Why 120?
By Dr. Mark Denison
“In those days Peter stood up among the believers – a group of about 120” (Acts 1:15). It was there, in the upper room, that the church was birthed. It was there that God began to move, hearts were changed, and a movement began, which is still spreading today.
But why 120? Dennis Swanberg has written a brilliant book, The Man Code. He captures the magic of the 120. Swanberg says we need five groups in our lives, as modeled by Christ. We need one (God), three (inner circle), 12 (small group), 120 (church), and 5,000 (mission field). We each need all five.
But why 120? It’s simple. The 120 represent the church engaged in prayer. When the 120 gathered to pray in Acts 1, some amazing things began to happen.
- True fellowship took place (Acts 1:14).
- The church found her purpose (Acts 1:14-26).
- The power of the Holy Spirit was released (Acts 2:4).
- The Gospel was spread (Acts 1:8, 8:4).
Our model of the 120 at Revival in Our Time was born in the heart of our founder, Don Haley. But it took time to get to the 120 in our ministry. Today, we are there. Each of our 12 partner ministries has created a group of ten prayer partners. Together, the ministries pray for and with each other. This was Don’s vision years ago. More importantly, it is God’s vision today.
You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you can never do more than pray until you have prayed. John Wesley said is simply: “Prayer is where the action is.”
The heartbeat of our ministry is the prayers of the 120. We send out a monthly list of prayer needs to the 120. Then we join from all over the country to pray that week for the specific needs of each ministry.
Why the 120? Because it worked in the Book of Acts. And because it still works today.