Birthing Revival Through Corporate Prayer | James Aladiran

you're listening to the prayer storm podcast. We pray that this teaching blesses you, challenges you and equips you, leaving you ignited for all that God has for you. Don't forget to check out James Latterin's book "Life on Fire" which is out now. You can find this and more at prayerstorm.org or you can click the link in the description below. Father, we thank you for your grace. Without you we can do absolutely nothing. You saw us through the first night. Lord, you know that even when we started the planning of this event and we ended up booking this space, we had no idea we would be where we are right now. But Lord, you knew you knew this all along and this was in your plan that we would be here at this time. So Father, thank you for the grace you've poured over each of us in this in these days we've been together in this place. And Lord, I know as a result of this gathering, this building would not remain the same. It's like we've just installed a prayer tower like a transmission in the spirit. Something has just been deposited here. That's even going to shift this part of Manchester and this region of Manchester. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Amen. This is our last session and some of you I know might just be coming here for the first this your first session. I want to encourage you to go back to on YouTube. You can watch some of the sessions, all the sessions are out there and they've all been unique and powerful and in many ways convicting, stirring, significant. And so as we come to the last session, you know, I was just asking Lord, Lord, what do you want me to to share? And I want to share a word that's commissioning and calling you to a bigger picture than yourself. There's been a lot of words that have been spoken about consecration and personal consecration and God doing a work in us and even deliverance in our bloodlines and breaking of covenants, building of altars and you know, and all these things and there's still more we need to learn and grow in. However, I believe the Lord is calling us to be part of his end time army that will prepare the way for the greatest revival the world has ever seen. The word revival can become a Bos word that's overused and I want to help you understand what I mean and what I see when I say revival. I don't mean just a nice Christian event where we experience the presence of God strongly like we have done in this place. In fact, there have been times when I've been in the front and as the atmosphere, you know what it's been like, so electric, I've thought to my Lord, this feels like an atmosphere of revival. And even though I'm thinking that I know we have unbroken through through into the revival that I dream about or that I know God wants to release over the region. Those sort of atmospheres, those sort of atmospheres on the kind of atmosphere we've been in, if we sustain that, all the period of time, it's going to become a climate and you know, some things can grow in certain climates that don't grow in other climates. So that's why it's also important we learn how to steward atmospheres right. As amazing as the atmospheres, I believe there's some things that we're yet to break into and there's still more dimensions of the glory and the presence of God that we can journey in. So when I say revival, in essence, what I'm after is the manifestation of the reality of God to the common man on the street. In such a way that they experience tangibly God beyond just your words. And one of the main manifestations is a conviction of sin. We see our porens in different parts of the world, or we hear about our porens, or read about them. One of the things that marks the type of revival I am believing for anyone that revivals I say in scripture is the conviction of sin, the fear of the Lord, the revelation of the nearness of God, such that the person who has no idea about God and is living thinking about him on the street feels the burden, feels the nearness of God and like Isaiah, it's like war is me. That war he's made dimension where yet to touch it. When we touch that was made dimension, all of us would not be seated right now. I remember a friend was saying to me a while ago that he was crying out for an encounter from God. Lord, I want to encounter you as it was one of the days when he was praying. He said, it felt God showed up in his room in a way he'd never number four. He said he was so scared to hit in the wardrobe. So the dimensions of God we know, but the dimensions that we are unfamiliar with, that when those dimensions break in, we would be hiding, but I want those dimensions. The one that makes me hide and go always me. I want that because when that breaks in, you don't have to do much. The glory does, he does it. He does it. He convicts hearts. Masses of people start to turn to God. And what I want to talk about is some of the strategies in scripture that build to those sort of outpourings and how that's relevant for each of us as we leave this place and go to various places. And by the way, in case you didn't realize, we have a minister's conference on Saturday. So if you're still around, you can come to that. The details are on the website. Acts 1. I'm going to be reading from Acts 1. Acts 1.4. