New worship and prayer movement growing in Ottawa

Craig Macartney
Spur Ottawa Writer

A new group is stoking the fires of worship and prayer in Ottawa, bringing believers together from across the city for extended “burns”.

“We want to see God’s people on fire for Him and deeply in love with Him,” explains Carley Ellis, who coordinates Burn 24/7 Ottawa with her husband. “We also want to see people come together in unity—all denominations coming together to worship Him. We can all agree on the name of Jesus.”

To accomplish this, Burn 24/7 holds monthly events with no agenda except open worship and prayer. So far, their “burns” have run anywhere from four to 48 hours. As the group grows, they hope to run them as long as 100 hours.

Ellis says the evenings are incredibly organic. Their worship style varies widely based on the worship leaders who sign up.

“We gather worship leaders of all denominations. They sign up for a two-hour slot and lead in their style. We’ve had the whole spectrum. There is so much space for God to move however He wants to move.”

“I was amazed at how many young people are sold out for Jesus.”

Ellis met staff from the National House of Prayer (NHOP) at their first Ottawa burn, earlier this year. NHOP was immediately supportive and now hosts the burns in their building on Myrand Avenue, in downtown Ottawa.

“I have participated in two burns. I was amazed at how many young people are sold out for Jesus,” says Ken Smid, NHOP’s associate director. “So many came during our first 48-hour burn, from all over Ontario. It brought me hope that God is moving on the hearts of the generations.”

Smid says the burns provide an environment for spiritual development that you don’t often find elsewhere.

“It’s kind of like building muscle in the gym. Extended prayer and worship strengthens your spiritual muscles and that is good for the Body. It increases your stamina in prayer and worship. It allows you to focus on God and enter His presence in a way that can be more difficult in shorter blocks of time.”

“We really want to see people come back to their first love.” Photo courtesy of Burn 24/7 Ottawa.

On December 2, they are planning a four-hour burn, starting at 7 p.m. They have a longer burn scheduled early in the new year. For that one, they partnered with City on our Knees to hold an 18-hour burn, on January 21, 2017.

“We really want to see people come back to their first love,” Ellis explains. “Our heart is to see people reflect the words from the end of the Gospel of Luke, where two disciples said, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road.’ We want to see Jesus lifted high and to see His church unified around His presence.”

Although the group is still pretty new, they already have connections with 20 local worship leaders. Ellis estimates that their last burn saw between 100 and 150 people join at some point over the 24-hour period.

“Our hope is that one day we could have a national burn, to see people gather from all across Canada to pray for our nation and see His kingdom come.”