Pastor Jonathan Oloyede of Glory House is one of the driving forces behind a new initiative to unite Christians and churches across the denominations in prayer for London.
The Global Day of Prayer 2007 is looking to fill up West Ham Football Stadium with prayer enthusiasts passionate to transform the city of London into a God-loving and God-centred city.
Pastor Oloyede shared with Christian Today his thoughts and feelings on the drive to get Christians praying for the capital.
CT: How encouraged are you by seeing so many different denominations represented here?
JO: Very encouraged. I think it is very prophetic to see different strengths, Catholics and Anglicans, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Methodists, Baptists are coming together, the Congolese, the Africans, the Caribbeans, the Hispanics, everyone is coming together, that is what we wanted it to be about, that is what is in our hearts really.
CT: How hopeful are you that the whole of West Ham Stadium will be filled?
JO: With the mobilisation for the first of January and 24/7 prayer happening every single day throughout 2007, we believe if we can mobilise the churches to prayer, we can more than fill West Ham stadium. Initially we were going with one stand because we were taking a step of faith but everybody now is saying let’s go for the whole stadium and we believe we can do it. With different churches coming together we can mobilise everyone to West Ham.
CT: Why now? What do you want to see happen through this time of prayer?
JO: First of all, we believe that prayer is crucial to transformation and prayer often precedes revival, as they say. A lot of prayer preceded the churches coming together and the churches becoming a vehicle for transformation.
The idea is that we want to follow Scriptures by praying through things first and through that, through prayer, transformation can begin to take place.
Secondly, through united prayer churches can begin to discover each other through the different areas, different regions. The black Pentecostal churches can begin to unite with the white evangelical churches, with the Catholic churches, the Anglican churches.
When we begin to have the churches unite at the local level, the micro level, then we can begin to see the church as a medium for change.
What has happened up till now is that the churches have been working in isolation. The churches need to begin to work together in unity.
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