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, "You have heard from me for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Okay, so let's just back up again. Verse 4. "Being assembled together, he commanded them." He didn't suggest to them. He gave them a specific instruction. You know, we've been talking about consecrations. The times where God gives you a specific instruction, and that instruction becomes the like the boundaries of your consecration. It's not a suggestion. This is a command. Do you know a God that can command you? Or are you only familiar with the God that is suggesting things to you and you have a choice of whether you do it or not? You know, I don't feel like it today. He understands, and you move on. Because the war was a stake, Jesus gave them the command, and they obeyed his command. And his command was interesting. It's said to them to not depart from Jerusalem, but to wait. Everyone say wait. If I said to you, Jesus said, "Don't depart Manchester, but wait." Your interpretation of that weight, as it would be me, and most people is, maybe you just rent a room and just wait for him. Just sit around and wait. But it's clear that when Jesus said wait, the disciples understood this a lot deeper than many of us. He said, "Don't depart, but wait." Now, when he said wait, they understood that to mean pray. Even though the text doesn't say he said pray, he said what? Okay. So when you wait, waiting is not a sign of, waiting does not mean an activity. Waiting is an active posture of the heart, in seeking the Lord. You can be praying in tongues, and internally you're waiting, because you're searching, you are actively seeing what he would say to you. Mike had told about watching. So waiting is not just waiting in silence. Now there's also a dimension of waiting that involves silence. And that is also a part of prayer that needs to be explored more. Prayer has different dimensions to it. There was a season in my prayer life where I practiced waiting in silence for hours. And I want to encourage you to experiment in your prayer life. Don't just adopt a type of prayer and just go with that always all the time. Every now and again just ask yourself questions. What would it be like if I sat in silence for three days in the presence of God? Well most of this did it for six days. Just silence and just wait in silence. Have you ever done that before? Well, Maso tried. What would happen to me if I prayed in tongues for 12 hours a day for seven days? Have you ever tried that before? Try it. These are what I mean. I said just try it. And on top of that, in my prayer life I have experimented with different expressions of prayer to find the expression that naturally suits my personality type. Because one of the things you need to understand in prayer is God has made each of us unique and each of us different. The way I pray is not necessarily the way you should pray. Now you may be inspired by the way I pray, but you need to understand that the relationship it has with each of us is actually unique just as all our faces are different. Even in scripture, you read about his relationship with Elijah. It's very different to how he related to Abraham. Read how Abraham prayed. It's very different to how, let me think of someone else, it's very different to how David prayed. Read out David prayed and his relationship with God. It's quite different to Ezekiel's relationship with God. But somehow in the body of Christ, we're born into this mindset that we all have to look the same. In fact, it's got to put when people are sounding the same in tongues. I believe God wants to give you unique prayer language, different. So there's a uniqueness to your relationship of God. And so as you journey with God, you start to realize how he's fashioned you and the things that stir your spirit, the things that help you to ascend when you pray. You could wake up in the morning and a song stirs you. And you're stirred by that song, but the person next to you who's also seeking God, you play the same song, they're not stirred. Because that song came from heaven as a transport for you, to transport you into a realm. So the more you sing it, the more you ascend. They may sing in a nothing happens. But when you sing it, because it came from the spirit, you start to ascend. I'm trying to say there are unique ways in which the Lord relates with each of us. And the interesting thing about that song is on Monday, that song could be helping you ascend. On Wednesday, it's not. Because there is another handle you need to find. Like Lord, how am I going to ascend today? What are you with me? So this prayer journey, it's really listening and leaning into the Holy Spirit and being sensitive to how it leads us. And so Jesus commanded His samples to wait. Their waiting was not just staying there doing nothing. They were actively praying and seeking Him. But the way they saw the Lord became a template, the I believe is a template for a move of God. If we are going to leave this place and be channels of the move of God in the territories He's sending us to. One thing you need to know is they were not praying in isolation. So they were with Jesus for three and a half years. They saw Jesus pray. He was teaching them to pray. But when they needed them to pray in the