driving forces change, right? That's what they live for. That's what I'm seeing. This is a generation they're they're bored to be catalysts, I think, I think to help foster revival, reformation, potential revolution, this younger generation is much more flexible, they're highly adaptable. You'll see this in our schools and our campuses. And they're an all in generation, everything or nothing, you know, they want to go for it, let's go, there's no tomorrow attitude for them. The older generation, you know, will say so you know, if it's if it's not broken, don't fix it, right. But the younger generation simply says just upgrade it. So this digital culture that we have today, has produced a digital perception. You know, I think there seems to be little sense amongst the younger generation of a gradual, slow, are kind of quietly growing. And that's just where we're at. I'm not saying this is a biblical posture. And there's a lot of negatives to this as well. However, we want to meet them where they're at, and, and really connect with them. One of the dangers I think, too, that we see with digital platforms course, especially in the younger generation, what I like to call these cell phones really are weapons of mass distraction. Really. And the level is also of increasing pornography happening. You know, I'm thinking that there's times when we do need to encourage maybe a little less texting, and getting more into the text of God's word, maybe a little less on Facebook and into the book of God's face, maybe a little less time in the chat rooms and more time in the prayer rooms. However, I think if we could harness and foster this vehicle of digital platforms, understanding the dangers, you know, with caution, I think we can engage with them in everyday ways, especially as it relates to prayer. And we could see God do some amazing things. And I love your heart, Jonathan to really develop these kind of platforms, especially around the place of prayer. I think these Digital's are looking for purpose, right? The greatest unspoken need of the of them is a sense of family. And the primary way that they communicate is digitally. So it's critical that we connect with them. They're up to foster prayer, through the language that they understand. And if we do this, I think we're going to see really Mighty Jesus revolution in the nations of the earth for God's glory. Amen. And Amen. Thank you, Jonathan.
We're so grateful for your presentation, Dr. Hubbard, so applauding, doesn't work very well. And zoom makes all this cacophony, but hey, are applauding like this, thank you so much for that great presentation. Here's my recommendation. What I would love to produce out of this dialogue is kind of a best practices sheet, something that easily could be distributed. And, you know, Zoom kind of popped out of nowhere for many of us just a year two or three ago, and we're now the whole world is using it. But three years from now, we'll probably be using something else, and three years after that something else. So what I'd love for us to be able to do is rather than sort of locked into a particular technology, what are the spiritual principles, or the best practices that we should use as an international community fostering prayer networks, knowing that, you know, the tools will change, but the purposes and diet and spiritual dynamics probably will not? And so if we could just put together brainstorm as a group, what are the what are the principles that we would recommend to people trying to use digital tools for fostering prayer networks, let's give a few minutes to that. When we run out of good ideas, let's just be done. And we'll offer a prayer to and close. So questions for Dr. Hubbard or recommendations for, or questions concerning best practices and fostering prayer through digital tools?
Can I chip in?
Please.
Yeah. Well, just a quick one. Thank you so much, Dr. Hubbard for the presentation. One of the things that is the challenges in countries like ours in, you know, in the southern hemisphere is, of course, accessibility for people of digital tools. One of the good things that is happening is that a lot of the phone companies are now offering Facebook and Facebook Messenger as part of their kind of dat-data offers, let's say, and so that's how, for instance, we've been able to keep in touch with our church during this time. But I just wanted to mention one thing, as well as web radios. As one of the ways as well, we could communicate in countries like ours, radio is still very, very much, you know, listened to and for some of them, they have access, again, via Facebook, to a link to a web radio. And if there could be like, you know, set up times for a web radio or people could, you know, chime in --- thank you.
Thank you, Faly, can you just tell me one sentence more? I've not-I've not tried to set up a web radio, where could I learn more about web radios?
Well, that is really a technical question that I don't know if I would be able to answer but all I know is that it's basically it's the same principle as a radio, but it's it's set up as a website. So there's a link and the radio, the radio channel, instead of being broadcast in AM or FM is also broadcasted on that, on that, on that web platform. However, it looks like I'm sorry, I don't know more. But I know that we've been using it. For instance, I had the joy of preaching over on a web-web radio last Sunday, I did my sermon over the web, radio, and people were able to listen to it in different parts of Madagascar. So that was a blessing.
Praise God! Thanks for the good work. Questions and recommendations.
Here's one of the follow ups for me personally, is I definitely want to be part of that May 1 call? Can you just look at your chat? Hazen Stevens from Atlanta, put the link up there. Can you just eyeball that and verify that that's the link?
Let me see
there's about halfway, up worldprayertogether.com.
Yep.
Perfect.
