My Journey Pioneering The Boiler Room (2009-2016)
A house of prayer missions base in downtown Greenville, NC
In the summer of 2009, we launched the Boiler Room in downtown Greenville, NC. This was a natural overflow of our ministry 6:22 (now Presence Pioneers), which had hosted worship nights and Burns in various churches for seven years.
My wife Shepard and I had a growing vision to see God establish a citywide prayer room in our area - a place of prayer, worship, creativity, mission, and training. We drove around looking at property dreaming about what we could do if we had a building. I shared some of our ideas with our ministry board and others. And in the spring of 2009, I was with a dentist in downtown Greenville who claimed he heard the audible voice of God leading Him to rent a building for us above the Backdoor Skateshop. That space became the Boiler Room.
It was old, stinky, and run down. There was no HVAC system. The middle of the floor literally sagged down so precariously that we worried people dancing during worship could cause it to collapse. We had no money, so we did our best to round up donations for some window air conditioners, a small sound system and used furniture so that we could start hosting meetings there.
What happened at the Boiler Room?
At its core, the Boiler Room was a house of prayer. Unlike some prayer rooms, ours was loud, messy, and creative. At its peak, we hosted about 20-25 hours of live worship and prayer weekly.
Other campus ministries, churches, and groups also used the space for their gatherings. The Boiler Room was never a local church. It was a prayer room and missions base for the Church of eastern North Carolina. People regularly drove from 1-2 hours away to visit.
We hosted a lot of Burn weekends, trainings, conferences, and special events over the seven years.
The coolest photo from a Boiler Room event was this one from a night of worship with Jonathan and Melissa Helser in 2010. Melissa looks like she’s flying!
A big part of the Boiler Room was teaching, training, and equipping. We led about 4-5 young adult internships where interns committed 20+ hours a week to be in the prayer room, receive discipleship, get trained, and serve the ministry. Over the years, three interns felt led to raise support to serve for a season as “prayer missionaries” with me on staff.
Creativity and the arts were a big part of the worship at the Boiler Room too.
In 2014, we recorded a live album in the Boiler Room in 2014 called Let Incense Rise. Here’s a live video of the title track from that recording:
God moved powerfully in response to our intercessory worship in those years. Crime rates dropped every year in the area. Bars closed downtown, with shops and restaurants opening in their place. Many people were healed, delivered, heard God’s voice, and were impacted by their time in the prayer room.
I was 26 years old when we launched the Boiler Room. Shepard and I had been married for a little over a year, and we were pregnant with our first child when we launched. We would have all four of our children during the seven years of its existence. It lasted from 2009 to 2016 when God again spoke clearly to us to move out of that building.
The Boiler Room was step two of my pioneering journey, and it was immensely more challenging than pioneering 6:22 Ministries. The spiritual warfare as immense. “Another level, another devil” as they say. Part of the challenge was our phase of life as newlyweds who were constantly having babies. Part of it was because I was finally doing ministry full-time, raising support (trying), and wanting to provide for my family. Part of it was because of the rigor of building a house of prayer, which is a particularly difficult leadership nut to crack.
However, spending 20+ hours a week in the prayer room during this season provided loads of time to study and meditate on Scripture. During this season I grew as a Bible teacher, and I think I came into my own as someone who can disciple others for long-term impact. Many people who encountered God at the Boiler Room had their lives changed and are still following Jesus. It was a special place and a special season of our lives. It was incredibly hard and incredibly beautiful. Perhaps God will choose to birth another similar ministry in our region again in the future. We will see!
I encourage anyone who can spend a season as an intern or prayer missionary at a similar house of prayer to do so. It is life-changing!
We have more photos from the Boiler Room on the old Flickr account here.
I came to prayer/worship meetings in 2010. Jenn🫶✨🙌🕊️