garden, they were sleeping. However, after His resurrection, all those lessons and all the discipleship that Jesus had downloaded to them started to work itself out in their lives. So we can see that they caught something about prayer. So they start to pray not in isolation but in community, together with other people. There's something I want to state. Corporate prayer is critical for the advancing of the purposes of God in any territory. Corporate prayer cannot be ignored for the advancing of the purposes of God in any territory. And when you start to desire a move of God in a territory, it's important that you begin to have a revelation of praying with other people. As important as corporate prayer is, it can never replace private prayer. And as important as private prayer is, it can never replace corporate prayer. You can't use the corporate prayer meeting to replace your private prayer time. And you can't say because you're having your private prayer time, you don't need a corporate prayer meeting. Because what was about to happen here was Jesus was about to release the expression of the church he spoke about in the book of Matthew. When he said, I will build my ecclesia. He was about to birth the ecclesia. And notice when Jesus said that in Matthew that I will build my ecclesia, he said that in a futuristic tense, I will build it. The people he was going to use to build it were in front of him. It didn't say I am building it. What did he say? I will build my church. So what was about to happen in their obedience to God and their waiting was the building was about to be established. And the way he was going to establish the building was with this corporate prayer. So the church got together and they started to pray regularly. They started to pray daily. We don't know how many hours is there. Obviously, they were staying together and praying for extended periods of time. They kept doing this regularly. And probably for about 10 days, we come to the book of Acts, Acts, Acts chapter 2, when the explosion happened. One of the things I've realized in the Western churches, I don't think we have a revelation of the power of corporate prayer. Because many of our churches, the least attended meeting the church puts on is, I believe a preacher said this a while ago, you go to church on a Sunday morning, you find out popular the churches. On Sunday evening, how popular the preacher is. On a prayer meeting day, you find out how popular God is. In our Western churches, a church of a thousand people, sometimes may have less than 50 people in a prayer meeting. That tells us where people see the value of prayer in the church. I was in Syria some years ago, not Syria, Lebanon, close to Syria. And during the Aleppo crisis, there was a lot of refugees coming out of Syria going into Lebanon. And we're speaking to some pastors in Lebanon. And the pastors were saying to us that the prayer meetings, the churches were put on, were more well responded to than the church services. Why do you think that's the case? Because there was crisis. Isn't it funny how we start to pray intensely when 9/11 hits? Isn't it funny how we start to pray intensely when there's a terror attack on this crisis? So the church at large in the west, we talk about enriched people groups. People who have not heard the gospel and how we need to reach these people with a gospel. We need to pray for, you know, you know, I know if you're still saying the 10/40 window in the certain place is where the gospels have never been preached. I want to announce to you that the body of Christ at large is an enriched people group in the area of corporate prayer. And even the places that tend to have corporate prayer. Sometimes the prayer meetings are put on. And people show up, but the leaders are not used to leading prayer meetings. So we say we're going to pray for an hour, but the preacher or the leader preaches for 45 minutes. And then we sing for five minutes, maybe seven minutes. And then the last few minutes we pray, win, push, friends. That move nothing. Do you know why we've done that? And by the way, that is not a prayer meeting. You just had a service. That's not prayer meeting. You spoke for 45 minutes. No, it's not prayer meeting. Do you know why we do that? It's because we are using our gift in to cover up our bankruptcy, our spiritual deficiencies. Because one of the things that prayer meetings do is they expose you and they show you where you really are at spiritually. And because many leaders don't want to face the poverty of their spirit, they reach for their gift. If it's singing, they sing for 45 minutes. And they pray for five minutes. Winpish ones. If it's preaching, they preach for 45 minutes, trying to share a thought. And then the next five minutes is Winpish prayers that move nothing. We have not prayed. So the body has gathered. The corporate body has gathered. But we have no maximizing the anointing. There is such a thing as a corporate anointing. When we are contending for moves of God in territories, it's not one person's anointing that's going to do it. It's a coming together of anointing. That's why we're called the body of Christ, not the body of Jesus. Jesus has a body right now that's supernatural in heaven. But we collectively are called the body of Christ. What's