Playing For An Empty Room... Well, Not Really...

Lately I have been playing electric guitar for a worship team at IHOP that covers the Saturday 6 AM - 8 AM set every week. 6:00 AM is the time that the nightwatch is ending their day and the day-time teams start their day. Usually, the prayer room is pretty laid back on the weekends, so the 6 AM set is especially slow, or so it seems.

I recall one Saturday morning I woke up at 5:00 AM, rolled out of bed, and slowly made my way to the prayer room for what seemed like another normal 6 AM set. There were probably 10 people total in the prayer room that morning, so it didn't seem like a very important set at all. We played well and focused on God more than the room, but we figured we had only played well for 10 people (and God, of course : ).

What we didn't know was that we were live on GODTV in more than 200 countries and more than 15,000 viewers were logged in to the online web stream in other parts of the world... and we had no idea. What seemed to us like another normal set that we may have even blown-off was actually one of the largest sets of the week in other time-zones around the world.

This served as a good reminder that we are not in the prayer room at 6 AM for ourselves or even for those in the room. Ultimately, we are there to minister to GOD's heart whether anyone is watching or not.

The fun part about the prayer room is that you never know who is watching, whether the room is full or empty. In the end, it's for an audience of one...