Introduction to Prayer Stream

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Welcome to Prayer Stream, a new podcast from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa! Join hosts Brad Fidler and Chris Byberg as they introduce themselves and share the vision behind this podcast exploring prayer's intersection with church, politics, government, and current events.

Transcript

I felt him say to me, "You need to be praying for Justin as if he were your [music] son." And my response was like, "Oh, come on." Welcome to Prayer Stream, a podcast from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa. We're here [music] to have conversations with leaders and authors about prayer and how it intersects with the local church, politics and government, Israel, and anything else that might pop [music] up in the news. Join me, your host Brad Fidler, along with Chris Byberg as we wait [music] into the prayer stream. Welcome everybody to the first episode of Prayer Stream, a podcast from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa. I'm Brad and this is Chris.

Hello. Hello everybody. Good to see you. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Uh so as we said, this is our first episode. And so what we wanted to do today is kind of give you a little introduction into who we are uh as a ministry, as people, and uh to give you a heads up on what you can expect from Prayer as we as we venture into the future with future episodes and and whatnot. So uh to start, as we mentioned, Prayer is a podcast from the National House of Prayer in Ottawa. Um Chris, you're the executive director uh along with your wife Marilyn of the National House of Prayer. So why don't you give us a little introduction into what is the National House of Prayer? So about 25

years ago um this concept this idea was birthed to Adam Rob and Fran Parker who were pastoring in Vernon BC and they felt the Lord speak to them about putting an embassy of prayer in in the nation's capital Ottawa right and so they started out initially uh with a prayer walk that went from Calgary to Ottawa in 200 1. When they got here, they uh were speaking to the local church to see if they would pick up this uh this call for an embassy of prayer in the nation's capital. And uh and the local church basically said, "We're not feeling this, but maybe you're called to this." And uh long story short, Rob and Fran became the directors and they bought a building and

they uh it was a like a monastery. People would come from all across the nation to come and pray in that house of prayer connecting with members of parliament and staffers and senators and all things political on Parliament Hill, all things nonpartisan. So their our heart was to engage with all of the parties and they did that and they did that up until 2019 where we would have people coming across the nation to come into our house. We had a 20 bedroomedroom facility I believe uh this before Marilyn and I. So we never got to enjoy that building. But in 2021 and friend decided that it was time to step down and pass the baton. Both Marilyn and I uh we felt the call.

We were asked to lead the board of directors at NHawk reaffirmed that and so we essentially uh inherited a national house of prayer without a house and uh we were the national of prayer and uh so but while I was in the government sphere I I pastored for many many years and um and connected with Brad Brad a long long time ago. 1997, stuff like that. Brad was in my youth group and uh but there was a season in my life I felt the Lord call both Marilyn and I into the political sphere and we started to engage in that around 2014 2015 and uh and became you know EDA electoral district association. I became a president and VP. I actually sat on four different boards. Um, and I became a

chief of staff for a member of peri provincial parliament or an MLA in different parts of the country. Um, and received this call from the board of uh, one of the board of directors at National House of Prayer [snorts] and uh, and they basically say would you like to lead this and it was like that's why I had to go on this journey. So my my initial call, what I felt was my biggest call was intercession and prayer. 24/7 prayer, the intersection of worship and intercession. Right. Right. And I felt that that was my call to build that in the nation way back in 1995. And so having this detour because when the Lord spoke to me to I felt the Lord speak to me that he wanted me to change

direction from focusing on intercession and prayer and going to politics. I actually when he first said that I thought he was trying to punish me, right? I was like what [laughter] do that? What did I do? He'll make me do it. Why? Why that of all the things? I don't want to go into that. from I was reading it right and actually in that time he actually said I want you to lay down some things that you really love to carry such as leading worship. I want you to lay that down. And as you know me in leading worship, I really loved that for for about since 2014. Up until about last year, I had to lay down leading worship. Last year, I felt the Lord say to me, "It's okay. You can pick it up

now." And the reason why is because people would not understand where I went. So, I had to move into this whole different ministry because we all have ministries, right? So often we think ministry is the sacred stuff that we do and the secular stuff, ministry, right? But it's uh but it's everything. This is the whole thing about right. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all he wants it all. And he wants every part of life in our culture. He wants it all. He wants sacred stuff. And he even wants the political stuff, right? And he wants it from all the parties. and he wants it from everything. And so to have that transition to go into that. So anyway,

when I received that call um uh from Doug Schneider, who was the he was actually my pastor at MC Church and he says, "Christ Robin Fran already sat down. Would you like to lead this National House of Prayer?" And it was right away in my spirit. I didn't even have to really think about it. I went, "Yes, [laughter] that's why I had to do this." But I said, "I have to go home and ask Marilyn because we're in this together." Yeah. Right. Our goal is together. And and you see the thing leading up to this, even just that week, Marilyn was saying to me, I remember this, it was October 20, 2020. And uh was saying to me, you know, Chris, don't even think about moving away here. The kids are

