Vantage point

What our nation needs

Tomorrow is Presidents Day, and this year we will elect a new one. Many believers pin their hopes on getting Christians into office. I believe Christians must be engaged in the political process. But I also believe there is something else more important, something our nation desperately needs.

In 1857, America was in turmoil and religion was in decline. Then, the New York Stock Exchange crashed and panic erupted. Clearly stimulated by the panic, a small noon prayer meeting in New York City began to grow.

It overflowed three rooms, and it was necessary for other churches to be opened. These, too, quickly filled and soon a large theater was too small to accommodate the crowds. Churches started evening prayer meetings. In short order, there were 150 interdenominational prayer meetings in Brooklyn and Manhattan alone. The fire of prayer leaped to Philadelphia where large buildings overflowed.

Before the movement was four months old, the prayer meeting fervor had spread across the nation. In the Chicago Metropolitan Theater, as many as 2,000 gathered daily. Louisville, Ky., Cleveland and St. Louis were among the cities that counted daily attendance in the thousands.

The meetings were expressly for prayer, but people began accepting Christ as their Savior. A meeting in Michigan saw 500 conversions; one in Connecticut claimed 400.

The body of Christ was blended into a united front as believers stood together in corporate prayer and evangelism.

By 1859 more than 2 million Americans had been won to Christ in a movement we now call the Prayer Meeting Revival.

We certainly need to care about what happens in the upcoming elections. But somehow I feel what we really need to solve our nation’s woes is another revival of prayer among Christians.

Here’s my prayer: Lord, have Your will in this election … and kindle in Your people a fire that will become another Prayer Meeting Revival.

Ken Horn

E-mail your comments to tpe@ag.org.