Post 12--Ottawa Prayer Warriors

Post 12—Ottawa Prayer Warriors

In the churches with the term “Reformed” in their name, like the Christian Reformed Church and others, there has been a tradition of regularly praying for those in authority.  This is not for just any authority, but specifically for governmental authority, including the government itself. Whether this tradition is still adhered to faithfully every Sunday, I doubt. 

The tradition is based especially on the New Testament passage:

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, ...(I Timothy 2:1-4).

Now the language may not exactly be ours, but the meaning is quite obvious, it seems to me. We are all to pray for those in government, for we all know that the difficulties and temptations they face are many. The media make sure we are aware of them, particularly when they succumb.    

There is the National House of Prayer (NHOP) in Ottawa that encourages Canadians to so pray. In a recent circular, the Director, Rob Parker, a Baptist, wrote about their expanding programme that I am going to share with you by quoting part of this document. He wrote,

Many people are calling this year “The Year of Open Doors” and there is indeed a sense of the Lord adding some new directions to the existing mandate of NHOP. For example:

Legislative Prayer Watch—In anticipation of connecting with each Province, we are creating a map of Canada, which will highlight all of our Provincial and Territorial Capitals and with the click of a button be able to see the top 5 Prayer Points for that province’s Legislative needs. These will be updated monthly with the goal of not only helping to benefit strategic intercession of that province or territory, but to effectively communicate this governmental prayer need to the entire nation. I’m sure we all realize that the Provincial “Door” is one that is certainly being targeted in regards to changing laws in our land. It is our hope that this initiative will be effective in raising awareness of what is legislatively taking place provincially and an effective tool for networking prayer nationally.

International NHOP – God seems to be addressing the need to begin to formulate a template of seeing the model of NHOP become duplicated in various nations. India, Burundi, Rwanda, Holland, Ukraine, Germany, England, China and some others, are all real possibilities of seeing this happen. We are now anticipating international interns to begin coming to NHOP for three months to learn first-hand the strategies that God has shown us here in Ottawa. This is exciting and there is much more I could say about this, but just a note here; last year the International Prayer Co-ordinator of Aglow spent a few days with us and she shared that she has never seen this model anywhere else in the world. Interestingly, Aglow International have recently launched a prayer focus called “Capital Cities” and we have seen the Canadian Aglow, championed by Maureen Smith, bring greater and greater awareness of NHOP’s ministry in support of the Capital Cities initiative. Praise God!

Well, there you have it, a national prayer movement for governments, including provincial, now growing into an international campaign. I know some people disparage Aglow as fundamentalist and they may well be, but Nhop is mainstream with its doors open to all kinds of Christians.

Check them out at < www.nhop.ca  > or contact them at < info@ nhop.ca >.  You will discover that they have a surprisingly wide-ranging programme that includes visiting politicians and having a presence on Canada's Capital Hill. You will be intrigued.The rest is up to you.

Have a prayerful day!