here, the grandkids are here, everything is here. Don't even think about moving away. And I thought, she said that, right? So when I got home that night, I said to her, Marilyn, Pastor Doug gave me a call and he asked me if we wanted to lead National House of Prayer. And I was expecting, you know, I was bracing for a no way, right? And Marilyn's response was, "When do we pack?" She said, "When do we pack?" And uh and so we made the transition here to a house that without a house while I was in government, while I was sitting on various EDA boards, I started to see something because I knew my role in being a part of an electoral district association wasn't to

raise funds, wasn't to bring awareness, wasn't to cheer for a particular team that I liked, right? My real goal was to pray for that member of parliament. That's why I was there. I was embedded within the system, right? I got to see firsthand, smell all the smells, hear all the things, know all what's going on, and got close to that member of Carl and carried them as my special assignment. And I started to say, what if we did that across the nation? What if there were 34? Well, there's now 343 teams, right? But what if every seat in the House of Government of House of Commons were covered by a team, a SWAT team, a crack team, a seal seal team six team, right?

ninja team embedded to pray for them in the House of Commons up close relational regardless of the team that we voted for. Right? And that's the thing because we often think that God lives in one particular team and like I said just a few minutes ago wants it all. Right? He wants to be he wants us to be salt and light in the conservatives. He wants us to be salt and light with the liberals. He wants us to be salt and light the NDP, the block, the Greens. He wants us to be salt and light. He wants to bring the smell, the flavor of Jesus into every aspect of our lives and that includes politics, right? Yeah. Very good. So that's so that brings us to so January 1st, 2021,

you and Marilyn became the executive director of the National House of Prayer. Yes. And uh so that's so if you remember uh little thing called CO that's in the middle of CO um in Canada and so the house had been sold. I think it was just just prior. Was it November of 2019 that the house? That's right. Okay. So, now it's it's 2021. We're in the middle of COVID. People are in their houses not not able to get out very much. We can't really invite people to come from across the country to Ottawa to pray because we can't put everyone in the same house. Um so what what happened with NHOP in those days? So what we started to see you know with CO we actually even though CO was very

very difficult it was hard emotionally on a lot of people even churches today are still feeling some effects from CO people got stuck in the crack of the couch and they weren't able right beside the popcorn and the coins right there still some people are still stuck there and if you're still stuck there going to tell you be free in the name of Jesus you can get back to church okay don't stay there. It's [laughter] just not it's not a it's not that's not the most healthy place to be, right? It's good. It's a great tool, but we we learned it. It's a really good tool. And uh so we were able to do things on Zoom. We Zoom was Zoom was something that was there before for many many

years. No, hardly any use it. Corporate people would do that. People did webinars and things like that. I remember using it a little bit in government, you know, doing webinars and things like that. But now it became really really viable too became a lifeline for for a lot of for a lot of people. And so we started to do do we started off with one prayer meeting on Wednesdays in the afternoon. Then we thought we would add a Tuesday morning one as well. And so we built relationships over the past five years. You know these relationships and and strong I look at these praying relationships that we we've developed. Right. Right. And there there's a lot of synergy. You know, it's this whole

thing. It's it's is when you develop a praying relationship, you get to know each other. But the best part about building building these prayer relationships is you get to hear what the Lord is speaking through others so that you can come alongside and partner, right, and partner and come into that place of agreement. So now we've got these calls where people, you know, from Baths, New Brunswick all the way across to Victoria, BC. I have that on Tuesday morning and all the way up north and northern Canada and here in Ontario. So, it's it's um it's it's it's a great tool and it was able for us to to sustain things. And not only that did not only did we learn that we could do uh prayer

meetings there, but we could do prayer schools. We started to do prayer schools and where in the past you had to come to Anhop for a prayer school unless Rob and Fran went out to see you, right? and uh and we we still do that. We still come out to do things, but during COVID, we couldn't go anywhere. And so we would do prayer schools. And so in the past, you know, 10 20 people would come to Ottawa, maybe five, and we'd do a prayer school. But now, um we could have hundreds of people like we have we have over 700 signed up for our prayer schools. And uh and so we can have a much greater impact because of that and still be able to bring in things. And we taught things on

like how to pray for go Israel, how to pray for government, apostolic prayers, right? We just finished the school basically strategies in the secret place which was really how to go deeper and how to stay in that psalm 29 place of gazing upon the beauty of course. Anyway, Psalm 27 there, right? Yeah. The one thing I desire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Psalm 29's been front of mind for the last few weeks, too, though. So that's where that's where Yeah. about the whole loving is holiness. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Uh and uh and that's and so that's the Psalm 29 in case you didn't know that's been like really really front and center for us in our prayer life um here online and even

when I do things corporately just came out of a yeah meeting on Saturday morning where Psalm 29 was the big focus. And what a powerful time. Oh my gosh. You know, we're fixed on him. I'm just going to give you a little sidebar here. Fixed on him. We're in this this meeting where we're worshiping and adorating. We're not and we're seeking his face, not his hands. And that's yeah, it's Psalm 27. But but we're seeking his face, but not his hands. And even in the act of seeking his face, there were people healed in this meeting. Yep. People that had blindness and all of a sudden could see. People that were lame. Literally, we saw lame, walking, unseeing in this meeting cuz we're

focused on him and not so much ourselves. And that's anyway, you should look at that school. Yeah. Nice. So, a little sidebar for you for you uh watching or listening. We will enjoy many bunny trails [laughter] in the episodes to come. Chris is the king of bunny trails. [laughter] Yeah, you'll you'll enjoy that. Um okay great. So COVID NHOP Zoom connecting with people across the country to pray when people couldn't come to auto to pray. Um so that kind that kind of marked a shift in how NHOP functions. Anything anything further you want to add to that? Yeah, that that's pretty much that was the major shift. But we also saw uh the the impetus of building citywide prayer with cities.