Christ? They are anointed one. So in an innocence, the fullness of their anointing manifested in the Christ is seen when the body comes together. The body expresses a dimension of that anointing that no one individual can. And one of the ways in which we unleash that anointing is in the place of corporate prayer. But we often don't want to pray together. We feel insecure. Oftentimes the corporate prayer meetings are struggling because the private prayer place is nonexistent. One of the reasons why we've had breakthrough in this meeting from the first night is because many of you paid a price to come to this country. So there's sacrifice involved in your coming here. So you're not going to put that kind of sacrifice on the table and come here and not have hunger. So when we worship here, how many of you are attached to the breakthrough in the atmosphere? Now as a team, we were doing faster than prayer before this meeting. To be more precise, for seven days, we're faster than praying prepping for this meeting. So we had been prepping ourselves, but God had also been preparing you to come. So you came with your hunger. We came with our fire and our hunger. You brought your fire in your hunger. You brought your fire. And when we came together, guess what happened? Explosion. So you have contributed to the atmosphere and the breakthrough. We've all contributed. But the problem in corporate prayer settings in most places is it might be only one person that comes with that fire. This one comes distracted and bored. This one comes angry and frustrated. This one comes jealous and envy. This one comes wounded and offended. And we come together and we want to pray. And so even the one that's on fire, as they start praying, it's like the others put a wet blanket enough. And whatever God intended to release in that setting, it's kind of quenched because believers did not have an understanding of their corporate responsibility. If I were to come to your prayer meeting that you were putting on and I step into your prayer room and I'm just a guest, it doesn't matter, you know, your James, forget about that. If I come to a prayer meeting and you're leading, I will submit to your leadership. And when I step into that room, I will carry weight, not because you're giving them the microphone, but because I am going to engage with whatever prayer directive you the leader are calling. You know, God is a God of order. If I step into your prayer meeting and you're the one that's leading that under the leadership of your pastor or your leader, and I come back, as soon as I step in, I am under your leadership. So if you're like, right now we're praying for the youth of this region, I am joining my prayer with you and we're contending. I'm not going to be like, oh, you know what, you know, I know how to do this better or I have this vision. I don't function now because God is a God of order. So when I step into that prayer meeting, I bring my supply, my fire, and you don't even have to call me up to pray. My presence in that place is going to make you feel supported. You're going to look at me and the expression of my face will give you encouragement. Do you know some of you, knowing this room, thankfully, what some of you in churches are very difficult to preach to? Because when the preacher is preaching, they look at your face and every ounce of faith is sucked out of them. Your face looks bored. And then after the preacher comes to the preacher, oh, man, God, that was so powerful. I was so stirred. Well, if you were so stirred, why didn't you update your face about it? Because when I was preaching, looking at your face, you looked disconnected, bored. You are yearning. That communicates to me that you're not with me. Your body language speaks. So when I come into your prayer meeting and you're the one leading, my body language would show you that I am with you. And then it draws out the leadership of knowing ten more in you. So I don't have to have a microphone to contribute to the impact of your prayer meeting. The same way you don't have to have a microphone to contribute to the impact of the prayer meeting in your local church. Just step in there and know that you are carrying an atmosphere and just pray in the background. There might be 200 people in the room and you might feel like the prayer meeting is not going in the direction it needs to go. You just pray. And don't pray, Georgia prayers. I think it was Matt that said, don't become the accuser. Don't do the devil's job for him because you have access to the throne of God. You will now become in a mouthpiece for the devil at the throne. No, bless them. Pray the spirit of revelation over them. Pray for a move of God. And if you're not sure about what's going on, just talk to God after the meeting about it. Lord, I don't know what's going on, but right here I'm just going to add my weight to what you are doing. The prayer meetings are critical for the advancing of the people of God in the earth. And I'm convinced the church has not got this revelation because the way we have prayer meetings is clear. We don't think it's that important. Churches hire worship leaders. They pay worship leaders because they believe the worship is important. But how many churches hire prayer leaders? How many churches hire