Kansas City Church Prays 24/7, Claims World Is in Spiritual Warfare
For many Christians, Sunday is the day set aside from the rest of the week as a time of worship, prayer and reflection. However, for twelve years, one house of worship in Kansas City has never stopped praying, and has no plans to as long as there are dark spiritual forces at work in the world.
The International House of Prayer, or IHOP as it is often called, has been worshipping non-stop since September of 1999 as part of a movement to save society from evil and corruption.
"On September 19, 1999, a prayer meeting began which continues to this day; from dawn to dusk and through the watches of the night, by the grace of God, prayer and worship have continued twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week," states the church's website.
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The statement on the website continues, "The prayer room is the heartbeat - the essence and the origin - of all that goes on at the International House of Prayer Missions Base. Scripture teaches that night and day prayer is essential to establishing justice in society (Lk. 18:1–7). We are offering Jesus unremitting adoration and taking a stand in prayer for the manifestation of God’s justice in every realm of life."
The Kansas City church, which has a full staff and band that rotate in shifts around the clock, cites biblical figures such as Anna, the "first evangelist" who prayed and fasted for over sixty years before Jesus' coming, and King David, who organized musicians and singers to worship God day and night, as inspiration for their own movement.
To date, IHOP has attracted young people from all over the world to take part in the perpetual prayer movement.
"It's probably one of the fastest-growing movements within the broad evangelicalism," Brad Christerson, a professor of sociology at Biola University who studies charismatic Christianity told the Los Angeles Times. "They're really engaging a new generation of young evangelicals."
The group sees prayer as a form of spiritual warfare, and the church's services are kept open day and night in an effort to better combat evil forces that they followers claim permeate the world today through facets such as politics and the media.
"What we do opens and shuts doors to angels and demons," founding pastor Mike Bickle told the LA Times.
