Alarming numbers are being reported in Covid-19 hotspots like Detroit. We reached out to Lindsay Hamby and Mandy Sullivan who are on the ground in different parts of the city organizing a 24-7 prayer hotline for hospitals and neighborhood candle-lit singing in response—so that we can learn more about how to pray for Detroit as a city in the midst of this crisis.
Alarming numbers are being reported in Covid-19 hotspots like Detroit. We reached out to Lindsay Hamby and Mandy Sullivan who are on the ground in different parts of the city organizing a 24-7 prayer hotline for hospitals and neighborhood candle-lit singing in response—so that we can learn more about how to pray for Detroit as a city in the midst of this crisis.
Taken straight from our newly update ABOUT page, we wanted to share this update as a feature on the blog, giving testimony to what God has done and continues to do in our midst. ENJOY!
In 2005, the Stockbridge Boiler Room was birthed out of a prayer meeting on a front porch in the West Side of Grand Rapids. The Tendero family had been inspired to pray and listen to God’s leading after reading the book Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig, which tells the story of the 24-7 Prayer international movement that started in the Fall of 1999 and the monastic communities and missional initiatives that it catalyzed. This led them to move into a neighborhood that was uncharted territory to them at the time. Its zip code had one of the highest rates of domestic disturbances in the state—and homelessness, substance-abuse, and prostitution, among other things, were prevalent.
They began befriending their neighbors and hosting simple prayer gatherings. The first breakthrough happened when their neighbor across the street encountered Jesus---then the Spirit continued to move, and many new friends of theirs living on and off the streets became acquainted with the love of Jesus as well, and began following him.
A house across the alley was a hub for crack deals and prostitution. With their back window as a box seat view to all the action coming in and out of it, they began praying that God would move in that duplex house. Before long, the house was purchased by some friends, given to the cause, and repurposed as a community hub for prayer and hospitality! Neighbors came together to gut and renovate the home for interns and new believers off the streets alike to share life and meals together, being discipled into the ways of Jesus. The three-stall garage behind it was set aside for regular community prayer gatherings individual prayer times to refuel and recenter. This was the beginning of the Stockbridge Boiler Room.
“THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE STOCKBRIDGE BOILER ROOM.”
Before long the Love Feast, a regular midweek community meal, outgrew the yard and we began using the Polish Hall two doors down to gather the neighborhood community to celebrate Father’s Love and receive it afresh around the table together.
“OUR STORY IS A TESTAMENT TO WHAT GOD CAN DO WHEN A GROUP OF PEOPLE OPEN THEIR HEARTS TO HIM, ASK HIM TO LEAD THEM TO LOVE OTHERS, AND THEN ROLL UP THEIR SLEEVES IN RESPONSE TO HIS ANSWER.”
Over the years, this ragtag group of friends and spiritual family continued to pray and dream together about what it means to be God’s family here and experiment with all kinds of initiatives and partnerships from a bike shop kid mentoring program to basketball camps, and even partnering with churches around the city to mobilize 24-7 Prayer in the garage and in various locations around the city.
Our story is a testament to what God can do when a group of people open their hands to Him, ask Him to lead them to love others, and then roll up their sleeves in response to His answer.
“TODAY, WE ARE STEPPING INTO A NEW ERA.”
Today, we are stepping into a new era. We’ve discovered a load of friends, like-minded communities, and prayer movements in our city and the region, and have been invited to grow up into a hub of prayer and relationship for West Michigan and the Great Lakes Region. God is breathing freshly in these places and we are discovering a new grace to strengthen existing prayer movements and communities by hosting gatherings, growing friendships, offering resources, catalyzing shared prayer initiatives, and sharing stories to spark new prayer movements where there are none.
In the early days as the Stockbridge Boiler Room, we focused our efforts on loving our underserved neighborhood where there were few resources and church communities. We are excited about the surge of wonderful new church plants in the West Side and revitalization efforts in our neighborhood. We see this as an invitation from the Lord to embrace an expanded mission field in the city and region. We have been and always will be the Stockbridge Boiler Room, but we’ve found that the name of our wider 24-7 Prayer movement fits our new mission so much better in this season, so we are adopting 24-7 Prayer Grand Rapids as our new moniker for this leg of the journey. We continue to be rooted in our West Side neighborhood with the Prayer Garage and Community House as our anchored hub. No matter where you live, we invite you to join us in this mad mission to REVIVE THE CHURCH and REWIRE THE CULTURE.
