Charlotte247’s Weblog

Talked with the leader of the most prominent marketplace ministry in Charlotte. I Invited him to meet me at 24-7.  He was so well spoken & carried himself so professionally & communicated his mission so splendidly. Before too long though the Presence in the prayer room began to impact him & he simply stood gripped & in tears… unable to speak.  Our meeting eventually resumed & ended. But he returned to 24-7 just hours later.  24-7, born to instigate soul tsunamis between God & the objects of His passion. Stop in & get drenchedhere.

24-7 is closed on Sundays, but this fact fails to stop people from coming by & knocking on the door…despite the note I stick on the door saying “please Do NOT Disturb”. Sundays are the only days I can get down there & actually get some work done. Admin work. Creative work. Prayer work.  About an hour into this Sunday someone walks right in. Thought I locked the front door. A Pastor & his sister drove in from Alabama & wanted to see the place. They promptly ignored the “Go Away” signals I was sending out & solicited conversation that culminated in a request for help from 24-7 for the specific type of ministry they do down in Mobile Alabama. I agreed to take a closer look & see if we could help that visionary Pastor bring some of his justice-bent dreams to fruition. He was a man’s man type, but I watched him bend to ask for help in a very authentic & humble way. It was hard to say no. Alabama, Raleigh, Rock Hill, Athens, Haiti, Luxembourg, Birmingham, Camden. As I watch God stretch this 24-7 into the nation & internations request by request, & partnership by relationship, I sit astonished in wonder at the doors that have opened before us in just a few short months. But no door has filled me with such raw uncensored joy as the door opened to me personally by the local Renovatus. With a simple offered “yes” thrown their way, my long-pioneering sober brow gives way to laughter lines. P.S. Just called & said yes to the AA group that asked if they could meet at 24-7 nightly. When I said yes to them, their leader started an inpromtu worship set over the phone. I can see that he carries his group the way I carry 24-7 & Renovatus. So with less than enough money in the bank to cover 24-7 rent, we take another leap of faith. Only this one catches us already limber & happily stretching across the distance with a well tested God-trust untroubled by the need. A giggle ensues.

spent part of the day sitting in the hot sun with a friend of mine who is a homeless guy just outta jail. as we sit outside 24-7, people drive by & give him a dirty or suspicious look. he returns their disdain with a cold stare. i give him some water & comment that the shoes we gave him look good on his feet. he commences to talk to me about his time inside & outside.  we talked like friends do. he gives me a window into life on charlotte streets & explained how he got his black eye. the whole time he’s talking i’m distracted by glimpses into his calling. it’s a thing of beauty even though his lifestyle is presently a thing of ugliness. his hair is matted & he wears his shirt unbuttoned, but he washed before he came to hang out with me. he, an atheist, came to ask for a word from God from me… and i’ve got one. our talk in the heat of the day was one of the highlights of my day. it fits my definition of mission & meaning & quality of life. that he shares his life with me, this, this i find fulfilling. it increases my own life in some way

Tonight 24-7 is hosting  a college aged & young adult group called “Dust”.  Facilitated by Teddy & Krystle, the group’s fearless leaders, there will be live worship by Sarah Deshields, prayer, & a time of prophetic ministry by 24-7 leaders. Starts at 7:30pm. It’s gonna be…good. Dust will meet 7pm every Tuesday evening at 24-7. Put it on your calenders. It’s gonna be a wild, fun, apprenticing, crazy  Christ-forming ride!

  Where this 24-7 is taking prayer next

as we experiment with creativity in & as prayer.

Your personal code is: ab2c47
Wanna come too? 

Lose the box & make contact.

charlotte24-7@hotmail.com

We’ll call it Rhythm City Prayer.

It will be a monthly prayer vigil with a wildly urban twist

Renovatus. Surrounded by her elders & Lead Pastor & some of my 24-7 Leaders, I & my family were prayed for & prophesied over & blessed. 

After service, the 24-7 crew & the Athens crew that had driven down to hang with us all went to have lunch, & then headed over to 24-7 to talk & pray. It was a great time of community, storytelling, mission-meshing,  prophetic ministry, & input. We came away as family & servant-partners. We came away with love for that Athens crew who are about to embark on a justice-journey & Boiler Room type plant in a poor area of Athens. There were tears & hugs & goodbyes that lingered. When I finally made it home, our chef roommate made dinner for us & we ate, talked, & made mmmmmm noises throughout. Afterwords, I spent a chunk of time with just my boy & I. Playing games, hanging out at the park, playing with markers, & laughing like pals. 

Now I sit here at Starbucks writing out these thoughts, trying to decompress from the day’s events.  Tomorrow… we hit the ground running. Leaving no stone unturned in due diligence to discover & do God’s will for Renovatus & for 24-7.

Got a crew coming in from The U.K. tonight to relationship build & dig further down into the mission, vision, & values dialog as they make plans to split their time between the two nations & help lead this 24-7.   Will be a full house at 24-7 most nights this week with small groups,  urban intersect meetings, Justice Project interns, & community time with the out of towners. Looking forward to the up time & the down time. 

