Letter to Boston from Lou Engle/ JHOP

Dear Friends,
It has been a few years since we labored together for the Kingdom in New England through "The Call" Boston prayer assembly. To this day, I am eternally grateful for your labor of love in making the dream of young people solemnly assembling to fast and pray a reality.

Now it’s time to return to Boston and stake a new claim for the Lord!

Prior to "The Call" Boston, the Lord spoke to me in a dream, "No one is targeting false ideologies with massive fasting and prayer." Soon after receiving this word, I began to mobilize for "The Call" Boston. While I was in California preaching about "The Call," I proclaimed, "We need to dig the wells of revival in Boston and close the door to false ideologies that have come through Harvard." Amazingly, about a week later, I received a phone call from U.S. Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas in which he exhorted me to do exactly what I had preached. That word has haunted me since 2001.

Now is the time to act on that word.
Now is the time for a Boston House of Prayer.

I would like to join with you and the faithful men and women who have been moving the heart of heaven over Boston for years. Now is the time to launch a House of Prayer in Boston. This house of prayer will be led by my daughter in the faith, Bethany Yeo, and will be fueled by the continuous prayer and fasting of young people from all over New England. We will continue unceasingly day and night with a continuous chain of prayer and fasting until the moral compass shifts over our education system and revival breaks out in the universities of our nation.

Now is the time to unite.

We have felt strongly led to launch this effort with a 40-day period of fasting and prayer from March 1 (Ash Wednesday) to April 9 (the 100-year anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival). This 40-day period purposely overlaps the college spring break season for most universities so that we can summon students from across the nation to come to Harvard and exchange their partying for a prayer pilgrimage. The flow of students to days of decadence in the south must be reversed to the river of revival flowing north to Harvard for God!

Harvard – Our Flashpoint

While preaching in New England with Dutch Sheets, we spent a day praying on the campus of Harvard. That night at the hotel, Dutch came to me with a holy restlessness rumbling inside his heart. He said, "Lou, we’re not done here. We have not yet fulfilled what is on God’s heart for prayer at Harvard. Let’s do a night strike." When he spoke these words, I felt the wind of the Holy Spirit. So we headed out in the night to find the Harvard campus again. Since neither of us is from the Boston area, we got very lost. Hoping that we were somewhere near the campus, we pulled into a dark unlit street and agreed to put our prayers and feet down there. We stepped through a gateway and saw the outline of a few buildings standing around a dimly lit courtyard. Suddenly, while we were walking and praying, Dutch shouted, "Lou, this is the place we are praying!" Amazingly, as we looked up, it was the very building that Dutch had written about in one of his books. In the dim light, I could faintly make out the engraving on the font of the building, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" The story behind the building is remarkable.

Years ago, when the philosophy building was being erected at Harvard, the president of the University asked the Dean of the Philosophy Department what should be engraved on the façade. The Dean wanted to inscribe the humanistic phrase, "Man is the measure of all things." However, the president of the University had other ideas. Wrapping a tarp around the building as it was being erected, the president reverently decided to inscribe, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" instead.

With authority born out of the force of revelation, Dutch and I decreed a shift over that university … that humanism would fall to the weak voice of Psalm 8: "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who have displayed your splendor above the heavens! From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength because of your adversaries, to silence the foe and the avenger." I believe that out of the mouth of the weakness of prayer, God will silence the power of humanism, the ultimate worldview of man in rebellion. I believe that God wants our universities back. God wants to see revival ignite at Harvard and spread like wildfire to campuses all over New England.

Prayer – Our Flame

Many of you are familiar with my dream of starting Houses of Prayer that provide a continuous chain of prayer and fasting both day and night. In 1996, during a 40-day fast, I actually received this vocational "calling and job description" through the dream of my covenant friend, Chris Berglund. In his dream, a Buddhist house of prayer sat on top of a Christian house of prayer and dominated it. Then, the Christian house began to wrestle with the Buddhist house and began to dominate it. When Chris shared this dream with me, the Lord resoundingly spoke to my spirit, "Raise up a House of Prayer to contend with every other house."

Only a year and a half ago, we rose up such a house. The Lord led me through a series of supernatural circumstances to launch and sustain the Justice House of Prayer in Washington, D.C. to contend for our nation’s destiny. Young people from all around the country have come to Washington in this past year to pray for the end of abortion, for righteous leadership in America, and for the in-break of the Holy Spirit to lead many to His Son. I believe that these young people have played a substantive role by coming alongside the Body of Christ in prayer to precipitate a seismic shift of our nation’s judicial system toward righteousness and justice. I also believe that this is the model by which we will successfully build and raise up our Boston House of Prayer.

Over two decades ago, the Lord spoke to my friend, Mike Bickle, telling him, "I’m going to change the expression and understanding of Christianity in one generation." I believe that the concept of the 24/7 House of Prayer is critical to transforming the expression of Christianity in one generation. I do not believe that the Church has tapped into its full potential through prayer to transform their cities. However, I believe that a new sound is emerging that will test the limitless power from on high that comes through unceasing prayer and fasting.

Now is Boston’s time to raise up a House of Prayer to contend for her destiny of the Third Great Awakening and to close the door to humanism and false ideologies that have come through Harvard and the universities of New England.
Heaven in Harvard
Breakthrough in Boston,

Lou Engle