PRACTICAL NOTE: Our LEGAL NAME with the government as a nonprofit REMAINS Stockbridge Boiler Room. For the purpose of writing check donations, you may still make checks out to Stockbridge Boiler Room. Beginning January 2020, we will change over our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts to the new name 24-7 Prayer Grand Rapids as well, but for the Fall we will simply change the logos of these accounts to help ease people into the name change.
To find out more about what all this means and looks like in this season, visit the Vision and Mission page.
By Tim Collier
November 20, 2018
“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” - Isaiah 54:2
“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” - John 12:24
Over the course of the life of the Stockbridge Boiler Room, these two scripture passages have been prophetically prayed over our community more times than I can count. Lord forgive me, I think I’ve even rolled my eyes a couple of times when they were prayed over us as a community because we had heard them so many times. I think because of my own stubbornness and personal belief in smaller grassroots, local community-based initiatives as well as the cumulative power in the faithfulness of a long obedience in the same direction, it took me a bit longer to recognize that God was bringing a significant transition and I/we began to pay attention to what that might be. We are excited to see that the Lord is leading the Stockbridge Boiler Room into a new season with an expanded mission spanning the Great Lakes Region and our own city with prayer and spiritual friendship continuing at the heart of it, as it has been from the start. I want to take a moment to share a bit more about how we’ve come to this point---and this includes pieces of a few different stories that are intertwined: 1) my own personal story as a primary leader of the SBR, 2) our local community’s story, and 3) the larger unfolding story of our parent organization/extended family, 24-7 Prayer USA.
Some backstory:
Two years ago, Christmas Eve day, I was trying to enjoy a low-key celebration with extended family. This phrase entered my mind out of what seemed like no-where, “Fostering Prayerful Friendship.” It continued to resonate louder and louder in my mind throughout the day and got to the point where it felt like I could strangely feel this phrase bouncing around in my body, (yes, that’s weird, I know). I took stole a moment by myself in a bedroom and just acknowledge what was happening to me with God, and surrender myself to whatever He might have for me in this. Throughout the next year, I continued to discern and surrender to what this might mean, and it led me to simply spending more time intentionally connecting with other leaders around our city to simply foster a spirit of friendship, and pray with and for one another.
That following year, our community took six weeks to wait on the Lord together with no agenda up to worship and listen to His voice. One of the primary themes that came out of this season was to “steward sacred space.” We took this at face value and began making plans to renovate and recommission the prayer garage as a permanent prayer room---a place of encounter.
Alongside these two movements in our community locally, the Lord brought us into a much more significant and strategic partnership with our parent organization 24-7 Prayer USA. I accepted an invitation to step onto the national lead team as we gained a wonderful new national director, Lisa Koons, based down in Charlotte, NC. We began a campaign to reconnect with individuals/communities around the country who are walking out the vision and values of 24-7 Prayer in their contexts but haven’t been as connected to the wider movement as in the past. Our eyes were opened to see that God IS AT WORK in incredible ways through people and prayer around the country and the Great Lakes---although there’s too much to tell to do justice to it here. We also began implementing a new structure to support the relationships and movements of God’s work, which is to begin identifying and releasing leaders in their cities as 24-7 City Coordinators.
As I (Tim) continued to get more involved in this national initiative, especially in the Great Lakes Region, this story of God’s movement on the national front has become more intertwined with the story of our local Boiler Room community. I went through a long journey of internal work during this time, asking myself some big and hard questions, paying attention to my life story, natural graces and gifts. After much soul-searching and prayerful reflection, I penned this WHY statement: My WHY is to foster communities of belonging and encounter and build bridges of relationship and thought, so that everyone will know the Father’s love. It soon became clear that the Lord was inviting me to step into a new role with 24-7 Prayer USA serving the Great Lakes Region as a regional coordinator. Later in the year, we discerned a similar shift for our local Boiler Room community to reposition ourselves as an ecumenical prayer community along these same lines of serving a broader arena for the Great Lakes states and our city. Many of our current community members have such a grace for this orientation already, and we are excited to see how the Lord will build bridges in the church through relationship and inspire and catalyze new movements of unity, prayer, mission, and justice in the church as we seek His face together. We anticipate that this will open new doors of relationship, partnership, and foster new breakthroughs in transformation as the Lord works in ways we cannot yet see in our city, region, and our nation.
PLEASE BE PRAYING with us as we walk through this transition. We trust the Spirit’s guidance and know that His wisdom is brilliant and trustworthy at every turn. We also trust the Father’s provision for everything that we will need as we step forward with Him.
So what does this mean practically for the Boiler Room in the short-term?
