National Day of Prayer yields calls for repentance, peace in Lima
May 4—LIMA — Area pastors and civic leaders prayed for peace, revival and community in observance of the National Day of Prayer Thursday.
The annual event at the Veterans Memorial Civic Center drew leaders like Mayor Sharetta Smith, Lima councilors Derry Glenn and Todd Gordon and the Allen County commissioners, who prayed alongside local pastors and a crowd of Lima's faithful for an hour early Thursday afternoon.
"We all are hungering for a great spiritual awakening to sweep our nation," said Theresa Lee, a National Day of Prayer coordinator for Allen County.
Lee invoked the image of Asbury University, where thousands of Christians traveled in February for 13 days of continuous worship and prayer.
"We want to see it (revival) even more," Lee said. "We want safe cities. We want effective schools. We want to live in a republic where justice is equally applied to all, and we want to live in a land where the laws of the land protect the vulnerable from the maneuvers of the powerful, of the selfish, of the greedy and of the base."
Thursday's prayer session was followed that evening by a separate National Day of Prayer observance in Lima's Town Square, which attracted dozens of worshippers who prayed over the city.
Hours earlier at the Civic Center, pastors called on the faithful to repent and lead a spiritual awakening amidst prayers for societal institutions like the economy, government and schools.
"We ask that you continue to bring us together to work as one so that your life can be experienced by more people in a deeper way, for it is your love that heals communities," Mayor Sharetta Smith said in prayer calling for collaboration within the community.
In Faith Ministries Pastor Kim Lyons prayed for peace amid violence in Lima which "causes so much hardship in our families and in our communities," while Lima Baptist Temple Pastor Ben Anderson prayed for pastors to "be bold in their stance for life" and to "fight hard against the evil of abortion."
"Today we confess to you that our nation has become a wicked land where wrong is acceptable and where whatever is an abomination to you is normal," Union Chapel Missionary Baptist Pastor Allen Sudmann said in a prayer for repentance, in which he called on the faithful to "empty" themselves of anger, pride and judgement.
"... So in repentance today," Sudmann prayed, "we empty ourselves of the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts that have not been submissive to you."
