Praying hands

THOMASVILLE — With a national theme of “Wake Up, America,” participants in Thomasville will join over 40,000 others across the country Thursday for the 65th National Day of Prayer.

Thomasville will celebrate its 25th year in observance of this national event at the Thomasville Center for the Arts from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Locally, former American Idol contestant Dana King, Derek Benton and Jamie Nunnally will provide inspirational music and lead worship.

According to Doug Silvis, President of Community Transformation Inc., an inter-denominational association of local pastors and Christian leaders, which sponsors and coordinates the Thomasville area National Day of Prayer observance, Rabbi Robert Ackerman of Beit Shalom Messianic Synagogue will sound the Shofar, a ram’s horn, as a call to worship and prayer and a call to battle for “spiritual warfare.”

Silvis said there will also be public prayer led of eight topics: Government, Military, Law Enforcement and First Responders, Church, Family, Education, Media, Business and Professional, and  Arts, Entertainment and Sports.

“We will have one prayer voiced from the microphone and then take two prayers from the congregation on each of eight topics,” Silvis explained.

The chosen scripture for this year’s event is “Shout it Aloud, Do Not Hold Back, Raise Your Voice Like A Trumpet — Isaiah 58:1A (NIV).”

For the Thursday observances, according to the National Day of Prayer website, Dr. Tony Evans, the 2016 Honorary Chairman, wrote a special prayer to be simultaneously read throughout the nation at noon.  “This recitation will create a huge wave of prayer, flowing from one coast to the other, illustrating the unity of God’s people and acknowledging His dominion over the circumstances facing us,” it said.

    During the prayers for our country, Silvis said, “Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray — not shaking angry fists at enemies, but raising holy hands to God.”