 P.S. Been praying for Todd like it’s going outta style, & been working the details to make sure this next push with the NLC, The Gathering, & LifePointe small groups impacts big. It’s gonna be great!  Just got confirmation that Shane Claiborne,the author of Irrisitable Revolution, is coming to 24-7 in January. Much to do to ready the Justice Project volunteers & help Carlos ready Area 15 for that.

One the 24-7 Staff members has just started a new Blog. Check it out Here

spent time this morning with a guy who tried to kill himself a few days prior. knew when i saw him that he was in trouble. listened to his stories of attempted suicide & about the people he wanted to gun down because they hurt him in some way. he was no murderer, but he was grieivng & broken. i prayed with him, but the real power was in the touch. i held him. and he held me back – tight – as if holding on for dear life.

It’s around 7am & I’m just back from 24-7 where about 40 people were waiting for me to open up the site. The entire street leading up to it was wall to wall cars & vans & cycles, as today marks the 1st day of filming. Hope all goes well as 24-7 makes her way onto the big screen as a part of a larger story of racial reconciliation & redemption. Meanwhile, I’m off to pack for a much needed vacation – just my boy & I. P.S. Odd Sunday. Wasn’t sure were to be.

 Journal entries from the 24-7Prayer week we just concluded:  Here

Really good day. Was in a room partying with a group of African-Americans this morning. Followed by time with the 24-7prayer team prepping to present 24-7prayer to a congregation on Sunday. Had a sweaty but fun time as we worked through the details & were joined by a group of Middle-Easterns who asked us to help them plant a 24-7Prayer room in Raleigh, & so graciously offered to help our team finish the 6 foot sign up sheet project we were working on when they came in. We were all sweaty & laughing, & worshipping, &  joking about whether or not the O.T. preists whose job it was to kill & cut the sacrifice during holy weeks actually felt ‘holy’ during those sweaty, physically exacerbating, & strenuous times spent covered in blood & surrounded by the smell of disemboweled animals.  The cool part of today… Jax alongside me the whole day. Eating cake. Playing with his train set. Coloring alongside the 24-7prayer team. Then just him & me grabbing dinner & coming home to hang out with pop. A good day. Will be up at dawn’s crack doing, well, ya know. Life pace will be insane next week… and then Prayer week begins.

Filled in for a staff member at 24-7 last night from 7-9. Good to hang out there knocking out work & prayer. Slow night. Just a handful of mostly 1st timers trickled in one at a time here & there. Each dived right in with God after walking sheepishly through the site & then landing each in their own perfect spot. Stayed open well past 9 to accommodate the two or three who lingered before God before heading home.   Saw one of them at 24-7 again when I stopped by today.  She was so happy to have found a place to hang out & get with God. Was also introduced to Naeem, who had settled into the most comfortable chair at 24-7 & looked like he was knocking out some sermon prep. After a brief chat, we agreed to connect & talk further about what it could look like if Mosaic, the church he Pastors, were to sign on with 24-7″s The Justice Project.

It’s around 7am & I’m just back from 24-7 where about 40 people were waiting for me to open up the site. The entire street leading up to it was wall to wall cars & vans & cycles, as today marks the 1st day of filming. Hope all goes well as 24-7 makes her way onto the big screen as a part of a larger story of racial reconciliation & redemption.

Soak

+ + +

Before God

for

One Hour

with

One Text

It’s Coming…Soak: 40 days saturating in God’s word@24-7+ each week learning & practicing intensely creative ancient & modern ways to meditate & immerse + Soak: Spiritual disciplines for people who live in the real world.

The prayer room is starting to fill up with businessmen, & real estate developers, general contractors, specialized construction workers, & people of all kinds in between that have been summoned to a meeting about urban intersection & social justice. For many it’s the first time in the prayer room. The night could be a powerful one as vision is casted & reshaped to reflect the various passions of those in the room who came to see if they can make a positive difference in the transitional neighborhood of Villa Heights where The Justice Project is serving in. No certainty meetings like this will result in real impact, but the effort is worth the possible rewards that could come from it. Already in this pre-meeting banter men & women are asking each other questions about spirituality. The environment at 24-7 pulls conversation like that out of people. Very respectfully as they wait for the mtg to begin they talk about their irreligious or religious backgrounds…  one thing they each have in common…they all speak about the peace or presence they feel in the space they are standing in. I chat with one gal who says she is not religious but feels something here she’d want to come back to experience regularly. During & after this urban intercect meeting, held in the corporate gathering space behind 24-7,  the prayer room began to fill up with a small group connecting & praying, & stray individuals stopping by to duck into the surrender booth or hang out on the couches to getting some reading done. Man, I love this place what we get to do here.

long day interviewing roommates; from an FBI agent, to college students, to a Lebanese chef, an accountant, & a texan. whew! Also spent a chunk of time working on justice stuff, working on the home-front, & swinging by the site to make sure all things were ready for the groups that will hang out there tonight. got a staff captain that just keeps impressing me with her heart. she meticulously tends to the staff calender, but more so she cares for the staff themselves. she looks after them, prays with them, cares for them. and they respond to her by happily going the second mile in staffing. i’ve never see the staff work so hard or be so happy about it. i too find myself hanging out longer at 24-7 sometimes, just to be with her. i enjoy her company just that much. check out her blog here