That's the website you go to and you can just click right there on Facebook or on YouTube. Both the work we're trying to use Facebook for English primarily, but YouTube live english as well. The you know, the panelists, those that are facilitating and praying, and the worship teams are all on the zoom, secure zoom link. And then we encourage everybody else to go on these two platforms so that we can have massive numbers. Joining in my clicker will be on there. You mentioned I hope he's praying Lu angle, in check. yohannes hartel is going to be leading this Prayer. He's got a big house of prayer in Germany. So those kind of leaders at a bio, you're not get a buyer who's got the largest prayer meeting, in one location in the world, one to 2 million people in one location. They meet once a month on Fridays. He's going to be leading in prayer. Again, Reverend Mohan from India, Daniel pongee, from Indonesia, one of the top leaders and the greatest pray nation on the earth today. So those kind of leaders will be joining us. That's why I can kind of say, I think we'll have those kind of numbers, because their networks will be encouraged to join it, we'll see, you know, you never know on these things course, I don't want to predict anything but but you'll be able to hear and pray with some real key international prayer leaders. Not to me, it's not about the, the personality or the big leader. What I want to see is that, you know, the twos and threes, the triplet prayers, share this for Murph of you know, in homes, those prayers count before God just as much as anybody else. And really, if we can just if the ordinary Christians would begin to pray just a little bit more the effect that would have on the earth today. Amen.
Amen, I have other questions, but I want to give you a chance to get in.
Please go ahead. What are your questions?
Okay. Thank you, Dr. Hubbard for the presentation. Just a quick question about some of the prayer gatherings that you're doing. Are they done on a consistent basis yet? Are they kind of you kind of just put word out there. And I've been doing it periodically? And also, with connecting with these other prayer leaders across time zones? are you setting the time, I've found a challenge of that a little bit with wanting to pray with other believers in other time zones of setting up anything consistently? You know, are you setting the time trying to figure out what's best for everybody on a consistent basis to the change? Or kind of how, how do you go about organizing that? Thank you.
Great, great word. First question. We, I would say the last six months, been on a pretty regular and consistent basis. Last fall, we did our first kind of big one, and it was about 13,000. And then they've been increasing since then, you know, you have to talk to some of the technical experts to find out what that really means. YouTube's a better account than Facebook, because sometimes on Facebook, you just one click, and that's a view. But that doesn't mean that they're actually watching and joining with you. But some of the stuff you can track, we try and do a good job at that. I'll point you to a man named Hauney, with his contact info after this call of somebody who's an expert that can give you some more technical training, if you're interested in that. But he's, he's our professional team that's been helping us with this. He's from Toronto, Canada. He's an Albanian and been connecting a lot of different streams together. So I would say yeah, it's been increasing. The last ones we've had this month have been almost once a week, and gaining traction in terms of more and more numbers. Praise God. Now the thing we're really praying for those protection right now. And so we're also working with a gal named Lucy and I'll send you her contact. She's one of the the experts. She's in a Silicon Valley, spiritual believer and and understand security issues, with apps and with Zoom and all the different platforms out there. And so I'll point you to her as well, if you want to get some expertise on that she put together helped put together a primary leader for the 30 days of prayer for the Muslim world, which by the way, is very critical right now, since Ramadan is kind of shut down, at least in locations. Really important time to pray for Muslims to come to Christ. Second question, in terms of time zones, we found about 3pm Jerusalem time, is pretty good to connect the world in United prayer. We This is about 5am on pacific time, 8am. Eastern, I'll also send you maybe I can send you a link to the best time converter that we use. That's just super simple. Very, very helpful when you're thinking this way. That's about 8pm in China, so that's about right you know if we can kind of catch in there now Australia brutal. So it's, it's all you can do, but that's a that's about the best we've found to get the most number of people in If we're going to do a round the world type prayer events, I don't know.
Wow. And we're thankful Jonathan Frizz has just joined us who represents the 10 days of prayer. Thank you very much for coming. Jonathan. Can you speak more to the security issues? So Internet Security is becoming a little bit of a hobby of mine. And I've been recently sort of reviewing our processes for security, even zoom with its so called encrypted calls is pretty fragile, actually. And so I'd be very interested to learn more, who is who's this, Lucy? And what resources might you have to to take things to another level concerning security?
That's a technical question. I have no idea. But I can get you her contact information. She is incredibly smart, brilliant. And understands the issues that are going on in China and the Middle East. It's increasing persecution in South Asia now as well. So yeah, let me just get you in touch with her. She's done a lot of great research, she would say that as well. Again, it depends on what you're trying to do. And the idea is how do you create safety from hackers? I mean, that's the big issue. So there's a lot of people out there with evil intent. And as all they want to do is just get on there we had a, we had one call, and it was the Philippines that a huge prayer network of young adult movement in the Philippines, got into Romo acampo, called uprising, that some big events there, but they were doing a big call, and somebody hacked in and got on there, pornography all over the screen. And so they had to just shut the whole thing off. So those things are real. And we need to really get educated here, but Lucy's our guy right now at least the one I've connected to, and started to give us some real good information. So in fact, our guy, our administrator for the International Prayer Council, we've got a Zoom call with her and her team here in a couple of weeks. And so I'd love to have you on there. Jonathan, if you want to join us,
I'd be very motivated to be there. Thanks, Jason. Yeah. Let's not linger. Other thoughts, questions, recommendations? How can we use this and we'll offer a few minutes to prayer as well as we conclude.
