Bishop Peter Sekhonyane (left) was discouraged. In twenty years as an evangelist he’d led thousands of people to the Lord, yet so few had “grown into maturity in Christ”. He was dejectedly preparing to quit preaching and return to his previous job as a concrete engineer, until God spoke to him: “Peter, you evangelized the people but you didn’t teach them to pray. Therefore they are not strong enough when trouble and temptation comes. Go now, and teach my people to pray.”
In the summer of 2004, with help from our friend Bennie Mostert, Bishop Peter erected a 300-seater tent to facilitate 24-7 Prayer in one of the 20 ‘extensions’ of Orange Farm, a poor township near Cape Town. By October he’d established similar prayer watches in seven of the twenty extensions and in each of these areas the crime rates came down so dramatically that the police took note and asked Peter to take 24-7 Prayer to a particular village where crime and violence were rampant. After two weeks crime had declined there too. “Now even the white churches are opening their doors to adopt 24-7 Prayer,” he says with a wry smile. “In fact, the churches that were most involved in apartheid are now the suppliers of the tents we use.”
In November 2009 Bishop Peter’s team calculated the social and spiritual impact of five years of 24-7 Prayer as follows:
* 7,240 churches have adopted 24-7 Prayer**
* 785,300 salvations
* 2,807 marriages restored
* 82 misplaced people reconnected with their families
* 8,400 new businesses established
* 38 debts cancelled
* 190 successful corruption prosecutions
** Peter Sekhonyane’s 24-7 Prayer watch is one of many that 24- Prayer UK have catalyzed indirectly (in this case via our friends at Jericho Walls). Having never formally registered with the global 24-7 website, his figures are not included in our general reporting, which remains highly conservative. The actual number of 24-7 Prayer Rooms globally is estimated to be at least 10 times higher than the number shown in our official statistics.
