National House of Prayer officially underway in Ottawa

Rob and Fran Parker, NHOP leaders. Photo: Rob Parker.

By Meghan Wood

OTTAWA's National House of Prayer has received the loan it needed to turn a former convent into an embassy of prayer for the nation's capital.

This summer, NHOP leaders Rob and Fran Parker committed to purchase the 11,000 square-foot building on Myrand Avenue, a 25-minute walk from Parliament Hill. Originally purchased by realtors for renovating and reselling as condominiums, the property did poorly on the market and would not sell. The asking price was $1.8 million, but the Parkers secured it for $900,000, an amount they claim God told them to offer. By September 16, they were required to have $500,000 and the company they dealt with was prepared to offer a mortgage of $400,000 at six percent.

Dick Dewert, founder of the Alberta-based Miracle Channel, committed the television station to donate $25,000 and challenged other people or ministries to meet this amount. Within two days, two responses boosted the amount to $75,000, and continuing support from individuals raised it to nearly $100,000. Watchmen for the Nations also gave support by tithing to NHOP from an offering given during the One Heart Gathering in Quebec City in late July.

By September 16, the Parkers had raised $300,000 and had a commitment from an individual to provide the additional $200,000 as a personal loan. The loan fell through, but a Chinese church in Toronto, which Parker declined to name, stepped forward to provide an interest-free loan of $225,000 for one year. A donor from Saskatchewan bought and provided the NHOP with 38 new beds, a $20,000 bill, according to Parker. The donor told Parker he didn't want Saskatchewan to "miss being a part of sowing into Canada." The NHOP takes possession October 14.

Parker said he realized Canada was "becoming godless" when the thousands of Canadians who gathered in a show of solidarity on Parliament Hill following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were not allowed to use the name "God" or Jesus Christ" in their prayers. He was reminded of a comment made by Watchmen for the Nations director David Demian: "You get the government you pray for."

"Many of us tend to think of our government only in critical ways," Parker wrote on NHOP.ca. "We need to repent of these attitudes and start holding up those in leadership through our prayers."

The NHOP was created to remove the "spirit of isolation" Parker sees between intercessors and geographical regions. He hopes the NHOP will facilitate 52 different prayer teams per year, one per week, from towns, cities and regions all around Canada.

One of the first teams to visit the NHOP after it opens mid-October will be the Josiah Team, October 23 - 28. This is a small group of 15- to 35-year-olds who will attend meetings with senators and members of Parliament. On the last day, they will give a national address to leaders and hold an open-air worship/prayer/declaration service on the lawn of Parliament. Faytene Kryskow, an inner-city missionary based in Vancouver, British Columbia, will lead the team. She heads up MY Canada, a youth-motivated branch of Fly High Ministries (FHM), which engages Canadian Christian young people in the prophetic aspects of politics.

MY Canada's associate director, Christina Groot, told CC.com that Kryskow recently took a team of 10 local youth across Canada to nine cities in 15 days to speak and pray with MPs and senators. This tour was called Siege and further tours from MY Canada will go by the same name.

"Siege came out of different conversations from Christian and political leaders in Canada about where our nation is at and the fact that the older generation feels they have done all they can and that the youth needs to take the baton," Groot said.

Faytene Kryskow (Maple Leaf sweater) and members of the Siege Tour from the summer of 2005 worship on the steps of the Parliament buildings. Kryskow will lead another team to Parliament during their visit to the NHOP October 23 - 28. Photo: MY Canada.

"I have been walking closely with them for a few years in the Watchmen initiatives in the nation," she said. "It was [Parker] who, because of a vision he had of me, approached me about working more closely with NHOP. When I took it to prayer, the Holy Spirit downloaded the whole vision of Siege (now MY Canada). Two groups, one of which was the NHOP, officially covered the Siege tour."

In an article in ChristianWeek, veteran journalist and author Lloyd Mackey addressed faith on Parliament Hill, offering a message of hope to Christians disillusioned by the secularism that appears to have a grip on Canadian politics. Mackey's new book, More Faithful than We Think: Stories of Canadian Leaders Doing Politics Christianly, tells the stories of actively Christian politicians whose work is little known in the wider community.

"You find God and Jesus and relating to the gospel in surprising places around [Parliament] Hill," Mackey told ChristianWeek. He believes there is more Christian influence at work in Canadian politics than it appears from the outside.

Mackey told CC.com that Christian groups often create enemies where they do not really exist to gain support for their cause.

"I believe that the practice of conciliation, rooted in biblical concepts of Christian reconciliation, can be an effective antidote to the most divisive of the adversarial stuff," he said, pointing out the NHOP's policy of discouraging their team from "praying against" specific "forces of evil" that some of the "prophets" have apparently identified. Instead, team leaders encourage people to practice a positive and constructive prayer covering, for the things they believe to be right and good in the system.

When it comes to tense moments during meetings with politicians, Groot said they are surprisingly few and far between.

"All our meetings have been amazingly positive," she said. "They are completely in awe that youth would spend time, miss or quit work to come and speak with them. There are times where they do not see eye-to-eye. But it is a democracy and they respect our right to bring our voice."

Parker echoed that sentiment, saying meetings and prayer have been well received, so far.

"[MPs and senators] realize there is a whole sector of votes from 19- to 30-year-olds they haven't really taken seriously before, so when they rise up it catches their attention," he explained.

He said that when prayer teams are invited to an MP's office, they share that they are there to pray for them and for blessing.

"Then the next day, [the MP] can look up in the public gallery and see them there praying . . . We are non-partisan so we let them know whether they are Christian or not, we are praying for them. We have no political agenda," said Parker.

Parker said the feedback he has gotten is inspiring: "We've seen a number of MPs tell us our prayers are making a difference. We have seen minds changed on issues, and one MP stood up in front of the Prime Minister to thank Christians for being in the public gallery."

Mackey said NHOP is just the newest of a number of Christian presences on and around Parliament Hill, working in the evangelical, charismatic or reformed sectors of the Christian community.

"Each of these groups has a unique role to play," he said. "NHOP offers a prayer emphasis that brings people from across Canada to provide prayer covering to the body politic. At the same time, those who come get a picture of what makes Ottawa tick that is much more real than if they relied on their television screens for information."

The Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast and the Christian Embassy provide pastoral care and outreach opportunities for politicians and diplomats. According to Mackey, other ministries active in Canada's capital include the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which provides public policy input from an evangelical perspective; the Mennonite Central Committee and Salvation Army, which focus on social and development issues; and Campaign Life, which raises awareness on the abortion issue, as well as on family-related questions.

"Some groups, like Focus on the Family, Enshrine Marriage, Defend Marriage and the Exclusive Brethren, do not currently have Ottawa offices but provide Christian input on specific family and life issues. They will often be seen monitoring or presenting briefs at parliamentary committee hearings," explained Mackey.