ABOUT IHOP

The International House of Prayer of Kansas City is a missions organization located in south Kansas City, Missouri. IHOP at its core is deeply committed to prayer, fasting, and living the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) as well as seeing Jesus proclaimed to all nations with power as God’s way to establish justice in the earth. IHOP’s work includes equipping and sending “intercessory missionaries” across the nations as dedicated intercessors and evangelists laboring for revival in the Church and awakening among the lost (Matthew 9:37-38).

At the heart of the IHOP Missions Base is the 24/7 prayer furnace. On May 7, 1999, the prayer room began operating for 13 hours a day. On September 19, 1999, non-stop 24/7 worship with intercession began and has ascended to the throne of God without ceasing since then. The prayer room is a place of encounter, transformation, revelation, and equipping for the work of the Great Commission as well as a “rallying point” for believers in the city to gather to intercede for the Great Harvest and plead for mercy in times of crisis. Structured in 84 two-hour prayer meetings each week, each worship team at IHOP plays for two hours at a time, praying and singing the Scriptures using the apostolic prayers, the hymns of Revelation, the Psalms and the Song of Solomon.

The prayer room fuels all of the other departments on the Missions Base, including:

-Outreach to the poor and sick in our city through healing and evangelism ministries

-Training through the base’s Bible and music schools and short-term internships

-A local church congregation, “Forerunner Christian Fellowship”

-National and regional conferences to equip the saints for the work of ministry

IHOP is staffed by about 400 full-time “intercessory missionaries”, who all raise their own financial support and have all committed to living a lifestyle of simplicity in order to extravagantly give themselves to Jesus and to the ones He loves in the earth.

Is this a new idea?

No, not at all. In fact, perpetual solemn assemblies have played a key role in the formation of church history throughout the centuries.

A brief history:

Bangor, Ireland. In AD 555, a Celtic monk named Comgall and colleague Columbanus gathered 3,000 monks to a place called Bangor (the High Choir). They began a prayer meeting, which continued with singing for twenty-four hours a day for 300 years resulting in the first Celtic missions movement in history.

Clairvaux, France. In AD 1120, a Catholic monk named Bernard gathered 700 monks to a valley called Clairvaux (the valley of light). They began a prayer meeting that continued twenty-four hours a day for many years resulting in a dynamic release of evangelism through signs and wonders across all of Europe.

Herrnhut, Germany. In 1727, a young German nobleman named Nicholas Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf (1700–1760) gathered persecuted Christians to his large estate in Germany. This large estate, Zinzendorf called Herrnhut, which means “the Watch of the Lord”. These Christians, known as the Moravians, began a prayer meeting that continued twenty-four hours a day for 120 years and resulted in the first Protestant mission movement.

Herrnhut represents the reality that night and day prayer releases evangelism unto the Great Commission and was our first inspiration for an intercessory missions base.