The Prayer Room

The main reason I am here at YWAM Honolulu is to help start our prayer room. (I do a few other jobs, but that is why I'm here.)

Our community's vision statement is this:

YWAM Honolulu is a community of Christians who are called to give their time, talents, and resources for the equipping and sending of short and long term missionaries with a passion for reaching the un-reached frontiers.

We highly value the last commandment Jesus gave in Matthew 28:19-20

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

We've been pretty successful at pursuing this goal...we have sent thousands of young people on short term trips to Asia, the Pacific Islands, and beyond. Our ministry has trained and sent people to begin new ministries in previously unreached nations. We have long term missionaries all over the globe. This is our strong suit. We've done rather well.

But for the past couple of years, the Lord has been reminding us of the supreme importance of the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-39) ...

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

And THAT is the purpose of our Prayer Room. We want to set space aside on our campus that will be used solely to love the Lord. To worship Him. No work, no emails, no facebook, no meetings, not even discipling each other. Only glorifying the Lord Jesus and being in His presence. Loving Him.

We want this Prayer Room to be a place where the Great Commandment and the Great Commission come together....where we go deeper in loving the Lord and in passion for bringing others into a love relationship with Him. And as a ministry that sends out missionaries, we want to teach these people to go with the sustaining power that can only come from intimacy with the Lord.

And its all starting to happen! Next week we will have our first corporate time of prayer and worship in our (almost-finished) renovated Prayer Room. The room is already open 24/7 for people to worship and pray as they like. But we're starting to have weekly intentional times to worship and pray together. (Like a little version of IHOP. The prayer, not the pancakes.) I am beyond excited!! This is the beginning of a big thing. I'm excited about what this will be like for me personally and for our community here at YWAM Honolulu. My expectations are high. 'Cause our God is so good! I can't wait to share with y'all all that the Lord does with our humble little room.

Here are some pictures of the room before renovations began:

And here it is mid-renovation...

Job #1: Removing that huge tree that was tearing up our foundation. And building a new deck.

Our construction crew getting ready to lay our brand new carpet.

The beautiful new carpet! We got a great deal on a remnant. I walked around the store sticking my face in all the remnants to see which one felt the best...gotta make sure your Prayer Room carpet is ready for some face-down encounters with the Holy God!

New door. New (expectantly huge) shoe rack.

(No shoes inside...that's how we roll in Hawaii.)

Pretty painted new door and frame.

I loved seeing people using the Prayer Room mid-renovation! How cool is that?

During these renovations, we've sadly discovered some structural issues. So we can't paint and make it pretty inside until they put on a new roof (no big deal right?) and replace the rotted window frame. I'll put pictures up of that as soon as it happens.

So that, my friends, is what is going on with the Prayer Room here at YWAM Honolulu.

Questions? Comments? Encouragements?

I'll take any or all of the above. :)