After 60 years, local men's prayer breakfast serves final helping
The mornings were early, the fellowship was warm, and the breakfast was hot.
Ten volunteers would arrive at the dining hall of First and Calvary Presbyterian Church at 5 a.m every Wednesday to prepare a feast for more than 100 men for a mid-week prayer and devotional, one of Springfield’s longest-standing traditions.
At its peak, men from more than 25 area churches would gather for the Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast, which would feature a different guest speaker every week.
The variety — eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, fruit, coffee, donuts and more were on the menu — went well beyond what was served up on the plate.
Plumbers, salesman, business owners and community leaders attended, as well as several men down on their luck, seeking physical and spiritual nourishment. All walks of life were welcome.
“We’d leave with a full belly and devotional thought that would puff us up until Sunday,” said David Eslick, who attended his first men’s prayer breakfast in 1976.
On Wednesday, a group of a dozen elderly men met at The Preston Senior Living dining hall to participate in the more than 60-year-old event for the final time.
Participation for the prayer breakfast had dwindled to around 30 a week before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It was put on pause for two years before making its comeback in 2022, but the number attending had grown even smaller.
“It’s kind of sad to see it go away, because it use to be a community-wide event,” said Les Mace, who has been attending the breakfast for 40 years. “We were slowing down in membership, and then COVID hit, which kind of knocked us out.”
As the weekly meetings got smaller, they were moved to Jimmy’s Egg on South Campbell in recent months.
“It never really was the same feel after it was moved from First and Calvary (Presbyterian Church),” Eslick said.
The prayer breakfast started out small with coffee, donuts and a few loyal participants. It grew into a legacy.
Politicians, city leaders, college, church clergy, law enforcement and high school football coaches were among the spectrum of speakers who regularly took part in the prayer breakfast.
On its 50th anniversary, then-Springfield Mayor Bob Stevens read a proclamation letter to the group.
Eslick, whose first breakfast came at the invitation of former Greene County Commissioner Kenny Cantrell, is going to miss it.
“There was a lot of cool things about it,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: End of an era: After 60 years, local men's prayer breakfast will discontinue