Resume Prayer Garage Renovation Projects: Last winter we had a fundraiser to renovate the prayer garage. After pausing this project so that we could put some clear focus on the big questions we had begun discerning with the Boiler Room Network oversight team and 24-7 Prayer USA leadership, we are now resuming the renovation project by tearing up the damaged carpet and replacing it with some beautiful and water-proof vinyl flooring. We believe this will be a great improvement. We are also, consulting with some permanent prayer room leaders around the country about practical prayer room set up to make this prayer room accessible and welcoming for people and demographics of all kinds.
Closing the current chapter of regular Love Feasts: Another thing that seems clear to us is that the season for regular Love Feast community meals specifically in our neighborhood is to come to a close. We have loved these beautiful evenings of shared meals and celebrating the Father’s Love with neighbors for the last decade, but we know that to give ourselves fully to the work God has put before us, this is one of the “kernels of wheat” that must fall to the ground in order to produce many more seeds.
Discern a new rhythm of gatherings: We have bared witness to the great transforming work the Presence of Christ does in our midst when we prioritize gathering around shared meals in His name and praying together. We want to continue to prioritize this in a new rhythm that will fit this new season. We want these gatherings to be more accessible to friends from all different churches in our city and all walks of life, so we will use some time to receive input and discern the location, frequency, and flow for the new rhythm of gatherings.
What does this mean practically for the Boiler Room as a community and non-profit ministry?
Embracing our roots anew as a monastic house-of-prayer style community: The SBR started as a monastic prayer community and hospitality house with a mission for the local neighborhood---which evolved into a missional community church plant. We’ve learned so much about being the church and God’s family through this journey and now we are sensing a lead to embrace that original identity as a monastic/house of prayer style community, stewarding sacred space in the city, fostering prayerful friendship throughout the church[es] and offering hospitality to 24-7 Prayer pilgrims from around the Great Lakes Region.
Leadership structure: We will be making adjustments to our leadership structure and stewardship teams to make sure we are set up for longterm health and continue to grow shared ownership among community members. The SBR will continue as registered 501c3 with Tim as director.
Name Change: We anticipate a name change in the very near future. Look out!
Boiler Room Network Partnership in the Great Lakes Region: One exciting thing to note about all this is that as this is all happening, the Boiler Room Network (the other wing of the 24-7 Prayer organization) is also strategically regionalizing. Milwaukee, WI is being established as an apostolic resource hub to catalyze new church-planting communities, and the strong partnering relationships that exist here between 24-7 Prayer and local Boiler Room Network leaders will bring much new opportunity for a focused renewal of the church and transformation of the culture in our region! Come, Lord Jesus!
What about the local neighborhood mission?
Remaining in the neighborhood, Partnering with local churches: While we are expanding our focus and mission to a much wider geographical area, The Prayer Garage and Community House continue to be based out of the local West Side neighborhood. The last several years have seen an explosion of beautiful new church plants in the West Side (and older churches growing in strength and mission!). Many of our community members also live and own homes on the West Side still and we know that the Lord will only continue to use us and the many new church plants and ministries targeting our West Side neighborhood to reach neighbors. Though our primary strategic efforts won’t be focused on local outreach, we trust that the Spirit’s work through our presence in the West Side and partnership with others in this season will bring about a deeper and wider impact than we’ve experienced before.
(This is Part 2 of a post from earlier this week)
Now, as I stated earlier, let me explain what I see as one of the key things that I believe Jesus wants to give to us as His church in our city in this key time of transformation.
There is an identity shift happening. I see believers, leaders, and churches beginning to think and act less like individuals on a solo mission, and more like members of an extended family with external relational reference points for discerning their path and shared vision. This identity shift might be at the crux of everything else good that is in motion, because when we truly understand the Father's Heart of adoption for ourselves, we are able to connect with an access the love that he has for others outside of ourselves. Spiritual adoption changes the way that we see ourselves and others. Like Neo at the end of The Matrix seeing everything through a code lens, we see others through the lens of Father’s love (Major faux paux with the overdone Matrix reference here. I know. Forgive me. I just did it anyway). All of a sudden, there is compassion that we didn’t have before---and joy in seeing the dreams of others coming to light and supported. Life isn’t dominated by our own pursuits, accomplishments, and comforts. It becomes a dance that we join in with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and all the rest of their big, beautiful Family---and we all just want to see the party grow! There is both a deep abounding joy that takes the stage in our shared lives, as well as an aching lament in our souls for the ways the world around us falls tragically short of the vision in God’s heart for us all. When seen through to its next healthy end, this lament leads us to transforming action on the other side.