prayer leaders whose remit, just like the worship leader, is to help aid the church in effective prayer. And by the way, the fact that you like to pray does not make you a prayer leader because you've all been in prayer meetings where someone starts to pray. And they do have an intercessory heart. But the more the pray out loud, the more the momentum in the room knows dives. And the more people are disconnected. And it seems that they're just having their own private prayer time with God. And we're all just listening in and saying it. Are you with me? That is not the posture of a prayer leader. When the worship leader sings a song, because they're first and foremost a worship leader, as they sing from the out of worship, it activates a leadership anointing on them. And the manifestation is it stirs us all to worship. The worship leader is on the stage to do your worship for you. So the fact that I like to pray does not mean I should be doing your prayer for you. So there's a leadership dimension to pray, which means there are certain people that carry a grace to lead. Now they were first and foremost people that like to pray. And then you know they have a grace to lead in that when they start to pray, you You will notice the faith level in the room increases. will notice, without them trying, they have a mobilization capacity in their voice. So when they pray, bones rattle. Like Ezekiel, great leaders are able to articulate what already exists in the heart of the masses as groans. Great leaders are able, even the negative great leaders like Hitler. He was able to articulate what was existing in the hearts of many people. He put words to it. So when he spoke it, the people started to argue with me. In the same way, their things God wants to do, he puts an inkling different people's hearts. And then ask a leader, a prayer leader, when you receive the transmission from heaven and then you begin to pray it. The bones begin to rattle and the army begins to be mobilized and the faith level is built. And that is an army ready to advance. The church has little to no revelation of prayer leadership. But we have worship leaders and worship leader celebrities. And people have built their whole life around it as a thing. And many times, no, many times, sometimes that disconnected from God, but I've just got into the art of just doing the songs based on the gifting. And with prayer leading, you can't fake it. With worship leading, I'm sorry, you can fake it. And many people will never know you don't have it because they're falling in love with your good voice. We've prayer leading if you're disconnected from the Holy Ghost. If you've not been having a prayer life, from the moment you start to pray, we can we can sense it in your voice. Sometimes when I'm praying, my son, justice, I say to just justice, I can tell from your tongues, you're not with me. No, I can tell. I can tell from your tongues that you're elsewhere, you're not here. And then the other times, I'm like, yeah, I feel they're not saying he's here. I said, no, Holy Ghost is here. No, justice is here. I can feel the connectedness. So it's not about saying the right words, copying prayers from people and saying the exact same words. You can say the exact same words and nothing shifts because it's not about the words. It's where are you saying it from? Where are you located in the spirit? So as we're having these meetings here in Manchester and you're going to be going back to your different nations, I'm wanting you to understand that without effective corporate prayer, we will not shift things in our regions. Some people are just having prayer meetings for the sake of it, but they're not having the impact. And it's just religious, it's just going through the motions. It has no really caught onto the wavelengths, into the, that kind of, the emphasis of heaven. Many churches, their prayer meetings are sent around needs. And obviously the Bible says which make our request known. But what announced to you church? The kinds of prayer that birth revival are not needs driven prayers. Where you show up in the prayer meeting, we need to pray for anti-so-and-so, she broke her toe, we need to pray for uncle so-and-so, you know, he's lost his ear in, we need to pray for anti-so-and-so, she had a cold last week, so she didn't come to church. We need to pray for so-and-so, all she's upset because we changed the church carpet colors. And now, you know, she doesn't want to come, let's pray that God. And so we go through the whole prayer list and then our prayer meetings over. You will not advance the church in that way. Because how you advance the church in prayer is, you are sent in prayer to log into the mind of God first. Through prayer, you access what he wants. What is his plan for that congregation? And what is his plan for that region? And as you access that, because you've received insight into what his will is, now you have authority to pray to intervene in that region. Those sorts of prayers is what shakes the gates of hell and breaks the bondage in regions and advances the kingdom of God. And it's those sorts of prayers that we're scared of. And sometimes, to get into those kind of places and pray, you have to have a little mileage. He often doesn't happen in five minutes and, you know, yes, we