While praying for a location to hold a New Year’s Day prayer gathering, Patrick Steele, a Youth For Christ missionary in Australia, had a vision. He felt God showed not just one but seven locations for prayer—in this order: Wollongong Head Lighthouse, Hill 60, Windang Island, Bass Point, Saddleback Mountain, Mount Kembla and Bald Hill.
At each location there was a person holding what looked like an Olympic torch with a large flame. Steele saw the seven locations, and then his view zoomed out into space, looking down at Australia. Flames were lighting up across the nation from east to west.
He said he felt moved by God that this was now a vision for a national call to prayer, and he contacted Warwick Marsh with Australia’s National Day of Prayer and Fasting to share the vision. Steele said God was showing him a prayer relay, but he wasn’t clear on how to stagger the timing of the gatherings.
Marsh suggested sunrise as the time moves from east to west, so the wave of prayer would follow the pattern of the vision. Marsh shared the vision with Indigenous elders and the National Day of Prayer and Fasting team, who gave it their unanimous endorsement.
As soon as the vision was shared, people from other nations wanted to join. As a result, the first global New Year’s Day Sunrise Prayer Relay was held in 2016.
Since then, the event has become an annual prayer event. In 2020, people from more than 70 nations prayed at dawn, sweeping the world with prayer at sunrise from east to west with the rising of the sun.
Whether praying with a group or alone, at a landmark or at home, people may register to be counted among those praying at sunriseprayerrelay.com.
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