One of the reasons I point this out as a major game-changing characteristic of what I see happening in Grand Rapids, is that the heart, or impetus, from which the motion of a movement comes from is so telling about how far it will go and what it will become. So many attempts at catalyzing movements in prayer, justice or church unity come from individuals’ attempts to accomplish or achieve. I’ve seen and been a part of so many that have started strong, but petered out after a couple of meetings. Let’s not scorn these at all because they are attempts at something that is getting at the Heart of God, but is very difficult to walk this stuff out because of our messy humanity. I think we need to be willing to try new things and fail often in order to learn our way forward humbly, one step at a time. So let's celebrate these failures---because nothing is lost in all these humble attempts at unity in our history.
"The heart, or impetus, from which the motion of a movement comes from is so telling about how far it will go and what it will become."
The interesting thing, however, is that true unity in the Church WILL NOT come about from that kind of origin because individual achievement at its core is directly opposed to the heart of what unity in the Body of Christ is about, and true unity only comes about from the the Holy Spirit's shepherding and knitting hearts together. From what I see currently, there is not a primary individual carrying this movement, but MANY who are humbly offering what they have to serve others and see something greater happen. This is very encouraging to me and I am excited to see the Holy Spirit grow and develop this.
Since we live in this reality of the Church of the city as an extended family under ONE Father---only because of Jesus’ work of salvation and adoption---and this shared understanding has made itself more prominent in our common language among leaders and individuals in the Church of Grand Rapids, I see that there is a quality of family relating that The Lord desires to impart to us. That is friendship.
“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have hear from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
Think about the fact that you are related to your mother father, sister, brother, cousins, etc.—no matter what—that’s just the reality for you. However, though you are bonded for life, what your relationship looks like with them can vary WIDELY from sharing life closely and having a deep aching affection for one another to not even being on speaking terms. The quality of our family relationships can be all over the place. However, Jesus said, I have called you FRIENDS—and He shared life with the people He said this to in such a way that was true to the statement. In His incarnation, death, and resurrection, He changed our reality by bringing us into His Father’s family. In his life on earth, He showed His disciples a quality of relationship—friendship—that reflects what family in the heart of the Holy Trinity looks like.
Think about this. For anyone who’s grown up with brothers and sisters in your life, isn’t one of the best things you can hope for to be friends with your siblings. (I might have a biased perspective here because I have five siblings and I think they are all the most amazing people.) Or what about having an amazing friendship with your mom or dad as an adult. Or the negative point, you can be married to someone with whom your friendship has completely dissolved. What a tragedy.
In the church, that is, the Church with a big C, I think Jesus wants to show us friendship between leaders, congregations, missional communities, house churches, and ministries. We are starting to really get this reality of FAMILY, let’s embrace a quality of friendship by learning how to love one another with the wild grace, joy, and power the Spirit gave to us on the day of Pentacost. We get to walk in that too! This is a long term journey, lived out with a long term perspective, and requires so much grace and patience with one another. But not giving up on one another is the key. Each season brings forward new challenges, perspective and new opportunities for connection. We need to honor one another through each and trust the Spirit is leading us forward together as we keep a vision of His Kingdom in our minds’ eyes. Making space to just be with one another and lay our hearts vulnerably before God in prayer with one another will go so far in making this a lived reality.
This weekend, on September 8 and 9, we will have a festival in our city that will be a climactic experience for so many individuals and churches who have been planning and sowing into this for years. My prayer, however, is that this wonderful evangelistic event will not be a climax with falling action to follow, but that it will be a beautiful launching point for so much more into the future through united city-wide 24-7 prayer, justice initiatives with the ONE West Michigan campaign and many others, and missional communities and initiatives to impact the city for the Kingdom long term---all sustained by the transformative bonds of an extended FAMILY of FRIENDS, the Church.
Lord, help us keep showing up in one anothers’ lives and extending new grace to one another, growing into greater maturity in each season---for your Kingdom’s sake. Amen.
Ground swell. Tipping Point. Critical Mass. Pivotal Moment. While this week marks the momentus CityFest event in Grand Rapids and we are excited to see what God will do over the weekend, these are the kinds of words that come to mind when I think about the moment we are in as a city from a wider and deeper perspective---particularly as the church of the City of Grand Rapids. Let me tell you why these words resound so strongly, and why I believe friendship is at the heart of what God is doing among us right now.