So even here in Ottawa whereas Inhop was an entity and people would come and join us and but we really connected with the local church in a big way here because we were kind of focused on Ottawa. really couldn't go too far even though we were we were flying sometimes. Um but many people weren't inviting us out right because of just the nature of how COVID was. So we gave an opportunity to focus on local prayer in a city and that gave us some new chops on that and uh gave us some some ways to encourage your city how to gather together, right? Because it's it's one thing to have teams that pray specifically for for government, right? And uh which we were

focusing and we still do, right? But the main focus for us isn't just government. And we'll get to the Israel part in a minute. Right. But it's to disciple the nation or how to pray. Right. Right. And to teach the nation how to pray. And uh that has been a been a real joy to help people because most churches, I mean many times we would go into many many churches, people would be terrified to pray out loud, right? Because certain cultures, you know, so often times we break in groups. I really find that that uh zoom in and co really has helped the body to pray right it actually washed us into this situation where where people would we're were kind of in dairy about praying for government

and leaders and and let's just go back to the why here's the why first Timothy y pray pray for everybody all kinds of prayers I'm paraphrasing right all kinds of prayers supplication intercession thanksgiving all these different kinds of weapons or tools that we can use for everybody. So who's everybody? Everybody's everybody. So we pray for everybody. That includes the people we don't like. That includes our enemies. That includes the MPs that we didn't vote for. That includes the prime minister that might be might not be our favorite prime minister. Right? Let me tell you something why we kind of got to the place where we are. Here comes another bunny trail. Ready? Um we we had

to sell our house. The endov had to sell the house because I'll tell you a story. Steven Harper was the prime minister. We had no problem filling that house. Yep. That team. They like to support that team. They like that man. He's a good man. Still is a good man, right? Still is a good man. And uh and we like to support that man. And we had no problem filling that house to pray for him. But we had a shift a shift and a change. And we had a prime minister that many of us didn't necessarily care for. And we stopped praying. We stopped coming. Yeah. We stopped coming. And if that showed us anything, we were we had become very partial. Yes. And James warns us about partiality.

Yes, he does. Yeah. Why don't [clears throat] you bring Why don't you just share a little bit about what about the the problem with partiality, right? Well, James 2, James James calls out the church for for partiality, for treating the poor well, giving the poor or sorry, treating treating the rich well in their gatherings, making sure the rich had a place of honor and making sure they they were catered to and the poor keep them to the outside, keep them to the back. Um, ignore them if you can. It was kind of is kind of the sense you get of what was going on. And James calls that out and calls it a sin. Calls it the sin of partiality. And then he goes so far as to say, you know, some

might say, "Okay, well, sin of partiality, that's not as bad as the sin of murder or the sin of adultery, so whatever. Big deal, James." And James says, "No, if you've transgressed one part of the law, you're guilty of transgressing the whole God. You're as guilty as a murderer or an adulterer or whoever." And that really ruffles our feathers as believers. We as people, we we like to compare ourselves to others and say, "Well, at least I'm not as bad as that guy." Yeah. And you know, in the human justice system, you know, in our in our court system and our legal system in Canada, yes, there's differentiation between categories or or intensities of of crime. But before God, the sin of

partiality, you're as guilty of transgressing the law as a murderer. And so he he's, you know, one of the things I I like but don't like about James is he's very intense in how he confronts sin and issues. And that's a that's a big one. The sin of partiality in James 2, he calls them the poor as well as you treat the rich. And so we can, you know, it's it's not something that's only applicable to the rich and the poor. He's saying if you treat one group better than another, you're guilty of the sin of partiality. That so happened to be the one he is speaking into. But for us today as believers in in the West, if we only pray for the ones in the in the political sphere, if we only

pray for the ones we would vote for, we might need to check our hearts as to whether we're guilty of the sin of partiality. That's so powerful. Yeah. So that's that's what got revealed in, you know, from 2015 on as as the flow of people coming to Ottawa to pray for government slowed to a trickle. It revealed that we as evangelicals in Canada might have an issue with partiality. And not only that, so one of the things that that kind of where the Lord really challenged me in in terms of praying for Justin Trudeau and uh the first thing that was the first thing he came up with was just and true are your ways. Yeah. Justin Trudeau. It was just like oh Lord come on. Then then then then we

felt him say to I felt him say to me, "You need to be praying for Justin as if he were your son." And that even that changes everything. Changes everything, right? And I and my response was like, "Oh, come on. That's not fair." But but it's exactly what his heart is. His heart is that none should perish. Right? this this when we see what the the the hard I remember Marilyn was telling this story she shares this story she was we were running watch sitting in question period and uh and the prime minister's coming in he's got two glasses of water he's got his his uh his talking points binder and he's coming in it's a really big binder yep and see the goal in in in government

