The Bradford Area Ministerium and Destinations Bradford are once again sponsoring a local observance of the National Day of Prayer. A brief service will be held at noon on Thursday in Veterans Square. The event was unable to be held last year due to current COVID-19 restrictions.
All those who attend are asked to wear masks and observe social distancing measures. The service will last around 25 minutes; there is limited seating, so it’s good to bring a folding chair for those who need one.
The theme for this year is “Lord pour out your love, life and liberty,” based on the Bible verse 2 Corithians 3:17. “Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
Rev. Stacey Fussell said this year is an especially important time for the community to reconnect after all that’s happened over the past year with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think people really need to come together and especially around the topic,” she explained. “We pray for local, state, and federal government, businesses, education, churches, families and all those organizations that have been hit so hard by the quarantine and pandemic.”
The first organized National Day of Prayer was established in 1952 when President Harry S. Truman signed a bill to establish a day “on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups and as individuals.”
This initial proclamation did not establish an official calendar day for the event, though in 1988, President Ronald Reagan fixed the date as the first Thursday of May.
Each year, a National Day of Prayer task force establishes a theme, suggesting an area of public life for which to pray, provides promotional materials and assistance for those planning local observances and maintains a website giving information about said local observances.
