Ten people attend event in Central Park

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

Last week 10 members of the New York Mills community braved the wet and windy weather under the Lions Shelter at Central Park to come together to participate in the National Day of Prayer on Thursday, May 2 at 11 a.m.

The first National Day of Prayer observance occurred in 1983 and takes place across the United States in the hope of uniting Christians in prayer for the federal, state, and local governments along with businesses and organizations within local communities as well as their individual residents.

This year’s event was the first to be held in recent memory and was organized by Pastor Stew Burns of the Central Haven Church of NY Mills. He had reached out to individuals within the community to see if there was an ongoing event in the area for the National Day of Prayer. Finding that there was no such event, he decided to organize one.

“So many years I knew there was a National Day of Prayer and it would come up that the next day was National Day of Prayer,” laughed Burns. “I didn’t do any planning and didn’t know of any events that were going, so when I saw it as I was working on our calendar that it was coming up, I thought it would be something that we should do.”

Alongside Pastor Burns was Apostolic Lutheran Pastor Nick Kandoll who helped lead prayer as well. Representatives from both churches made up the resolute participants.

Supplicants took turns reading relevant Bible verses and praying for all levels of the government, law enforcement, military, media, businesses, farmers, education institutions, churches, and families in the areas among others.

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare,” read one participant from Jeremiah 29:7 uplifting local businesses.

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer,” read another from Psalm 19:14 in support of local media outlets.

Burns said that he looks forward to organizing the event again next year and hopes to see representation from all church congregations in the area in the future. He plans to reach out to the participants in this year’s event to get their feedback and ideas for moving forward.

“I think it is something that our community needs and our country needs,” he said, “As Christians we’re a witness at all times. It’s so sad to see so much division, if we want unity, we need to display unity.

“I’d love to see a representation from every congregation and to have others with those skills for organization and planning to come together,” he continued. “I think it could be a catalyst to really bring people together.”