Taking the church out

This is one of the most inspiring stories I've read recently!! It's an article by Sarah Smith, who leads the 24-7 Prayer clubbing Mission Team in London. I met Sarah at the international leaders gathering in London. She's lovely! I love what she says at the end:

"Let’s not just wait and expect people to walk into church!
Let’s take church out to the people."

The London Night Belongs to Jesus
by Sarah Smith

As the Christmas season approaches, I hope you all have your dancing shoes at the ready for some serious dance floor action at parties, work do’s and nights out galore. Please bear in mind though that a boogie is not just for Christmas and should be nurtured all year around.

I for one absolutely love going clubbing and I actually find a club night out the perfect setting to pray and worship. That might sound strange, especially as clubs tend to be smoky, way too loud and packed to the brim with hundreds of sweaty people trying to do their thing on the dance-floor. But I love all that, and there’s just something about the chunky, throbbing, pulsating beats that really helps me to focus and lift up prayers and praises to God. Thankfully, I am not the only one who can relate to this! I lead a team of about 10 guys and gals who have a heart for the club scene in London and once a month we go out praying and worshipping as we dance at a club in King’s Cross called The Cross.

We do this as a 24-7prayer mission team. We are from different churches across London and we started out about two and a half years ago, responding to a call from God to bring our prayers and worship into the clubs. Basically the places we would normally hang out in at the weekend anyway so not a big hardship! For most of the first year we did a club and pray tour around some of London’s biggest super-clubs such as Turnmills, Fabric and the Ministry of Sound. Since then we have mainly been focusing on The Cross (because we like it, not because of the name!), going to the same club night each month and really sowing into it – hoping to bump into familiar faces and build relationships with people. God has led us in our prayers and sometimes we have had themes for the night such as transformation, God’s love, forgiveness etc. We always pray for the resident DJ and the others DJs that perform there. And we pray for the people around us on the dance-floor.

When I tell people that we pray in clubs, they sometimes have the impression that we kneel down on the dance-floor and start speaking in tongues. We don’t do that! We just look like any other clubber, but we are communicating with God in our heads and spirits and also communicating with each other - telling each other what we think God is saying and what he might want us to be praying into. We also spend time worshipping God, worshipping with our bodies as we dance and lifting up His name to the music. Loads of our fellow clubbers have their hands up in the air for the DJs, but our arms are outstretched as we express our love for Jesus.

We get offered pills a lot and even just saying no and explaining that we’re not even drinking is a huge witness. It can be hard for some people to understand how we have so much stamina to be out dancing until the early hours of the morning without any chemical assistance and this sometimes opens up opportunities for chats about our faith. We were even able to pray with someone in the club a couple of months ago.

Of course, being in a club environment can be very distracting and it wouldn’t be for everyone. There are plenty of temptations along the way and keeping focused can be a challenge. This is why we spend plenty of time in prayer before we even get into the club. We meet to pray and worship in the 24-7prayer City of London Boiler Room before heading out. It’s so good to get up close and personal with God before getting on the mission field and this is a vital part of what we do. We also meet once a month to pray outside of the club mission night to keep the rhythm of prayer going even when we’re not dancing.

Maybe this is something you might be interested in getting involved in! Are you someone who loves clubbing and would be up for getting involved in mission in this scene? The Cross might not be your type of club, but it would be great to hear from you anyway as it would be good to see more teams go out into different clubs across London. Perhaps you are not into clubbing, but would be up for supporting us in prayer from time to time. Either way, I’d love to hear from you. Please feel free to contact me on via email.

In this holiday season, I’d love to encourage all of you to think about how you can use your hobbies, interests and places you hang out socially to glorify God and bring people closer to Jesus. For example, if you have a local pub that you go to regularly, why not start getting a bit strategic and have a pray before you go out – asking God for opportunities to speak about your faith and demonstrate His love to others.

Let’s not just wait and expect people to walk into church! Let’s take church out to the people.

Merry Christmas!

title image taken by Mike PD
thumbnail moon image taken by Petur Gauti