Community events for National Day of Prayer

Join local community members and churches in prayer on Thursday, May 5. The nationally recognized National Day of Prayer is held the first Thursday of May each year. Across the country, groups gather to pray on behalf of America’s leaders and families. In 1952, Congress created a resolution to recognize the day, and President Harry Truman signed it into law. Two events will be held in the West Orange area. Visit one or both to join in the prayer. To learn more about the National Day of Prayer, visit nationaldayofprayer.org. 

IF YOU GO

Afternoon service

WHERE: Around the flagpole at Florida Hospital Winter Garden, 2000 Fowler Grove Blvd., Winter Garden.

WHEN: Noon Thursday, May 5

DETAILS: The service begins with music from the Foundation Academy Choir, followed by a short message and a few group prayers for our community. Attendees are then invited to enjoy free food, blood pressure checks and a fire engine. 

Evening service

WHERE: New Horizons Christian Church, 1330 Winter Garden-Vineland Road, Winter Garden. 

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday, May 5

DETAILS: This program includes music, Scripture readings and prayer led by local ministers. The program intends to focus on prayer as applied to Bible topics, covering a variety of needs in the United States. 

POWER OF PRAYER

WHY SHOULD WE PRAY?

“If prayer is our conversation with the Lord — if we’re God-fearing and God-realizing people — it’s our opportunity to communicate, to get to know, to experience God’ s love. I think that prayer is extremely important for us to keep in touch with God and what God wants to be a part of. Without prayer, we could say that we’re connected with God, but without it we aren’t.”

— The Rev. John Giel, 

Holy Family Catholic Church

HOW DO WE PRAY?

“One of the big misconceptions about prayer is there’s some sort of secret language or code, this fancy language that you need to use to talk to the Creator of the universe, and it’s really just a simple conversation that’s reverent to our Creator.”

— Family Pastor Will Blaine, First Baptist Church of Winter Garden

WHY IS THE NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER IMPORTANT?

“I think that prayer is very important; critical. I hope that we never do anything without bathing it in prayer. Specifically, this event has to do with national events and things like that and just seeking God’s will for those things. But I think from the big to the very little, from the really broad-reaching things that affect the whole world to the very personal things that are just between me and God, I think that we hope that we bathe everything in prayer. What we don’t we need to repent of that.” 

— Pastor Frank Foreman, New Horizons Christian Church

“The National Day of Prayer is important because it spans across cities and communities and churches, offering for all people to come together to pray for the needs of our communities, our cities and our nation. …There’s synergy and power in prayer when we come together. Jesus said, ‘Where two or more are gathered together, I am in the midst of them.’”

— The Rev. Russell T. Belcher, First United Methodist Church of Winter Garden

WHY SHOULD WE PRAY TOGETHER?

“It’s hard to hate somebody that you pray with or eat with. The more we pray together as people, especially across denominational lines, the more likely we are to love each other and get along and work together to make a difference in our community, than we are to snipe at each other and criticize each other.” 

— The Rev. Tom Rutherford, Church of the Messiah