In the lead-up to Pentecost weekend, 6 to eight June, churches throughout the UK are preparing for a 36-hour, round the clock prayer event, marking a major a part of the broader Shine Your Light 2025 evangelism initiative.
The campaign, organised by the National Day of Prayer and Worship (NDOPW), goals to bring together believers in prayer, unity, and public witness at a time of rising national division and cultural unrest.
It follows a parliamentary reception at Portcullis House on Westminster earlier this month, which brought together a broad coalition of greater than 100 Christian leaders from over 60 Christian bodies to officially begin Shine Your Light 2025.
Organised in collaboration with MP Jim Shannon, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the International Freedom of Religion and Belief, the reception celebrated the campaign’s momentum and previewed upcoming events geared toward reclaiming public faith in Britain.
The flagship event for Pentecost weekend shall be 72 continuous hours of united prayer for the UK, going down online through NDOPW’s Zoom-based “Prayer Room”.
Thousands of believers from all 4 nations of the UK are expected to participate.
The prayer marathon will begin at midnight on Thursday 5 June, with worship from gospel musician Noel Robinson and an address by Dr Jonathan Oloyede, NDOPW and Shine Your Light founder and convenor.
“At a time where many church leaders are reporting God at work across our nation in recent and surprising ways, our response as a Church have to be to hope earnestly for a mighty moving of God’s Spirit, and for all Christians to be open to be led by the Spirit wherever he may lead,” Dr Oloyede said.
Additional highlights over the weekend include a time of intercessory prayer on Saturday afternoon, offering spiritual “prayer cover” for The King’s Army evangelistic outreach going down at Trafalgar Square in central London.
At 7pm on Sunday, Dr Oloyede will lead a live-streamed Pentecost Sunday prayer session from Canterbury.
Over the course of the weekend, partner churches will host their very own evangelistic activities, prayer walks, and outreach events in tandem with the national effort – continuing the street-level focus that saw over 1,500 churches participate in December’s Shine Your Light Christmas events across town centres and marketplaces.
The Pentecost weekend of prayer has drawn endorsement from the Evangelical Alliance and a growing variety of national church bodies.
Since its inception in 2023, Shine Your Light has witnessed rapid growth. Church involvement has greater than doubled in a 12 months, with congregations from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland increasingly joining the movement.
At the Westminster event, church leaders shared testimonies in regards to the impact from last 12 months’s Christmas outreach efforts in cities including Birmingham, Bedford, and Canterbury, and from rural communities in Wales and Scotland.
Dr Oloyede, in his keynote remarks, stressed the symbolic and spiritual importance of launching the campaign in Parliament: “Seeing over 100 Leaders in Parliament this week speaks of how much the Lord’s hand is on this call for mission, unity, and prayer to come back together. We can now not separate the three – but bring them together as one.
“Shine Your Light has grown since 2023, but there may be more that we want to do because the Church to reclaim our confidence within the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“Praying at the guts of Westminster is a symbolic sign of the ripples needing to exit. As we prepare for Pentecost in a number of weeks’ time, allow us to start praying for our communities that they might be open to the move of the identical Holy Spirit which fell at Pentecost.”
MP Jim Shannon echoed these sentiments: “Seeing many Christians from across the entire of the Isles in Parliament was exactly what the spirit of Shine Your Light is about.
“I commend the boldness of Christians taking a stand to be sure that God’s light is visible in our world of darkness.
“I’m expectant of greater things in 2025 if we will multiply the eagerness within the room to each community in these Isles. I’m praying for what God might do next.”
 In the lead-up to Pentecost weekend, 6 to eight June, churches throughout the UK are preparing for a 36-hour, round the clock prayer...){kind=link}