Yes, so Jason, I just wanted to ask, you know, as increasingly able to unite people across borders and cultures and languages around the world, for these United digital prayer events, would you identify a couple of the obstacles you think that are keeping people? What are the things? What are the obstacles that we can be intentional, try and overcome, that are keeping from some of these things from even going to the next level of scale?
Our brother from Madagascar, I think brought up that the number one issue is, you know, there's a lot of places around the world that just have no access. And they're not going to be able to jump on these calls and limited internet access or difficult to stay online. So that's a real issue. I also think I don't know how effective this is to actually reach and disciple unreached, people groups, unengaged peoples that have virtually no access to the gospel. So that's an issue. I also think in terms of evangelism, and that's how I think I want to see the gospel, go to the unreached. Not sure how effective this is. evangelism at large, I think if you look at the numbers, I would say, probably 89% of people come to Christ through relational connection with another person. And very hard to do that online. I think and so that's just the reality. When we think about the gospel. There's a challenge there. And there's there's literally millions left, that have very little access. So I don't want the world to think, oh, if we just do these big meetings, that it's going to be effective for what I would say is the most important thing on God's heart today. You know, seeing the gospel get into places like North India, vast numbers of heart languages, Bibleless people still that left to, to, you know, that we need to reach and so be careful, we still need people to go to the unreached. I'll put it that way, face to face. And so I think that's a caution maybe. I think too, it's been difficult for our older generation, the seniors to really jump on these calls. And that's just reality as well, as certainly in other nations, the majority of these calls are young adults. Because this is where they live. So that's another how do we bridge that gap? And the generations I think, is a key question to ask in the training that's going to be needed. Maybe there's simpler ways to do this. But we want the seniors, we want that older generation to be joined together with the younger generation. So lots more to say there, I think there's some thoughts. I, you know, to be honest, as a prayer leader, I, it's not my favorite way to pray online. It's very two dimensional. So it's hard sometimes to pray in agreement with somebody. Often, you know, in a, in a meeting, when you're together, you can kind of get a flow of the Holy Spirit and agreeing with one another, praying around the Word of God. And it's a little bit you know, on a digital platform, it's a little bit more, somebody praying, you can agree on this side, but they don't really hear you as well. So there's some factors there too, that I think are difficult. However, I'm all for more prayer. So Amen.
Hey, hey, Jason. Thanks for what you just shared. And I just want to say, I'm connected with a young evangelist that I've known for a number of years, who's really doing incredible outreach among the unreached using Facebook. And they've seen a real uptick in effectiveness to where their limiting factor right now is native speakers who can help with follow up and discipleship. But just anyway, just wanted to it's essentially like a traditional gospel tract type thing that they're just using with unreached people groups. So I just wanted to mention that I'm the same as you and loving the in person and valuing that. And I think we all we all do value that more. But it's been really encouraging to hear and see what this young man doing. His name is Tripp nine. He lives here in New England. So just wanted to mention that.
It's awesome. Praise God. Yeah.
Jonathan, can you share just a little bit more about your next 10 day worldwide call?
Jason and Jonathan, is that okay with you guys?
Of course.
Yes. Let's more prayers is more prayer. Let's go.
Yeah, yeah. So we're will, by the way, I just joined because Hasan Stevens is a good friend of mine. And he's like, he's telling me you guys are having this call. And I was like, man, sounds like all my friends are there, I want to go hang with these guys. So I wrapped up another call and then just hopped over. So good, great to connect in. Yeah, may 21, to 31st. We are having a 24/7 Zoom call. For 10 days leading up to Pentecost Sunday. just felt like God was really gracious to us, we usually do a spring event called a 10 day summit that we use as kind of a launching pad for our main focus in the fall during the days of all, and God just led us this year. Not to do that, but rather to do an online event that would combine teaching, and also continual prayer. So we'll have about 22 hours a day of continual prayer. We're asking leaders from all over the world to commit to one hour per day, to have a team working with them, and then they will lead prayer during that hour, much as we did last fall. And then we'll have two hours a day of teaching time where we're going to have instruction and kind of touching on different issues related to some days we'll have once again teachers from all over the world probably heavy, too many of us are probably from the US just because that's where we have more relationships, but including teachers from Israel and Uganda and the UK, other nations as well. So it'll be kind of a joint 24/7 prayer together over 10 days and then also have this element of teaching and training. We'll have about 40 different 30 minute teaching, teaching spots, and I think it's gonna be really encouraging really good. So, yeah.
