A day in the life… July 9, 2009

What does the life of an intercessory missionary look like?  It’s probably not too much different from yours other than the fact that we are daily desiring to center our life around the prayer room.

7am- Phinehas gets up.  He eats breakfast while Kyle and I slowly wake up and see how the other one is doing.

8am- Nagys are up and getting ready for the day.

9am- Kyle is off to another day in the Business Office at IHOP and Michelle is getting the baby ready to go to the prayer room.

9:30-12:30- Michelle and Phinehas in the prayer room

12:30-1pm- Nagys all have lunch together.  This is our only family meal at the moment, and it’s very important to us!

1pm- Phinehas is down for his afternoon nap

1-4pm- Michelle does “missionary housewifey things,” clean, cook, laundry, support raising, blogging,…and if it’s been a tiring week, she sneaks in a nap, too!

4:15pm- Phinehas awakens from his nap and needs a snack.  Michelle gets ready for an evening at Starbucks.

4:30pm- Michelle drops off Phinehas at Kyle’s office for a bit.  Phinehas usually looks around or gets to play a little bit with the many ladies in the office that are enamored with him.  This is often their favorite part of the day.  We are grateful for a kid-friendly office!

4:40pm- Michelle drives to work and eats dinner as she goes.

5pm- Kyle is done with work and heads home with baby for dinner.  Meanwhile, Michelle is at work and is clocking in for another evening of making lattes.

6-8pm- Kyle works on various things: cleaning the house, meeting with clients, working on bookkeeping.

8pm- Kyle heads to the prayer room with the baby.

10pm- Kyle is home from the prayer room, the baby goes down for the night and Kyle relaxes.

11pm- Michelle is home from work and she and Kyle recount the day.

12am- To bed we go; the next day is only 7 hours away!

What is the prayer room? And what goes on in there? July 1, 2009

As always, take a look at www.ihop.org for more details.

It is a challenge to explain something so unique as a 24/7 prayer room.  Before I visited the prayer room at IHOP-KC, I had a lot of questions about what it would be like.  Is it like a church worship service?  Is it like a really long prayer meeting?  Is it like a conference?  Is it like the prayer room I used to go to at college?  Well, hopefully this post will answer some of the questions that you have.

Can anybody go to the prayer room? There is always a lot going on at the IHOP–KC Missions Base, and central to everything is our 24/7 prayer room which is open to the public around the clock—day and night. The prayer room has been designed to reflect the tabernacle of David (1 Chr. 22–24), where we never cease worshiping the Lord and interceding for our world. There are twelve worship sets a day which transition every two hours, and each is guided by one of two prayer formats: intercession, and worship with the Word.

What should I be doing in the prayer room? We want you to feel comfortable, whether as a participant or an anonymous visitor. You are welcome to stay in the prayer room as long as you like. While in the prayer room, feel free to sing along with the worship teams, read your Bible, study a favorite commentary, write in your journal or just pray. You may sit, stand or even pace up and down the aisles. Whatever you do, we ask that you do it in a manner that honors and serves the other people in the room.

Wow, it seems so organized!  How do the people on stage know what to do and when? There are two basic worship and prayer formats that break up the twenty-four hour day: six two-hour intercession sets and six two-hour worship with the Word sets which are more devotional.

Intercession sets are usually energetic as the room is invited to engage in corporate prayer. These two-hour sets generally have a specific prayer focus, and individuals in the room are welcome to pray on the microphone for a corporate burden which may involve the Kansas City region or believers worldwide. There are also cycles of “rapid fire prayer” when, one by one, intercessors pray a succession of 15-second prayers on a specific theme.  There are also times of small group prayer for those who wish to participate.

Intercession sets are daily at midnight, 4AM, 6AM, 10AM, 4PM, and 8PM.

Worship with the Word is a prayer format in which we agree with God’s heart as we sing the biblical truths of who God is and what His promises are. Since these sets are more devotional in nature, the volume is brought down to make a more conducive environment for reading the Bible and entering into contemplative or devotional prayer.

Worship with the Word sets are daily at 2AM, 8AM, noon, 2PM, 6PM and 10PM.