With work on the one-mile access road due to begin this autumn, the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer will soon start to take shape.
I caught up with founder Richard Gamble for the latest on the Christian monument, which, at 169ft tall, is set to be loud and proud about the goodness of God.
The Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer has been grabbing headlines for months. For those who are not in the know, what is it?
RG: It’s a colossal piece of public art, a giant infinity loop made up of a million bricks. Every single one of those bricks will represent a story of answered to make hope visible to all who see this Christian monument.
A million bricks – that’s a lot!
RG: It is! A million answered prayers even more so. The concept is that people will see this massive structure from six miles away. It’ll be 169ft tall, two-and-a-half-times the size of the Angel of the North in Gateshead. When visitors get close up, they’ll see these small bricks and will be struck with the realisation that each brick has a story attached. It will point them to the God who answers.
Each brick will represent an answered prayer — quite a testimony that.
RG: This is one of the biggest evangelistic opportunities in Britain for a generation. People will be able log onto an app, type into it whatever circumstance they’re going through, and the app will guide them and show them the bricks that relate to that storm of life and a testimony of an answered prayer. We all know that prayer is a journey: sometimes God says yes, sometimes it’s wait, and other times it’s no. We want to have a whole breadth of stories of the Christian experience when we pray.
Is that what you hope EWAP (are you alright with me calling in that?) will be, a monumental testament of God’s goodness?
RG: I want it to be more than that. I want to preserve the Christian heritage we have in this country. I want the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer to inspire people to pray and to proclaim to this country that Jesus is alive and that He listens and answers. Most of all, I’d love it to be a catalyst to believers in this country to become a nation of storytellers, proclaiming the deeds that the Lord has done.
Quite a bold vision. Where did the inspiration come from?
RG: Seventeen years ago during Easter I was walking around Leicestershire on an 80-mile trek whilst carrying a cross. As I was doing that I felt God telling me this was the next thing He wanted me to do. I thought about it and prayed for 10 years; and then seven years ago I felt God say we need to start.
We ran a crowdfunding campaign to hold a global competition in partnership with the Royal Institute of British Architects and the momentum built from there. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions, but now we are in a position where we have the land, we have planning permission and work on the access road starts this autumn.
So, preliminary work is set to start this September. When will we see this beauty gracing Coleshill?
RG: We are building the one-mile access road in the autumn of 2021. We need to raise £2.5m at the same time in our crowdfunding appeal, which will help us start the build at the beginning of 2022. It’s a nine-month build but all the parts are built off site. We should be completed in 2023 — that’s when work really begins.
From the onset, you’ve had to work with others on this; a project of this size clearly requires a team, a big team. But I get the sense you need more Christians to muck in.
RG: Absolutely. That’s the beauty of the project: across the church we agree that Jesus is alive and answers prayers, and we’ve had hundreds of people getting involved.
We need help in collecting answered prayers. We are trying to get to 200,000 by the day of opening and so far have 26,000, although we are about to add in 75,000 heritage prayers (stories through history from 600AD to 1950). That still means we need another 100,000. We will light up the monument to the level of the prayers answered so people can see as more come in.
One of the great thrills of the journey is seeing how people of different skills have come on board. My dream is that we will have a little plaque on the site saying something like: “The Eternal Wall was crowdfunded by tens of thousands, backed by hundreds of volunteers, a million people shared their stories, and it was underpinned by the God who answers.”
Where can we find out more about EWAP?
RG: Check out eternalwall.org.uk for all the latest updates and information on how you can submit a prayer and get behind our crowdfunding appeal.
