Lou Engle Targets Racial Divide With 40-Day Fast

While some are still talking about The Response in Houston, Lou Engle has his eyes set on TheCall in Detroit.

TheCall is a prayer movement gathering young adults to pray and fast for breakthrough and revival. TheCall Detroit is set for Nov. 11. Intercessors will gather in the Motor City for 24 hours of prayer and fasting.

“We are coming together, daring to believe that if the church can unite in prayer, it can actually begin to be a healing for the fractured society of America,” says Engle, the visionary and co-founder of TheCall and a member of the leadership team at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo.

Engle and his supporters are in the midst of a 40-day fast that started on Sept. 29 and ends after the Detroit prayer rally. At TheCall Detroit, Engle is emphasizing ethnic unity.

“God used a black man in Los Angeles named William Seymour along with a white man named Frank Bartleman to birth the Azusa Street revival,” Engle says. “When white and black came together, the color line was washed away by the blood of Jesus and God poured out His Spirit.”

Engle says when he shared his vision for a 40-day fast with the leaders of the Church of God in Christ in Detroit, they said their bishop called a 40-day Elijah fast starting on the same day. Engle believes it’s a sign from heaven.

“So we’re calling the whole nation to fast and pray for the breaking of the racial divide and racism off of our lives, bringing us together in His house of prayer for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which is really our only hope in America,” Engle says.

“In Detroit, we are going to call for that Elijah anointing—something stronger than the rebellion that can challenge the breakdown in Detroit and heal our economic breakdown. We need Jesus.”

At TheCall Detroit, Engle says the prayer focus will also include petitions for God to break the power of bloodshed both in the inner cities and concerning the unborn. He believes that the church in America must unite together to release the sound of justice. And he believes that God wants to release an Elijah fast that can break our compromise of sexual immorality.