can access some realms of God, but in terms of the prayers that would release revival, there are prayers that you have to invest for extended periods of time. The apostles, as we read about in Acts, they were together for many days, many days, maybe 10 days. Have you imagined meeting with 120 people every day for 12 hours? And all you're doing is your seeking God. In fact, you know, when they started that prayer meeting, they didn't know how long they were going to do it for. So their prayer meeting had a start time and no end time. Your prayer meeting has a start and end time. There's had start, but they did. So they would have stayed there for 50 days because the commandment was what? So they were going to wait until. See, that is the revival prayer dimension. Where you set your face to pray in a certain posture until. You don't know when that until is. It's like a grit. It's like a inner kind of 40, a kind of conviction, a staying power to keep pressing in and going after God. So I believe the Lord wants to restore the revelation of the corporate prayer place. When you live this space, I want you to go back to your church and honor your leader. Did you hear me? Because many of us intercessory prophetic people are sometimes the trouble causes in church. Am I lying? Oh, you know, I've just been depressed. They pray so fervently, but pastor, your prayer meeting has a rubbish. Don't put me in trouble with your pastor. You go to that church because you've been stirred and fight. He said, Lord, how can I serve the vision in this church? How can I serve this leader with this passion you placed in me? And if you begin to serve rightly and how God positions you, he's going to cause you to rise and influence to that leader to place where your voice carries more weight. Not because you push for it, but because he recognizes your voice. So now he's calling on you to do things. Because your heart already speaks for itself. You're not trying to build a ministry. You're not trying to steal people to yourself. You're not trying to prove your prophetic. You're not going to prove, you're just one God and your heart is pure. And you've got rid of all the baggage of all the church hurts and all the, are you with me? All the wounds. Sometimes there's all those wounds that the enemy kind of uses to kind of, you know, cause us to become weapons against each other because of on dealt with wounds and issues. When you leave this place, you're going to be going back to a context that may look very different to this. But that doesn't mean God doesn't want to move in a powerful way in that context. You start with first your personal prayer altar, your covenant, your connection with God, and then you connect yourself with a community of people that pray. In fact, back in the early days when we started praying, we always said that when people left, we said, go home and start a prayer meeting on a personal level your own time of God. But no, not just that, you connect yourself with other people that pray. That is your homework from this gathering. Go home and join a prayer army. Go home and connect yourself to people that pray. Oh James, I don't know who prays. I was going to lead you to people that pray. I guarantee you that people in your city that pray. Lord, where are they? In your church. There's no prayer meeting happening in church. Go to your pastor. Hey pastor, you know, what is the vision? The Lord is pretty hard. You hear the vision. And you're like, this is what the Lord has called us to do here. You say, I really feel we need to begin a praying to that vision. We don't have any regular prayer meetings. What do you think about if we came an hour before service to just pray? Puzzles like, that sounds like great idea. Or you might be like, okay, well, that doesn't work. Well, how about we do maybe another day of the week? And he's like, I'm not sure. He says, well, what do you think will work? Because I really believe we need to get praying more. What do you think will work? I don't know of a pastor that would be looking at someone like that with a servant and saying, get away from me. If that's what they're saying, then you need to get away from that church. 'cause. Pastor, how can we get bread going strong in the church? You join yourself even if it's only two people showing up, you give it everything in you. You're containing, you're asking the Lord, you're seeking the Lord after all the Bible says we're two or three. So it doesn't have to be fifty. You can start with two and then it can build a momentum. But listen to this, the church in the book of Acts and Acts 2, it says Acts 2.1, "When the day of Pentecost that fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and suddenly that came to sound from heaven as of a mighty Russian wind and filled the whole house." And you know the story, you know the rest of the verses, this is a very famous verses. The spirit of cannot put them like tongues of fire and then they began to speak in new languages. And all these incredible things happen and then 3,000 people get saved. And this is how the church, the church, the ecclesia, this is how the ecclesia is born. Now listen carefully to me, Jesus started the church how He wants it. Now He wants the church how He started it. The church started in a