is to stay the goal is try to stay on the topic talking points that we we hate it, but that's what they try. Their goal is try to knock them off of the talking points. That's that's the thing jousting that in in the upsum. It's a bit of a game. So he has his talking point and Lord Marilyn's looking at him and she goes look and then the Lord says to him he says from from Song of Solomon he says he this he has captured my heart and she says who him? [laughter] What do you mean him? picture. Yeah. He says he says he's captured by and it's like glory to Jesus. This is what I think about him, right? You have to know I still love him, right? Yeah. They love him and it totally changed the

trajectory on on how we pray for leaders, right? Yes. And that that we are to be this unpartial thing. I mean, this comes out of James. James was a big portion of what we we found in the first part of the year, the first part of CO. I mean, there was this I remember saying to the Lord, what's going on? It's like the prayers aren't getting answered. What are we doing wrong? Because it's so easy for us to point everybody like this is going wrong. This is wrong. James 1 tells you when you pray, you're supposed to believe, right? And because if you don't pray, if you don't believe when you pray, right, you're double-minded and unstable on your than in all your ways, right?

And you should expect no answer. He even says that you should expect not to be answered. That's right. So, so I'm but I'm saying like God, we're not getting an answer. What's going on? So, I'm thinking like am I double-minded? What is it? Jame J. So, just we'll get to this thing, but we Brad has written a great book on James and we'll talk about it in a little bit here, but uh one of the things that came out a lot in our corporate prayer time on Tuesdays was James, how can salt water and fresh water come out of the same mouth? And we were in the midst of co There was a lot of unsatisfied people and I was one of them. There was a lot of murmuring and complaining and and I

was one of them and I had to learn to be quiet, right? And just learn. It was a learning. It was like I was sharing last night at a at a prayer meeting here in Ottawa about languages that God gives us, right, in prayer, right? I had to learn a language on how to pray for Israel because I didn't have that language before. So I I had to get in the word, learn learn a language, how to do this, how to pray for Iran currently. And there's a lot of great stuff in scripture on that Isaiah 19 on how to pray for Iran. But I needed to have the right language to pray for government. And that included not cursing. And in fact, that was the most thing that fresh water only

comes out, not salt water, not even brackish because it and this is what James says, it's not a matter that there's a mixture, right? It's not brackish. It's not fresh and salt. So, how can it be? So, we had to really crawl up onto that altar, right? Romans 12 to be those living sacrifices, wholly acceptable to, you know, to to the plan and purposes of God and just burn. And that had to die, right? This complaining portion really had to die. Yep. Yep. So to kind of bring it back around, so during co one of the things we talked about um that what shifted for for NHOP, we we even for a while kind of called it NHOP 2.0. Yeah. In that the focus used to be come to

Ottawa to pray for government and you know and which is good like we still invite people to come. We don't have a house to put you in but um there's still things that we do during the course of a year. uh a couple times where there's events where you can come and pray with other believers uh for for government and for Ottawa and for Canada. It doesn't have to be just government. But what shifted was through meeting on Zoom and these other things, we started to see that now now the emphasis is it's still the same heart, but now the emphasis is on equipping you to and activating you to pray in the writing where you live. It's not come to Ottawa. It's now be praying where you are cuz

your MP is actually based in your writing, not based in Ottawa. They're based in your writing in your constituency. We want you and need you praying where you are and seeing the value and the importance of praying where you are. So that's kind of a a major shift that's that sort of happened. It's the same hearts, the same values, but it's the emphasis now is on building prayer where you live. That's exactly it. Yeah. It's, you know, we I like to say this, you know, your your member of parliament, he's in your neighborhood, although some writings are really really big and really expansive, but it's still it's still navigable that you can get there and speak to them. So,

you can build these relationships. So, you build the relationship with the member in your writing and I'll build the relationship here on the hill, right? And uh and then we through the technology, we can still partner together and build together. And our goal is is to have a team across the the nation, team of people or body of people that are praying for those peace. I I think of I think of Meadow Lake Saskatchewan um where we actually see which are really one of our better functioning teams there and uh and and actually got to hear I'm just going to share a little story about me just reminded me this week cuz there there's a bit of a bump going on up there with gangs and stuff like that.

So, right then and see God move again. Um, but I remember Blanch had had reached out to us and said, you know, um, I love my lover heart and she says, "Well, you know, we actually been praying and we need an emergency men's shelter up here in Meadow Lake because uh, men are dying in the bush every year." And uh, and but there wasn't any political will for it, right? The feds didn't want to do anything. Pride didn't want us to put any money into it. The municipality didn't do want to do much. The local church wanted to do could help with food, but they didn't want to get into housing. There was a willingness by the local church to be a part of it, but they they didn't have where

didn't have the resources, right? The resources as well, right? So, she says, "Do you think we should be praying for this?" And my response was was, "Well, is it in the constituency? We're gonna pray for the MPs in the house and we've we've prayed for a lot and I just want to say this when you come to Par Parliament Hill presence of the Lord is there and and we shouldn't be surprised at the presence of the Lord there because you'll pray right so again back to James one why would you pray and ask him to go and not expect him to go right so he's there but but but so the presence of the Lord is there but back here in your writing it's in the writing so yeah I said it's in the writing right

she says yeah well then we need to pray for because it's in the writing, right? It's in your sphere. It's in your metron, right? This is your sphere of influence. Where you live is your sphere of influence, right? So, you can pray for that. So, they start to pray and and it wasn't long before they started to get an answer, right? Like like like two weeks, right? They've been praying for years about this. Not praying, but they've been concerned about this for years and nothing happening politically. and a group of 10 people get together and 10 or more maybe 15 um and uh start praying for this and within two weeks they get an answer and this was the answer. The CBC shows up, right?

