Local Clergy Celebrate National Day Of Prayer
People gathered at center court of Penn Central Mall to observe the 'National Day of Prayer'
Oskaloosa, Iowa – The 2012 National Day Of Prayer is an opportunity for Christians of all denominations to join together with a single purpose, to pray for the country and its leaders.
Why have a national day of prayer? This explanation comes from the National Day of Prayer website, “Because of the faith of many of our founding fathers, public prayer and national days of prayer have a long-standing and significant history in American tradition. The Supreme Court affirmed the right of state legislatures to open their sessions with prayer in Marsh vs. Chambers (1983).”
The 61st Annual National Day of Prayer, with the theme of ‘One Nation Under God’ also focused on prayer for local and state leaders, such as Oskaloosa’s Mayor Dave Krutzfeldt, and the Oskaloosa City Council, along with emergency personnel.
Pastor Dave Childers of Gateway Church of the Nazarene said, “Well, I think there’s over 300,000 churches in America. Pastors have the ability to touch the grass roots, and so this is a great opportunity for us to be exemplary in prayer and to encourage our people, regardless of their denomination or affiliation spiritually, to call upon God to bless our nation.”
Childers doesn’t think it’s difficult for people to come out and express their Christian faith in such a public setting. “I think it’s good for the churches to work together. You know, we sing ‘God Bless America’, other spiritual things in our culture and it’s like anything, not everybody can come to a one half-hour event, it’s good for our churches and pastors to work together.”
Reverend Bill Tvedt of Jubilee Family Church, who was originally there just as a participant, stepped forward to help when scheduled speakers were unable to be there because of a funeral.
I posed the question to Tvedt of why he believed this National Day of Prayer is important to our nation. “I believe it’s very interesting to take note that our President has no longer acknowledged the National Day of Prayer as a acknowledged thing of the federal government, which I find very disturbing. He has been bringing in national acknowledgement of the Muslim religion and of Muslim events being invited to Washington. Last year at the Day of Prayer had been cancelled, the next week 50,000 Muslims came to Washington D.C. for a nationally endorsed gathering. So, our country needs prayer, and I believe if it ever needed prayer, it’s now. I believe there’s a movement away from a Christian-based culture to a secular-based culture and the federal government is doing that, and I think that we need to pray that we move away from that. I think that’s one of the most important things we need be cognizant [aware] of in our prayer today.”
