Lou Engle: Answering TheCall in D.C.
CBN.com Lou Engle has a heart passion to call young adults into a lifestyle of radical prayer, fasting, and holiness. He is the visionary and co-founder of TheCall solemn assemblies, a movement of prayer gathering young adults to pray and fast for breakthrough and revival. TheCall began in Washington, DC in 2000, gathering over 400,000 people to pray and fast for the United States. Since 2000, TheCall has gathered hundreds of thousands of people to pray both nationally and internationally. After a few years of dormancy, TheCall was revived on 07.07.07 with over 70,000 people gathering for TheCall Nashville.
TheCall DC – God Has a Dream
Eight years after the first Call DC, the nation again is at a great crossroads. Lou believes we are facing a political atmosphere that reflects how far the moral foundations of the nation have eroded.
“We knew TheCall wasn’t a one-time thing,” Lou says. “We had a sense that we were in a 10-year season of change because God gave us profound dreams about it. The Lord spoke to me to raise up a prayer movement for the ending of abortion to release an adoption movement.”
After eight years, TheCall is back with a strong emphasis on the issue of abortion and the church leading the way with adoption compassion.
“That’s one of the major themes on my heart and for this Call,” Lou says.
He believes there is a major crisis in America with no hope for man.
“Leaders across the nation are saying that our only hope is united prayer and fasting,” he says. “We feel it’s just an urgent moment, a desperate moment to unite in prayer and fasting for the soul of the nation.”
Lou says that another purpose of TheCall is praying for a third great awakening – the turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children.
“We’re losing a whole generation,” he says. “With this Call, we want to turn our hearts to the next generation and stretch ourselves out. I want to raise up prayer for kids that are dying on drugs and sexual immorality.”
Lou is striving for strong intercession – fasting and prayer for freedom and deliverance.
”We’re also gathering because it’s the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King this year, and we’re calling the races to unite,” Lou says. “We’re going to pray for the integration of the church in the next ten years, bringing races together in reconciliation and unity.”
Forty years ago this year, Martin Luther King sounded a prophetic trumpet to the nation. Echoing the ancient cry uttered by Moses to the oppressive Pharaoh of Egypt, Martin Luther King and 250,000 Black Americans cried out “let my people go” in peaceful defiance of the oppressive edicts and Jim Crow Laws of morally eroded governmental leaders and a culture of systemic racism. Gathering at the mall in Washington D.C the sound was born of “I have a dream” and that same sound still resonates today. Today, the sound is being carried across the pulpits of the pews of America, extending from the senatorial chambers of Washington D.C., to the movie industry of Hollywood. It is the sound of another great movement on the horizon, a prayer and justice movement crying out for God’s dreams to be fulfilled in a generation.
In 1980, Washington for Jesus, led by John Gimenez, gathered 800,000 believers to the mall in Washington D.C. to pray for mercy on our land. Then again, in 1997, Promise Keepers gathered a million plus men on the mall in Washington D.C. The Stand in the Gap gathering marked a whole generation of men for prayer, fasting, covenant keeping, and warring against the pornographic plague that was and still is sweeping the church.
Today, God is summoning believers to that same historic battlefield, the Washington Mall, on August 16th for TheCall DC.
“Let us drop denominational barriers, racial barriers, age barriers, and gender barriers to gather unto Jesus and cry out for an undeserved mercy in America,” Lou says.
The theme of TheCall is – from the old to the young.
“Our target is the young people. It’s a real youth-oriented prayer explosion, but its three generations coming together,” Lou says. “We’re seeking to mobilize thousands of children to come and pray for revival and the ending of abortion.”
TheCall is not an event. TheCall is a movement emphasizing prayer, worship, and fasting for spiritual breakthrough. It is a nameless and faceless movement joining the generations. The primary participants are young people. The musicians on stage are worshippers, not entertainers. TheCall is a grassroots movement. It is a cross-cultural and cross-denominational gathering.