The CBC shows up. I know. It's amazing. God can if God can use a donkey, he can use the CBC. And uh and so the CBC shows up and says there's an expose on why there isn't a men's emergency shelter up in Now, if I remember correctly, they were there to do a story about something else, wasn't it? Yeah. and they encountered homeless man and just got to talking and wound up following him around and doing a story on if I remember correctly they were there to talk about something else. That's right. And so inadvertently this happens. Well, this goes out into the place and it embarrasses the feds. It embarrasses the province, embarrasses the the the uh municipality, right? And the local

church is like, "Well, we're doing the best we can, right?" Y and all of a sudden there was this will to build something and within within less than a month funding started flowing in. Yep. All because and that's and I don't think that's a coincidence at all. I think that's because the effective f the effective fervent prayer of the righteous because it avails much right. Yeah. and they were were in it. That's from James Doom and so and so they were were uh engaging and praying for that and so they saw an immediate immediate and that's what we want to see. I just love this. There are many many of those of these text you see across the nation because when you come into agreement

together, right? And the one thing about medit that this little group that we have out there is like six represents six different churches. I didn't even know six churches, right? And they're they're up there and they're coming together and they come together on a weekly basis. They take our prayer schools and and uh because we do prayer schools and we have uh they're usually a semester long, 10 weeks, 12 weeks long in the in the winter and in the fall that we do these usually and uh they use those and they but they meet together to pray and it's a it is a great tool and we see what it does and I hear about this all across the nation you know there are other

groups all across the nation gathering some of them not gathering some of them just individuals praying the prayer stream every week or taking their prayer stream to their youth group. The prayer stream is our weekly newsletter. Uh it's also the same name of this podcast. Uh we just kept it together for branding sake. Uh it's so they take the prayer stream and they go pray that in their local church and they pray that with other groups and so it's a great show. We have we have y yeah we've got about 5,000 signed up for this and uh and about uh what I do know is about 200 open up really on within 24 hours start to use it. So it's a great it's a great tool. It is just help us keep help keep us

praying for our governments, our communities, all these things. So just to wrap up about National House of Prayer, the thing I would close with is just four things. One, you know, the the the the motto or whatever of National House of Prayer is activating strategic prayer in Canada. And so that's what we're here for is to to encourage you and equip you to pray. And if there's two passages that we that we really carry, the first one Chris already mentioned, 1 Timothy 2, pray all kinds of prayers for everybody. And then Paul highlights especially for kings and those in authority. Yeah. Uh that we could live godly and peaceful lives. But it also goes on to say the

reason he invites us to do this is because God desires that all men would be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. We don't pray for government so that we get our way. Yeah. or that our favorite team gets gets voted in. We pray for them that they would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. So there's that passage and the other one we would say is Isaiah 56:7 which is you know famously the the verse my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations and Jesus reiterates that in the gospels. um our heart is is you know we also know as the as the New Testament carries on and Paul kind of and Peter open this idea up that we are the temple you know the temple

was destroyed in 70 AD but the church us the the body the local church we are the temple the the spiritual house of of God we are to be a house of prayer for all nations the the local church you know there's there's been a shift from there for for a number of years there's been this thing of ministries popping up with names like ours, National House of Prayer, International House of Prayer was the big one in Kansas City. There's a number of other similar ones around still today, but it's like their identity is we are a house of prayer in the city. Our heart is the local church is supposed to be a house of prayer. And so we're here to activate strategic prayer to encourage and equip you to be

the house of prayer, your church. We we've seen and I think this has kind of been shown by studies or whatever that what is it roughly 2% of evangelicals respond to calls to prayer in in the church prayer meetings or or whatever it's a very very small amount if we're to be if the local church is supposed to be a house of prayer you know something's got to shift there and so our heart is not that you would not that NHOP would become a big prayer ministry in Ottawa our heart is that the local church in Canada would be the house of prayer and we're just here to serve and facilitate that. So that's I think that's how we'd say where NHOP is today. Well, I'm noticing something that's

really quite harsh right now and uh so so many of us get worked up about leaders and and things like that. First off, you know, I I I find it amusing when people pile on, they start to pray for the nation when there's an election called the rest of the time they're indifferent about it and then they p they pile on and then they don't get the results. They're all discouraged. The first thing is is the day you pray for an election is the day after an election. The day after an election is the day you start praying for the next election. For the next election. Yeah. That that's you're going to stay in that posture all the time because that's what we're going to do. Not not not be in this crisis

