Community leaders, residents, law enforcement, ministers and local officials came together for one moment of unity and prayer Thursday during a noon prayer event at the city market, one of many times prayers were offered from early morning to later in the evening.
Thursday, May 7 was the National Day of Prayer, typically held on the first Thursday in May. The event started with a breakfast and prayer hosted by the Rowan Baptist Church. This was followed by an open invitation to the public to pray all throughout the day, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Lisbon Street Missionary Baptist Church Pastor Thaddeus Godwin and Graves Memorial Presbyterian Church Pastor Katie Rives hosted services in the afternoon and the evening, respectively, at the city market.
“Today was an awesome day to be able to bring a community together,” Godwin said. “To bring churches together and the non-denominations. It was a coalition of having people there that probably don’t worship together, but, in one place, to be able to pray. What I thought about, we have different pastors from different churches, and we thanked God for the power of prayer, talked about our prayer for our city, our county, police officers, the youth, and for the schools. It got a revelation that we all need prayer and prayer reached beyond (our) boundaries.”
For all those in attendance, it was a time of unity.
“For us here in the community, when we do National Day of Prayer, what it means, in my understanding, is us being able to come together and seek the place of God as a community all over the nation,” noted Pastor Eddie Barnes of Clinton Community Church Outreach. It’s just great to have different people and different voices to be able to do it.”
Despite the rainy, windy weather, some 40 people turned out to hold hands and pray together.
“The Day of Prayer reminds us that even in difficult and divided times, prayers have the power to unite people across every background, generations, and walks of life,” Allen McLamb, Sampson County Board of Commissioners Chairman, told the crowd. “It causes us to reflect on our community, to lead with compassion and to serve with purpose. As elected officials, we recognize that responsibility is placed upon us that we have to do for our people. We make decisions that affect families, businesses, schools, public safety, and the future of our county. We need wisdom beyond ourselves, and today we acknowledge that truth, openly and gratefully. This year’s theme is Glorify God Among the Nations Seeking Him in All Generations. It reminds us that faith and prayer are not confined to one age group, or to one season of life. For children, to seniors, from churches, to communities and organizations, every generation has a role in strengthening the moral and spiritual foundation of our nation.”
Seeing Thursday’s turnout gave Barnes hope, he said, that there was a chance there would be more events just like this one.
“I think it’s beautiful,” he said. “I believe that’s something that we need to do more often. My heart is glad that we did it today, but it breaks that it doesn’t happen all the time. So I’m glad that we get to do this, but I wish that it was not just on one day. I believe it should be more often than that. I think it’s beautiful that this is at least a stepping stone towards that in my opinion.”
Godwin shared similar sentiments.
“It was awesome, the weather didn’t stop them,” Godwin said. “It was because they know one thing — that we all need prayer, and they want to come to support those who are praying for them to come; they might get a prayer answered. Because we don’t know what everybody at the prayer was needing, but they know. They know that they came to pray for someone, or they needed to be around somebody who is praying to God so that they can get an answer. That great (attendance) on a rainy day will suffice that we can say ‘boy, if it would have been sunny, how many would have been out’. But that’s not the situation; the situation is that those that came out, to be able to hear prayer and to come together to worship, and it was great.”
All throughout the first service of the afternoon, the crowd listened intently to each speaker as they gave out words of prayer.
“Sovereign God, we give you all honor, praise and glory,” Rives prayed. “You alone are worthy of our worship, and we humbly ask that you forgive us for allowing other things to take your rightful place in our hearts and minds. Forgive our idolatry, Lord. Through the gift of the blood of Jesus Christ, by whose stripes we are healed, deliver us from any false allegiance. Oh, great God, forgive our selfish fragility. We surrender our selfishness and pride and lay down our rights to be offended and to be angry. We offer our false sense of righteousness in our own way of thinking, and ask you to renew our minds. Give us hearts that long to be in agreement with you and your word, allow nothing else to satisfy, but a relationship with you. Thank you for your word in your son, Jesus Christ … Thank you for the gift of salvation in and for Jesus. Thank you that we live in an age where access to your words are so greatly facilitated by technology. We thank you for the gift of you, your holy spirit within us as believers.”