21 Days of Prayer and Fasting

Preface

In the early 1990’s, I served as a pastor in Windham, Maine. At that time, many Christians were feeling drawn into extended times of prayer and fasting, and so was I. It was in this season of my life that I started the practice of fasting the first three weeks of each year.

I had learned that fasting is most productive when it is either initiated or led by the Holy Spirit. I would often ask Him for guidance before entering a fast. As a result, the Spirit led me into this practice of fasting for twenty-one days every time January came around. These spiritual encounters began several years before three-week Daniel fasts became popular.

Across America, the church was so hungry for God. After several years of disillusionment in the late 1980’s, there was a general sense that there just had to be more to this Christian life than what most of us were experiencing. In the mid to late 1990’s, the breakthroughs came. God heard our cry, and times of refreshing came to the church in many parts of the world, including our region in Southern Maine.

While continuing in the River of revival, we sustained our emphasis on prayer and fasting as we moved into the new century. Initially in my thinking, I did not make the connection between our twenty-one day emphasis and the twenty-one day fast in the tenth chapter of Daniel. My decision to mark off twenty-one days was a pragmatic choice. A twenty-one day stretch was reachable. It was a reasonable number of days for leading a congregation into a corporate experience of consecration unto God.

Since those early pastoral years, I have led five congregations in the twenty-one day journey. I have also presented this model to countless others in seminars, conferences, my Developing Congregational Prayer Ministries course at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary and my book entitled, 101 Prayer Models. A number of other leaders have acquired my outlines and handouts on this subject and have incorporated the material in their contexts. I do not claim to be the originator of the popular twenty-one day model, but some of my ideas have been used in the prayer movement. I make this point only for the purpose of clarifying potential questions regarding sources and originality. All glory belongs to God, for it was the Holy Spirit who conceived the twenty-one day model in the hearts of many who were yearning for a move of God in the 1990’s.

A number of people have impacted my life in the area of prayer, fasting and personal spirituality. Some are individuals with whom I have had little personal contact, yet they have been an influence from a distance—people such as Larry Lea, Mike Bickle and David Yonggi Cho.  Literary influences include the works of Andrew Murray and Beni Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California. Others with whom I have been more personally involved include Douglas Small, Kathy Hamon and Steve Backlund of Bethel Church in Redding, California. Most recently I have been inspired by the perseverance and prayerfulness of Pastor Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio. I have greatly enjoyed serving with him these past few years. Yet others have been personal mentors in prayer—people like Pastor Calvin Rogers, Pastor J. D. Simmons and my parents, Jim and Betty Turpin. By crediting the influence of these people on my life, I am crediting their indirect influence on the preparation of this material

It is my hope that this succinct guide will continue to benefit individuals and congregations aspiring to be a praying people. For some it may prove to be one component among many contributing to new initiatives in