mode. And number two, I think one of the biggest indictments uh you know when when we look at in the early part of of Revelation, it talks about the churches, right? Leo Sudia and stuff like that. I would say in Canada is that we're for the most part a prayerless church and and it's something that we really need to concentrate on and it's not so that we can build our ministry like I like like Brad was saying our heart is that every church in Canada becomes a house of prayer. Yeah. that everybody engages, that everybody knows how to pray, right? Know this is one of the biggest things that I I we hear in the nation is like, I know how to pray. And it's like, so we want

to we will essentially we want to work ourselves out of a job. That's what we want to do. We want the local church to pick this up, but but many of them don't have the wherewithal. We have some tools. We'll lend our tools up. I used to work for Stevenson's tool rental when I was younger, right? I'm going to rent them. We'll just give them to you, right? and give you these tools so that you can build prayer in your local church so you can that so that not only your local church becomes a house of prayer but your house becomes a house of prayer and and that's what we really want we want to really emphasize and build. We want you to be in that place of John 15 of abiding because that's right.

Very good. So that's a bit about National House of Prayer. Chris, you you did talk about your story a little bit interspersed in there with pastoring, worship, and prayer, government. Is there anything you'd want to add to that as far as a personal introduction to who you are? I'm uh I've been married to Marilyn for 43 years. That's nice. And she is the love of my life. And I just stopped saying that because she really is. And we are we are literally known as Chris Maryland. And our ministry has always been a person. And uh and I I love that that we work together. I I'll tell you, I'm I'm going to get we we were ministering this past weekend and Marilyn was on fire this

weekend. I tell you, she's she's not known to be a speaker. She's a phenomenal writer. Again, if you follow along with our prayer streams, she's the one who writes that stuff. She she's I can speak well. She writes amazing. But this weekend, like she was on fire speaking. Oh my gosh. So, I love that. And we have four kids and uh they all live in the GTA, greater Toronto area and and have three grand kids as well. Uh and yeah, I love the family. It was a bit of a It was a bit It was a real dying having to leave them and come to even though we lived in Ashawa. Moved to Ottawa. It sounds like an easy move. Just changing two writings. It was bigger than that. So bigger than that.

Cool. Okay. Well, yeah. So, that's a bit about Chris there. I'll I'll tell you a bit about myself. So, uh Brad Fidler, um Chris mentioned this earlier. My start really was Chris was my youth pastor in the late 90s in in Nigara Falls. I live in Nigara Falls. Um and uh yeah, God got a hold of my life the week Chris and Marilyn took over our youth group. And so just um so my walk with the Lord has has been closely connected. Chris and Marilyn are are like spiritual parents to me. Um remember that that was in 98, March of 98 when that when that all happened. And um actually at at Chris at as I finished high school, I graduated in 2000. Uh getting into 2001, I'm looking at what do I want to do?

Where do I want to go? I was looking at universities. I was looking at different I was thinking of doing a gap year before a gap year was a thing. I wanted to do a I whether it was a YWAM DTS or a school of ministry or something. And I had all these options in front of me and Chris said, "Why don't you go to Kansas City, International House of Prayer there?" And uh I'd never heard of it, didn't know anything about it. And as every time I looked at all my options, considered all these places when I looked at Kansas City, felt the Holy Spirit say, "If you go there, it'll set the tone for the rest of your life." And and so I I wound up going there not knowing what I was getting into. And

what I was getting into was night and day worship and prayer. Now, a lot has come out the last two years and uh you know, I've had to wrestle through a lot of that and undetangle some stuff, but there's kind of a huge story behind this, but um the Lord really confirmed actually just like in the 48 hours before all the news came out about all the awful things that were happening there. In in the 48 hours leading up to that, uh through a number of different circumstances, the Lord just kind of settled in my heart. I took you there. I built foundations in you and I brought you out. And we I was there for two years, 2001 to 2003, came home to Ontario again and uh for 20 years

wrestled with should I have stayed? And you know those 48 hours he said I took you there. I built foundations in you. You weren't chasing a ministry or a man. You were you were following me. I built this stuff in you and I brought you out. And uh so when the news all hit, I was I was not shaken like a lot of people were um because he had settled that question in my heart again just 48 hours before. It's pretty wild. But anyways, he did put something in me that you know wants to move towards this this expression of night and day worship and prayer. Um number of reasons for that, but uh came back to Niger Falls, married my wife Melissa, who I met there in Kansas City.

We were the only two Canadians in our internship program, which was kind of funny. Um, but that's where we met and, uh, we came home, got married, we have three sons now, uh, 201, 15, and 13. Um, and been pastoring in in my local church, the same church that Chris was my youth pastor in. I've been I've been leading for the last I think it's eight or nine years now. Um and yeah two uh when fast forward to 2021 when Chris and Maryland took over uh the executive director role there at the national house prayer. They invited me to join the board at the time. So August of 21 I came on board there and uh last year I stepped off the board and came on staff in a part-time role. So now I I I kind

of do both. I I lead in the local church and I'm helping with this here and now with with National House of Prayer. So really excited to be doing it. Um, and uh, excited for what the Lord's been speaking and doing in us and and through us and to us and uh, yeah, excited to see where where this all goes. So, so that's a little bit about who we are. Um, did I leave anything out in my life that that I should tell people? He's a really great worship leader, too. daughter, if you've been dragging with us, you know, he's he's an exemplary teacher and he actually, you know, he he kind of oversees a lot of our teaching our schools and stuff like that. He's overseeing this podcast example as well.