corporate prayer meeting, the church did not start with Peter preaching. Yes, 3,000 God saved but the church was initiated and was born through the unity and the consistency of that corporate prayer. Now the Lord is warning the church to go back to that reality. So you understand why when Jesus says my house will be called the house of prayer, that church was a house of prayer. It wasn't a house of preaching, it wasn't a house of prophecy, it wasn't a house of deliverance. I'm not saying those things were not factored in but it primary identity was it was known as a house of prayer, is your church known as a house of prayer or is there a house of entertainment, one and a half hours and we're out. Until next service, wait for the nice sermon. What is the DNA of your church and as that DNA aligned with the DNA in the heart of God? Because as far as Jesus is concerned, the church He recognizes is the church that carries His emphasis, His emphasis is my house, my church will be called. So if it will be called, it's not the people in the church that are calling it that. All the people are looking at them and calling them something. By observation they can see that these guys are a house of prayer and let me qualify because the lovers that have African heritage, I love African's prayer, pray a lot. Because I sent you to Ghanaians when I was in Ghana a few months ago, I said, I'm seeing a lot of prayer going on here, but I am not seeing the impact of your prayer. Because their prostitutes outside the church and they've been there for a very long time. But before I moved from the church to the hotel, I've probably seen a hundred churches everywhere and you're all praying for them, praying for them. So what is going on? It's not that prayer is not powerful, it's that the priest offering the prayer has been corrupted. And now their energy in prayer is moved towards gaining something from God for themselves. Give me my husband or I die. Give me my breakthrough or I'm finished. Lord, you know my body clock is ticking. If you don't give me a husband by this time next year, I'm done with you Lord. Lord, don't pull me to shame. Lord, my family, they're laughing at me. Lord, don't pull me to shame and I'm going to say, Amen. Lord, make me a multi-millionaire, Amen. Your family will come and serve you, Amen. You'll receive the riches of the Gentiles and your house will be full with money, Amen. All right, let's pray for the nation. Lord, you know how they are in this nation, save them if you want to, Amen. A few moments before that, pray for breakthrough, my breakthrough, give it to me now or I die. Oh, the devil, get out of my house, give me back my money. Let's pray for the love shows. Lord, you know what these people are like. The other day at the shop, you know, there was just so rude to me. These people from other religions, they're just horrible people. Lord, save them if you want to or make sure you bless me a lot. Do you say, did you say what's happening here? Our energy is inward directed. Our force, and by the way, the African Church is a force to be reckoned with. Our force has been corrupted because the enemy knows our potential. I'm not saying it's wrong to praise. I mean, you've been here. We've been here. We've pressed some warfare prayers here. Over families and bloodlines. I'm not against that. But why is it that you can pray so firmly about that and you don't have the same purpose even more for the gender of God, for your territory? It means your desire is a misplaced. So you're not a house of prayer for all nations because in Isaiah 56, 7, it says, my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, you know what I call it? That qualifies the church as an intercessory force that's outward looking. But a lot of the churches, even the ones today with firm prayer, let's examine the content of the prayer. It's often very inward looking. And I wrap up with this. If I'm not mistaken, it was in the 1940s, 1949. There was a move of God right here in the United Kingdom. The Hebrides Revival. One of my favorite revivals. It was sparked by two old ladies. One of them was blind and the other was blame. One was 84 and the other was 82. The God decided to fight with the state of their community and the young people and how you know, people were living back, slitting and Godless lives. So they decided to come into a covenant to pray. To pray in a certain way until they saw something shift. And so they decided to pray two times a week. Their prayer focus was for God to move in their community. So they prayed from 10 p.m. to 3 or 4 a.m. every Tuesday and every Friday. And they did that for many weeks and nothing happened. And then their leaders, local leaders heard about what they were doing. And so the local leaders, the church, you know, leaders were stirred to also start a prayer meeting. And they encouraged them to pray at the same time, by a different location. So while Peggy and Christine were praying together from 10 p.m. to 3 or 4 a.m., the pastors were also meeting to pray. See, when we talk about city transformation and impact in regions, one church can't do it. As anointed as your man of God is, one man of God can't do it. Because it's a collective effort of the body coming together. So when you have several churches represented in a