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Australia Prays, held on 22 August 2021, was an historic milestone in Australia’s spiritual history. What is even more miraculous is that this unprecedented prayer event came together within 18 days.

It was the biggest and broadest call to prayer for the Church in Australia ever! The day itself proved to be an astonishing display of Christian unity and humility that was “exceedingly above all we could ask or think.”

Watch the full day here — starts at 7:20 seconds:

 

God always meets our heart and hears our humility more than our perfect prayers. As the Scriptures say,

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

Our theme prayer was: “Lord have mercy, Jesus have mercy.”

We recorded over 30 videos from Christian leaders to support and promote the day, including leading Archbishops and Bishops and key Christian leaders.

These videos on their own are a beautiful testament to the “astonishing display of Christian unity and humility.” Watch the 30 videos here.

We ended up with support and involvement from three Catholic archbishops and four Catholic Bishops, plus one Anglican archbishop and three Anglican bishops.

Several denominational heads, like the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, Rev Peter Barnes, Ps Phil Pringle, head of C3, and Ps Wayne Alcorn, President of Australian Christian Churches, gave their support. Many more could be listed, including different ethnic churches and multiple prayer networks. Soli Deo Gloria!

Not only that, but there was wonderful representation from civic leaders, where Labor Parliamentarians outnumbered Coalition Members for a change. These included the Leader and the Deputy Leader of the Labor Party.

One could cynically say that the Labor Party are trying to curry favour with their much-neglected Christian constituency. Another explanation is that this once strongly Christian Party is coming back to its Christian roots, which is a welcome sign for one and all.

Watch the invitation below from the head of the Catholic Church in Australia for Australia Prays.

 

Truly, the Australia Prays Day of Prayer for the Pandemic was astounding and a very historic event, but in the most wonderful way! Soli Deo Gloria.

I have never seen anything quite like it in my 5 decades of following God. The closest thing to it was the “National Gathering” around new Parliament House to open it in prayer in 1988 with 50,000 Christians.

While yesterday’s event did not exceed that in physical numbers. (We could be wrong?) The sweet spirit of humility that pervaded the interactive Zoom part of event, the leaders and those attending was extraordinary. It could only be Gods doing. Soli Deo Gloria!

Sundays live zoom numbers peaked at about 850 on Sunday night. (We believe there were somewhere between 2,000 — 4,000 viewers throughout the day.)

YouTube views are sitting at 4,733 views, which no doubt will go up. The promotional Facebook, Australian Christian TV and radio campaign in itself would have reached over a quarter of a million people.

We believe that up to a million people could have taken part across Australia in one way or another in Australia Prays on Sunday 22 August 2021. This in itself is a momentous achievement. Soli Deo Gloria!

The Australia Prays event could not have happened without last year’s two-day historic National Solemn Assembly led by Indigenous Christians.

Again, on Sunday, our indigenous brothers and sisters stood out like bright shining stars, radiating the goodness and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ amongst us all.

Nor could it have happened without the ten years of prayer led by the National Day of Prayer & Fasting team.

Furthermore, none of this could have happened without the wonderful work of prayer pioneers like Brian Pickering and Jenny Hagger over the last three decades, and Noel Bell in the eighties.

We are always the result of someone else’s prayer. We are always standing on someone else’s shoulders!

We will never know who prayed for us to get us to the point we are today. This is true for us all.

Prayer warrior Annie Cathcart had this to say about the Australia Prays event:

“I was so touched by the prayers and unity in the Australia Prays Prayer Zoom, and I thank God for that; but as we all know there has been many years of prayers behind yesterday’s success. God is faithful and His power is unleashed — when God’s people pray.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson was right to say,

“More things are wrought by prayer, than this world dreams of.”

I believe we are going to see amazing answers to prayer from this day of prayer. At this stage we do not know what they are, but the answer is already on the way.

As Matthew Henry said,

“When God intends great mercy for His people, He first of all sets them praying.”

Suffice to say God has moved and is moving.

As Bob Dylan said,

“He has plans of His own to set up His throne.”

Let’s keep on praying. Soli Deo Gloria!