And uh yeah, just I here's something you should know about that. When I when I have a conversation with Brad and especially we're talking about just talking about the word, right? and and and uh about you know 5 minutes after the conversation he'll send me all the notes on on the conversation then how we can teach this he's just so efficient that way it's just it's so good and uh so he thinks this way and I and I and I and I love it and and I'm so glad he's here I'm so really so glad that he's a part of our ministry both him and his family and uh and uh we're excited about where we're going down the road and all the other pieces that are coming to join us. So, it's exciting. But

I shouldn't have thrown that to you. You make making me blush here. All right. So, that's a little bit about National House of Prayer about us, your hosts for for prayer stream going forward. Um, so next one, prayer stream. So, what what can you expect from this podcast that's uh going forward? So, what we would say first of all is this podcast is for it's it's our way of interacting with the prayer movement in Canada. We're going to now we say this right off the top. We know we're not the only ones dealing with prayer in Canada. We are not we are not the only stream. We are not the biggest stream. We're just a stream trying to be faithful in our little part. So, but we want to make

this a space to converse about what's happening in Canada and how prayer inter interacts and intersects with that. Now, the title prayer stream. So, Chris, get you to unpack this a little bit. Uh, it comes from we take this from Ezekiel 47, the passage that where Ezekiel sees this river of God flowing out from the from under the throne from out from the temple and flowing out into the Dead Sea. unpack this a little bit. Ezekiel 47 and why we call this prayer stream. So, actually, you know, I I I it's one of my favorite uh passages and and then those of you that were part of the trial of blessing and renewal movement back in the early early mid '9s and onward,

right? There was this whole theme of the river of God and getting the river and stuff like that. And uh and actually I started to see this as an invitation, right? is is an indivi invitation for prayer that you can come in ankle deep and it's refreshing ankle deep. It really is. You get your ankles in there. I mean, you know, I I like just there are sometimes I'm right at the ocean, especially if it's a little too gently. I just get my feet in. I'm happy, right? But um but then it's or come knee deep or and when we see this pasture past or passage he moves a little further down another thousand cubics goes a waist steep and then goes down a little further and goes to the point where up

to his shoulders and they swim it right and then you see what's happening in the river. So the river as it the river touches actually the river flows into the dead sea. That's that's the analogy. It flows into the deadest of the deadest water on the planet. That's where it flows. Flows into this dead dead place and brings it alive. Brings it alive. And we were talking about James 3 a little bit earlier about how can salt water and fresh water come out of out of your mouth. And I one of the way I actually think you can eradicate salt water from coming your mouth out of your mouth out of your innermost being. How do you do that is get in the river to swim in that river because when we

see that river what it does when it flows into the salt water, right? When it flows there, it causes things to come alive. You see man on the bank, those fishers of man on the bank, you see trees of healing on the bank, see all these fish in the water, you see all this life that is happening. So the evidence of James 3 is one thing, not cursing. Yep. Not cursing. That's right. That all comes out. you want to curse, you got to get into you you got to have a swimming prayer life because it eradicates all the salt water. And that's it is that's that's basically it's true because when you're in that place of abiding John 15, right? You're in place of abiding in the

lane vine. When you're in a place of of of Psalm 27, gazing upon the beauty of the Lord, all of those things when you're having this interactive relationship with God, it's going to change you from the inside out. And this the salt water starts stops coming out and the fresh water starts flowing in. And that all comes from the place of prayer. And it's this invitation to go either you can stay in your knees but you know the Lord is saying come in come deeper and you want to get to the place of swimming. Yeah. that that and that's the significance of of of uh Ezekiel 4 47 James 3 which is just so exactly and I I would add just um first I want to read this so this is from

Ezekiel 47 uh verse three I believe the water that he saw coming out of the temple flows toward or sorry verse eight flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Araba and enters the sea. So if you follow the geography of what he's seeing from outside of Jerusalem, it's talking about it's flowing down towards the Dead Sea. When the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And we've talked about this before. In the natural, that's not how it works. Where fresh water and salt water collide, the fresh water becomes salty. Um, but here we see this water overrules the saltiness of the Dead Sea and the water becomes fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living

creature that swarms will live. And there will be very many fish. Where the water goes, the the um for this water goes there, so that the waters of the sea may become fresh. So everything will live where the river goes. And again, James pulls on that imagery. Yeah. When he talks about blessing and cursing coming from our mouths, he he likens it to fresh water and salt water. And so Yeah. Exactly. And then I would add this one other thing. John 7 is the passage where Jesus stands up in the temple during the the feast I believe of tabernacles and he you know shouts that thing of if anyone thirst come to me and as the scriptures has said if he believes in me as the scriptures have