We're delighted you're here, Jonathan, and delighted that we can become aware of this May 21 to May 31st 10 days of prayer, you got a link that we could get more information. You want to put that in the chat? Maybe?
Yeah, let me, let me put that in the chat
a note to you real quick, Jonathan frizz, we're going to be doing, we're covering the month of May with a prayer chain as well. And since we're already doing it, you know, I'm realizing I don't think we even occurred to us that we're covering the 10 days of prayer leading up to Pentecost, which sometimes you just kind of stumble into these things prophetically. But, but I think we could probably talk about how we can tie in efforts, since we're already already covering it at some level. Um, some that I wanted to mention, Jonathan, in terms of technology is, you know, here at the house of prayer in Atlanta, we do 24 seven worship and prayer. And we've done that for 13 years. And so during this Covid-19 crisis, we've had to figure out how do we have a 30 or 40 plus staff that are committed to prayer? And we were already streaming to some degree virtually, but how can we how can we interact in our typical staff prayer meetings, and one of the things that we've used is kind of gone between the platforms of YouTube and, and YouTube and Zoom, to kind of do a combination of, of actually allowing live interaction in the room, like some people in the room, and some people, you know, virtual. And I just think it's been intriguing to see that the how successful the hybrid version is, I think some of our global some of our international focus prayer meetings, we may even continue to do in this manner. And so whereas before, like our prayer for the nations on Wednesday mornings, where we do a purse that we have people in the room, and we have a worship team in the room, that's doing worship led prayer, um, as they do an international supreme can city, we actually now have it where people can call into the prayer meeting, and be broadcast in the room. And the singers are actually singing the prayers of our friends that are overseas in North Africa or the Middle East. And they're actually praying, you can physically hear them in the room, you can see their, their picture on people's individual devices. And so I'll just be curious to see how increasingly, just like, we kind of see that the dirt drive to church campuses driven through through the ability to use video technology to share a message, but people still like that ability to congregate in a physical place together, how there may be these, these hybrid type environments, where they're both prayer prayer occurring virtually are occurring around the world. But there's also the centralized locations where people gather, you know, and, and I just think COVID-19 is going to breed all kinds of different innovations that are going to be ongoing beyond because we're having to learn these things. And now, once we've learned them, we're going to realize, Oh, this is something we can leverage to actually make prayer prayer better. Because it's not just the people that are in Atlanta now that can participate, we can actually take this prayer meeting globally. And one of the things I'll comment on related to just the ability to broadcast is just the incredibly low cost at which we can reach people, which is pretty much unprecedented in history, you know, you you know, go back even 20 years, probably, and you would have to have a pretty major ministry, media ministry, to be able to, to leverage the the kind of reach to be able to amplify the kind of reach that can now just happen very organically, through very inexpensive means of promotion, such as email, and, and people sharing, and organically sharing and promoting posts. And so I just think those are factors in or lead to even more growth in terms of digital communication, I think, and this will be my last note. I think an obstacle, though, in that is that kind of as, as Dr. Hubbard mentioned earlier, you know, in people's inboxes, there's more emails with information than there is time to check because of the relatively low barrier of entry. Right, like, it feels like during this COVID-19 everybody is leading a prayer meeting, which is, which is great. But I think it can, it can also create difficulty in doing some of these United places where there's a concentration of force because everybody's doing their own things through, you know, and so I don't know how you, I don't know if that's even really a problem. But it seems like you can get a lot of noise, and not a lot of the substance of prayer. So I don't want to comment on that challenge, you know,
Pray for technology, apparently, the May one phone call is going to cost somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000. Pray that the funding for that one comes in. And that and that technology will work properly.
Yeah. But on that note, Merv, if we were to do this same meeting together on a platform on a big stage, similar to that would be like the world prayer assembly did in 2012 that that event cost us $3 million to this is $35,000. I mean, it's just I so agree with Hazen, I mean, the amen effectiveness of this is a man
Hazen, if you have a link to what you're doing in the IHOP Atlanta community, I'd love to be able to tour that I'd love to be able to pop in and see how that dynamic works.
Yeah, I can. I can post what I'll post that Wednesday morning prayer meeting. And you can guys see how the flow between zoom and the prayer room worked is not the best example because we don't have a full team leading worship and I'll post that YouTube link right now.
Sounds great. We're coming to the end of the hour. But if if, if people are able to stay five or so minutes, I'd love to be able to offer a few prayers just to close this out with a word of prayer. Let me start and then and then, after a couple more prayers, we can conclude turn off the recording first.