FAQ

Struggling with a whole hour?  No problem. Grab a few others to share the hour with you as you increase your worship/prayer time. By signing up, you are committing to making sure the entire hour is covered in worship and/or prayer individually or corporately. *PLEASE KEEP YOUR COMMITMENTS AS WE WILL NOT BE CHECKING UP ON YOU!*

What does an hour of worship and/or prayer look like? Great references: 24-7 Prayer   IHOP KC
-Praying non-stop for an hour individually or as a group (leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move in and through you)
-Leading musical worship non-stop for an hour individually or as a group (leaving room for spontaneous new songs)
-Mixing musical worship and prayer for an entire hour individually or as a group (Revelation 5:8 - see Harp and Bowl)
-We encourage creativity like dance, art, song...etc as God leads in conjunction with musical worship and/or prayer.

What do you mean by “worship”?
  Worship is expressed in many ways.  For simplicity purposes, "worship" is referring to musical form of praise in the context of “worship and prayer” here.  We’re aiming for vertical worship (focused on praising God) versus horizontal worship (focused on leading others).  See What’s A Typical Burn Look Like?

Is this Biblically based?  Yes!!! 2 Chron 7:14, Matt 6:5-13, 2 Tim 1:3, Eph 3:14-21, John 12:27, Acts 15:16-17…..

What about “where two or more are gathered…”?  That is our preference and we also encourage physically meeting together when optional but there is nothing wrong with praying individually and having a unified online presence!

Are there plans for a physical prayer furnace location(s) for corporate gatherings?  YES! We would like to see local facilities begin to sign up to host public prayer gatherings. They don’t have to be an official “house of prayer” or even a church. It can be a grassroots, organic home meetings if desired. Occasional group gatherings are certainly welcome but we are looking for partners who are willing to host prayer gatherings on a consistent basis so we can help advertise accordingly. There are already some existing in various forms and fashions across Eastern NC and we’re excited to see them develop, flourish and multiply as God directs. The Boiler Room in Greenville, NC was a great example of a physical location as they were often open for corporate worship/prayer and offered other resources. They were also connected with Burn 24-7 and often hosted Burn Greenville. Multiple churches and ministries were represented and exemplified a great example of unity in our region. Michael & Sara Thorsby have a vision for a creative arts venue in the New Bern area that incorporates times of worship/prayer but desire to see the land saturated and unified on a grassroots level first with a high level of participation. We want to encourage individual and group prayer disciplines in local settings that will hopefully spread like fire to corporate settings such as local churches, businesses and ministries throughout our region. Wouldn't it be awesome if your individual hunger and thirst for more of God turned into 2, 4 or 6 hour blocks of time that your local group looks forward to sharing on a regular basis? When the fire catches in our sphere of influences, it will be that much more amazing when we come together for corporate events at a neutral location.

Who is facilitating this?  Michael & Sara Thorsby are facilitating and organizing this adventure and will be recruiting help along the way as it grows. We are intentionally trying to keep this process logistically simple for the current season and will expand as God leads. This is purposely not affiliated with a specific church or denomination to encourage unity among a multi-generational body of believers. Michael and Sara will be investing and hosting through their personal resources, their business/ministry resources (Thorsby Jams, LLC) and their band (Thorsby) so you will most likely see those names associated from time to time. Their goal is to "reach the lost and strengthen the saints" as an additional resource to our local churches and bodies of believers.

Can 24/7 prayer coverage realistically be accomplished?  Absolutely!!! Let’s sample Craven County from a numbers perspective…
≈104,000 people in Craven County
24 hours/slots per day = 24 people per day
24 hours x 7 days = 168 people per week
168 PPW x 4ish weeks ≈ 672ish people per month
168 PPW x 52 weeks = 8736 people per year

It may be a bit tough to get 8736 people (≈8.4% of population) to do one hour per year but it’s not outlandish to think we could round up ≈672 people (≈0.65% of population) to do one hour every month or 168 people (≈0.16% of population) to do one hour every week. Many people/groups will do multiple hours at a time anyways plus the already established prayer chains. This doesn’t even count regular church services, bible studies, shorter prayer times, concerts and countless hours of service that are accomplished each week in our communities. God will be glorified!

What if the website is down?  If for some reason the website is not working, power is out or we’ve reached max capacity for the online system… don’t worry… God can still hear our prayers! Just continue with your scheduled/unscheduled time slots and update at a later time if needed. Email craven24seven@burnnewbern.com to make us aware of any uncommon issues.