Diary of the Global Week of 24/7 Prayer 2026
Every September, churches around the world set aside a week to pray together as part of the Global Week of Prayer - a movement that began with 24-7 Prayer and has grown into a worldwide rhythm of intercession. This year, for the second time, Brighton & Hove joined in.
Across the city, believers from different churches and Christian organisations signed up for one-hour slots so that, together, we covered the whole week in prayer.
Every weekday at lunchtime there was an open online meeting to pray the Lord's Prayer, with a different voice each day unpacking one line of it.
Twice during the week we came together in person - once at St Cuthman's, once at Emmanuel - to pray shoulder to shoulder as one body rather than many congregations. This is a diary of the week: what we prayed, who led us, and where we sensed God was pointing us.
Monday - "Hallowed be your name"
We began where the Lord's Prayer begins: with who God is. The devotion that opened the week dwelt on God as a perfect Father - compassionate, holy, to be hallowed - the kind of Father every one of His children is invited home to. Our prayers turned outward, into unity between churches, and a petition for those who don't know God, or who have wandered from Him, to find their way back. We prayed for young people arriving in Brighton for university, for the fatherless, for children in care, for anyone who has never known what it is to be loved well - that they would meet that love in God, and find it reflected in His church.
The day closed with a picture that would recur all week: God's arms stretched out across the whole city - its schools, its workplaces, its hospitals - and a plea that His name would be honoured not just in word, but in the way this city lives.
Tuesday - "Your kingdom come, your will be done"
Tuesday's midday prayer connected Brighton & Hove to something much bigger than itself. As part of the Global Week of Prayer, we prayed alongside prayer rooms around the world, led by Gwyn, pastor of City Gate Church, through Isaiah's promise that "the glory of the Lord will fill the earth." We prayed for the persecuted church in North Korea, China, North Africa, the Middle East, asking for boldness, provision, and the strange, paradoxical joy Scripture promises even under suffering. We prayed for places hit by natural disaster, like the floods in Nepal, and for peace in areas of conflict.
Then the focus narrowed back to home. Drawing on Isaiah 49's image of bare hills becoming green pastures, we prayed by name for parts of Brighton & Hove where the gospel has less of a foothold, and focussed in on Moulsecoomb and the people working there: Rev Dr James Harding at St Andrew's, Neil and Jess in their long-term community chaplaincy work. We also prayed for the Alpha course running in Hangleton and the Monks in the City, based in Kemptown. We prayed too for the students beginning a new academic year, whether they know God or not, asking for what one leader called "heavenly rain" on ground that has felt dry for a long time.
Tuesday evening - St Cuthman's
That evening, churches from across the city gathered in person for the first time. Vicar Emily Roe welcomed everyone with a striking image: a fragment of the original St Cuthman's, a church that stood until it was lost on 16 August 1943 - except for its crucifix, which survived. A small, physical reminder that whatever is lost, the centre holds. Her point was simple: Christians don't always agree, but that evening wasn't about agreement - it was about setting differences aside in shared worship to Jesus, and praying together for the city and the people who call it home.
What followed was a night that built in intensity. A prophetic contribution drew on Isaiah 43 - "See, I am doing a new thing… a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" - around the theme of the evening: saturation. Not a single moment of blessing, but a whole-life soaking in God's presence, so that "the city will be won by his love" through people willing to carry that love into it. The prayer that followed didn't shy away from the city's darker realities - abuse, exploitation, people in genuine distress - praying specifically for mercy ministries, Christian and secular alike, working to end rough sleeping in Brighton over the winter. The evening closed with quiet, reflective Taizé song, ‘O Lord Hear my Prayer’, and an invitation for people to bring their own written prayers to the foot of a cross as a reminder that the cross is "the real leveller": everyone equally loved, equally met.
Wednesday - "Give us this day our daily bread"
Wednesday's devotion, led by Paula Turton of St Peter’s, sat with Psalm 103 and Matthew 6 - the picture of a Father who "knows how we are formed" and knows exactly what His children need before they ask. Time was given simply to remember: moments of real need, our own or someone else's, and God's provision in the middle of them.