place, and there is a good foundation of relationship, and they have a similar mind in terms of the move of God, you have a great starting point to contend effectively for that region. Because you have the gatekeepers of the region in agreement, are you with me? So oftentimes the regions you find that churches are disconnected from each other, this one doing their thing, this one doing their thing, they might talk, but there's not a real heart connection, by the way, unity is not uniformity. And unity is on the fact that we are both in the same meeting and said, amen, or came to the same Christian event, unity is that my heart is okay with yours, and we are harmony, not competition. So it's a heart reality. So when you have this pastor, that pastor, that pastor, and they're all in the same region, and they all have the heart of unity, and they all have the same vision, you already have a strong foundation to take that territory. Because when those come together and begin to pray, there is an authority they already have by virtue of their office and their position. But when they come together, it's like they join forces, multiplies their impact and the spirit. Because of their spiritual position in that territory, are you with me? So the leaders started to pray between 10 and 4. On Tuesdays and Fridays. And this prayer meeting's carried on for a while. I don't know how long several months it took a while. And then one prayer meeting with the leaders, I believe it was a young person or one of the leaders there, was reading Psalm 24. Who may ascend the heel of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy temple? Who has clean hands and a pure heart? As he started to read this, all of a sudden shifted his heart, and he started to cry out to God. Lord, are these hands clean? Lord, is this heart pure? And as he prayed that prayer, it was said that the Holy Spirit hit him, and it was slain, it was just knocked out in the spirit. And the presence of God hits the whole place. And the presence of God starts to permeate through the whole territory. And one of the signs of the presence was the conviction of sin. Do you realize what ended up happening in one of those days? Of about 300 people walk up in the middle of the night. No preacher, no one announced the meeting. They all walk up, weep him. Feeling the weight of their sin. And do you know where they went to? Because they didn't know where else to go. The police station. Outside the police station in the middle of the night, a cylinder clock, you have about 300 people weeping because they can feel the conviction of sin. And the police had to call Duncan Campbell, the revivalist. Are you hearing this? This happened in the United Kingdom. Masses of people repenting on the streets. And the crazy hours of money. People will be on the street corners and random places. Holding themselves weeping and groaning. Sometimes saying some crazy things about how hell is too good for them. These are stories of revivals. Because in those moments they feel the weight of their sin and they realize their need for God. The church was not trying to be an entertainment center in that time. And all that was sparked by two women and then some leaders who understand the power of corporate prayer. In fact, they had no experience and they moved of God until that one. Just like some of you are hearing this and thinking, "Well, I have no real experience of moving of God." Well, how about you go back to your church? You go back to your nation and say, "Lord, join me with people." That would connect with this vision. Join me with people that will connect with this burden of intercessory prayer. It's not just me who are the other warriors you're raising up in this territory. So I really do believe at this time the Lord is wanting us to not just get excited and prayer for ourselves, but to begin to think of His agenda for our cities, our nations, our communities. And there is no way we're going to see a shift in those regions without consistent intercessory prayer. Some people have come to ask me about covenant praying. I say, "You can meet to pray with someone. You don't have to call a covenant praying." Because the moment you call it that, you need to make sure you understand what you're saying. The fact that you meet to pray on Zoom at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. doesn't necessarily mean it's covenant praying. Because in my understanding of covenant, if you're going to have a covenant, there has to be an agreement on the sacrifices that are going to be going on that altar. And the sacrifice is more than just the time you're praying. What else are you offering that communicates the fact that you're locked in in a deep sacrificial level to what God is calling for that region? For this, ladies, it was lack of sleep. Twice a week, they won't sleep, but pray for extended periods of time and they were committed to it. They were committed to seeking the Lord. I believe as we finish this conference, the Lord is warning us to commit ourselves to this life of seeking Him until He comes. There is no other way. We need a move of God. Do you understand with me? We hope you enjoyed this prayers being podcasted. For more content, find us on Instagram, @creston, all one word, and one YouTube Creston TV.