said out of his innermost being will flow li river rivers of living water. And so, and John adds this little parenthesis saying he said that he spoke this about the Holy Spirit. And so that he's connecting that river of God in Ezekiel 47 with the Holy Spirit who would be indwelling us. And so we see prayer as the act of waiting out into that river in as Ezekiel did in Ezekiel 47. Prayer is one of the main ways we wait out into that river of God. And um yeah, so that's we're going to be exploring topics and talking about just things and through the lens of now let's take this whatever is happening in current events, whatever is happening in government, whatever is happening wherever. Let's

take this and now wait out into the river. How do we wait into the river? How do we get caught up in the prayer stream is kind of the it's kind of our heart in in what we want to talk about and how we want to approach things with this podcast. Anything you want to add to that, Chris? No, that's that's exactly it. That's that's that's really good. We Yeah, we want you to engage. We want you get in there. We want to help you, right? And uh and uh yeah, you know what? It's even even just our our own lives. I know in my own life personally, it's really revolutionized my posture and uh and I would just encourage you. Yeah. Yeah. Go deeper. Right. Then yeah, very good. So we'll close with

this. Uh here's what you can expect from prayer stream as we move forward. Okay. So number one, conversations about prayer and current events. We'll talk about what's happening in the world. Um what's happening in Canada and again just intersecting that with prayer. We'll talk a lot about the intersection of prayer and the local church. As we've already kind of said, our heart is to see the local church become a house of prayer. And I always like I like what our our friend Ray Dirkson from Church Renewal uh he he differentiates between a church that prays and a praying church. We don't want to just be churches that have prayer meetings, but churches where

prayer is in our DNA where it's it's our first is our first decision, not our last resort. And so we'll talk a lot about the intersection of prayer and the local church. We'll talk about the intersection of prayer and politics and government. And I I love how you know that's Chris that's in your history. You you carried prayer and worship in a big way. I know that being in your youth group for a while. I've seen that. Um but then being called into the political sphere and working there for 5 years and now in this role, major thing we deal with just by way of being in Ottawa is the intersection of prayer and politics and government. So we'll talk about that a lot moving forward.

We'll talk about the intersection of prayer and the church and Israel. Yes. And uh we'll we'll look at that. Um yeah, we'll unpack that in days to come. Uh and I would I would especially say, you know, they say with with most topics, you have 10% that are extremely for something, 10% that are extremely against it, and 80% who are kind of in the middle and don't know what to think. Um, I would appeal to you if you're in that 80%. We just want to talk through um, passages where we see in the New Testament especially where we're see we're we're invited to uphold and pray for Israel. Doesn't mean to necessarily agree with everything or with political things and all that kind of stuff. It's

not about that, but about praying for the people of Israel and God's heart and plan for them um, in the days to come. So, we'll we'll explore that at different times. And lastly, we we'll do interviews with leaders and authors who deal with these topics. Uh we don't want you guys just listening to us all the time. We love to bring in other voices. Um and really to have conversations. That's we wanted to start this as a way to talk about some of these things less in lecture form and more in conversational form. This is um yeah, we like talking. We like conversing. We love the, you know, even just how the Lord opens stuff as we talk through and dialogue through stuff

together. And so that's what you can expect from prayer stream moving forward. Those five things. Anything you want to add, Chris, before we say goodbye? That's it. That is what we want to do. We invite you, tell your friends. Yeah, we we hope you know we we do the um like we do on our regular printed prayer stream that goes out every week. It's a little five minute video and and it's nice to have a little exhortation. And that's what I tried to do there with some of us. Sometimes I'm there I'm there on most of the time, but we have others. Brad's on there, Melon's on there. Sometimes Paul's on there. Uh but we found that even in the uh in our prayer schools where we're lecturing,

right, which is good. Uh it's really good and we can unpack things, but it's so much there there are times that I've had conversations with Brad or with others and was like, man, I wish we recorded this because there was so many things that came out, right? We're actually trying to we're trying to try to be prepared for the topic, but we actually just want to discuss and have a discussion and hash out like like like even right now top of mind was the conservative convention this past weekend and there were things that happened in there. Many people are excited about this, but there were a lot of things that weren't really that happy really positive if you were a Christian

because there were a lot of policies that came through that were just abysmal and how do you fix that, right? Except God wants to be in everything. So if you you don't just want to say there don't put all your prayers in one basket right so so you want to be able to stick your prayers in the liberal basket and stick your prayers in because we need to be in all those places right and then we'll look at society not engaging in certain things that'll be a whole other talk I won't even go there we'll save that for a talk right and so that this is stuff we can anyway that's what I'm looking forward to yeah so we're we're looking forward to doing that um with you. We hope that

it's again, we hope that it's encouraging and equipping for you to to pray um to inspire prayer in your circle of of friends in your local church. We want to see the church in Canada become a house of prayer. So, thanks for joining us today. You'll see, you know, we'll be rolling out more episodes. You'll see these interviews. we'll hear those topics and we'll kind of chat through stuff and uh yeah and comment. You can always, you know, if there's something you want to hear us unpack and talk about, you can email us uh info@nhop.ca. Uh we're happy to talk about different topics and uh explore them. Again, we just want to see prayer increase. That's the big thing. So, thanks for joining

with us today. We'll see you next time on the prayer stream. Bye for now.