In my last post, Why This Event-based Ministry Skeptic is Getting Behind CityFest, I wrote about my journey as it relates to Cityfest West Michigan---how I went from trying to ignore it to seeing that this is more than an event, but a movement catalyst that we, as leaders and believers in the church of GR, have an opportunity to get on board with and experience real transformation together as the Kingdom of God collides with the lost and marginalized our the city in beautiful and tangible ways. It was exciting to get so much good feedback from others who’ve experienced a similar journey and are beginning to get on board as well with how they see God moving in all of it. (It might be worth it here to note that I am in no way affiliated with Cityfest as a staff or board member. I DO work with an organization called 24-7 Prayer, who’s priorities — Prayer, Mission, Justice, and Church Unity — I would say overlap with Cityfest and its affiliated City Gospel Movements significantly. This speaks to why I’m writing so enthusiastically about all of this.)
In this follow up, and on the eve of the CityFest event coming up this week, I want to take a step back and share a wider perspective of what I’ve seen God doing in our city since my history first intersected with it eight years ago as a leader in the church. In short, I’m encouraged. And I want you to be as well! What follows is a sweeping celebration based on how I’ve seen churches prioritizing the true things of God’s Kingdom, grown in ways that are not easy, and have begun to posture for long term health and a trajectory that reflects more of what we see in scriptures and less like maintaining the status quo for the sake of tradition (Not that tradition itself is bad, folks!). These observations are not based on any one church, ministry, leader, or non-profit, but themes I’ve witnessed emerge from hundreds of these through partnerships, friendships, conversations, prayer times together, and just viewing some from a distance. It probably goes without saying, but none of this is scientific either. I have not employed any sophisticated research methods from which I’m about to share, but merely my perspective of the spirit of things swirling about (or some my call trends) in comparison to what I saw almost a decade ago when I came here.
More Churches are Prioritizing Prayer in their need to encounter the person of God and intercede together for the work of the Kingdom. Many are embracing prayer in serious ways---like committing to seasons of 24-7 prayer and dedicating permanent prayer rooms in their buildings as a set-apart sacred space for encountering God.
Churches and Leaders are Prioritizing Prayerful Friendship with one another by meeting weekly or monthly with one another to simply share vulnerably and lay their hearts, pains and desires before the Lord together.
Missional Communities and Missional House Churches are being planted and are multiplying as churches are rediscovering our roots in the early church that met primarily in homes over shared meals and involved discipleship in the everyday life kind of stuff.
Place-based Ministry is becoming a focus for many churches as they realize just how much of a gift their intentional, thoughtful, and generous presence in their local neighborhoods can be.
Church-School Partnerships are popping up more and more, which is such a need for the kids in our schools to thrive. Raising a child takes a village---and overcoming the challenges of educating and growing a school full of next generation leaders requires an entire community effort.
One West Michigan is a collaborative initiative to unite churches around the city in order to make a collective impact in three major areas of local injustice: education, racial reconciliation, and affordable housing.
Collaborative Networks are being formed as more churches and nonprofit leaders are realizing their need for prioritizing unity in purpose, collaboration, and collective impact to address city-wide issues that are big enough to require more than just a handful of church partners to make a tangible dent in the problem.
A New Generation of Leaders have been/are being entrusted to carry on the work of the Kingdom and are both honoring the rich history of what’s been laid before them and courageously bringing the fullness of how God has made them to lead.
Churches are Worshiping Together in city worship nights and joints services, etc., as they are recognizing their desire to worship God in the presence of the uniqueness and diversity of Father’s family.
Racial Reconciliation is being modeled by several church leaders who are befriending, listening to, and learning from individuals of other races---and forums and shared meals are being hosted by partnerships between local seminaries and church specifically to facilitate learning about justice and racial reconciliation so that we can pursue a narrative of healing where there has been so much hurt and segregation.
‘Belonging’ and ‘Everyday Discipleship’ are words that are starting to characterize the culture and practice that more churches are striving to foster, rather than only primarily being places of proclamation and teaching. This shift can only happen when individuals and families in communities take ownership for their part, rather than leaving the work to the “ministry professionals.”
Churches are gaining new perspective and tools in missions by learning how to come alongside marginalized people groups without inadvertently hurting them by reinforcing detrimental mindsets or disempowering relational dynamics.
Let’s just pause and take that all in for a moment. Wow. Any one of these things if a big deal. And my heart wants to yell out a barrelling ‘AMEN!’ in thanks to God for the way He is shepherding his church along toward His redemptive purposes in the earth. Thank you, Jesus, for your kindness toward us in the way you’re teaching us, and give us all the more grace in the things we still need to learn.
With all of these beautiful ways we see God moving among the church in our city, I want to share something that I see as one of the keys to the Kingdom that God is imparting to us and will foster the long-term transformation we hope to see. This is something I am praying and hoping we don’t miss in this critical time together.
I’ll break this down in Part 2 of this post...to come on Tuesday :)