That gratitude turned into intercession for the organisations feeding, housing, and befriending people across the city - Off The Fence (led by Julio Abraham and Sarah White), City Mission, Time to Talk Befriending, Kidz Klub, the Carpenter's Arms drop-in lunch, Chomp, Christians Against Poverty Brighton, Emmanuel's Care for Our City food banks and community shop, and the Methodist churches' work with refugees. A particular note of hope: Laurel Nathan's work transforming St Richard's food bank into a community café space for ongoing fellowship, not just a hand-out. The thread running through the day was unity - not just between churches, but between churches and the local council - because, as one leader put it, the scale of need in the city calls for everyone's hands, not just some.
Thursday - "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us"
Thursday began with repentance - personal, immediate, continuous, modelled on Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God: the discipline of returning quickly to God the moment we notice we've drifted, rather than waiting. From there the prayer widened into corporate repentance - for modern slavery, exploitation, violence against women and children; for the church's own besetting sin of independence and lack of unity; and for the city's unbelief, self-protection, and comfort. It's a heavier kind of prayer than the earlier days, but it ended, as the Lord's Prayer always does, in assurance: forgiveness freely given, and an invitation for the Holy Spirit to bring a fresh wind of repentance and revival.
Thursday evening - Emmanuel Church: praying for education
The second in-person gathering was given entirely to Brighton & Hove's schools, colleges, and universities, led by Tim Jones, with a Lord's Prayer reflection from Nelia of Holland Road Baptist and testimony from Paula Turton on the Steyning School mission.
The facts laid out that night were sobering. Around 17,700 primary-aged children and 14,670 secondary-aged young people attend school in the city. Nationally, 20.3% of 8–16 year-olds now have a probable mental health disorder - and that's showing up in primary schools, not just secondary ones. Special educational needs stand at 22.7% in primary schools and 26.9% in secondary - well above the national average. Falling school rolls have already forced closures, like Middle Street and St Bart's, scattering children away from friends they'd built their world around.
But there was testimony alongside the statistics: LZ7's involvement in the mission at Steyning Grammar, the team running "encounter" sessions with no direct evangelism but honest, open question boards and prayer spaces, and then gigs where hundreds of pupils responded to the gospel. Real signs, in other words, that the doors are far from closed.
The prayer moved outward from primary schools to secondary schools - for the "anxious generation," for teachers who are quietly functioning as pastors and surrogate parents, for Christian students to have courage - and then up to higher education. Brighton & Hove is home to roughly 37,000 university students across Sussex University, Brighton University, BIMM, and Brighton & Sussex Medical School. We prayed for students carrying the weight of loneliness that so often hides behind "the best years of your life," and for universities – which as a concept traces its own roots back to the church - to rediscover a vision for truth and human flourishing, not just financial survival.
Tim closed the evening by tying it all together in a single sweeping prayer for Brighton & Hove: children, teachers, families, students, academics, universities - asking forgiveness for what the church has overlooked, and asking for courage to become, instead, a people who welcome, listen, and speak of Christ without apology.
Friday - "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
The final online session carried a different energy - leaders noted that this year's 24/7 prayer slots had seen the highest sign-up yet, a real sense, as it was described, of God "getting behind" what's building in this city. The last line of the Lord's Prayer gave the day its shape: deliverance from evil, and confidence to approach what Hebrews 4:16 calls "the throne of grace" - not hesitantly, but boldly, because help is available in the moment it's needed. We were reminded that God isn't a bystander in any of this; whatever the city is facing, He's already "in the equation," and has given what's needed for it.
The final act of intercession asked, plainly, for the churches of Brighton & Hove to keep functioning as one body rather than many - for unity, for protection over the city, for strongholds to break, for those feeling "battered" or isolated to find restoration - and for everyone taking part simply to sit, for a while, saturated in God's love, trusting that a city is changed less by programmes than by people who've genuinely been there.
What comes next
This September's Global Week of Prayer was the second time it has taken place. It forms part of a wider rhythm of ‘whole church’ prayer emerging in Brighton & Hove:
January - Ecumenical Vespers, hosted by the Roman Catholic parish of Brighton and Hove
Easter - the Good Friday Walk of Witness
Pentecost - prayer as part of the Thy Kingdom Come initiative
September - the Global 24/7 Prayer Week
Four fixed points in the year where the churches of this city set aside time to pray as one. We're already looking forward to next time!
Find out more about the Global Week of Prayer at 24-7prayer.com, and about ongoing prayer in Brighton & Hove at christianactionbrighton.org.uk/prayer.