“Lord, pour out Your love, life and liberty” is the theme of this year’s 70th anniversary National Day of Prayer. The theme is taken from 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
The 2021 date for the event is May 6. The event will be held at Warsaw Community Church at noon, according to a news release.
For those who cannot attend the noon session, it will be broadcast at 7 p.m. on WIOE 101.1 or online at www.wioe.com/fumc.shtml and www.facebook.com/KosciuskoNDP/.
In 1952, the National Day of Prayer was created by a joint resolution of Congress and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. The law was amended by both the House and Senate in May 1988 and signed by President Ronald Regan designating annually the first Thursday of May as a day of prayer.
The keynote speaker will be Todd Gerst, lead pastor of Warsaw Community Church. Gerst accepted Christ at a youth conference when he was 16, “but it was after high school while working on a tow boat on the Mississippi River that I began to grow in my faith,” he said. Gerst met Karen a few years later, and after their marriage, they finished missionary training. In 1995, WCC sent them as missionaries to Papua New Guinea. They spent 15 years working with the Maleu people, according to the news release.
Gerst and Karen have four children.
Gerst is responsible for leading and guiding the staff and congregation at WCC, a well as overseeing development and roll-out of discipleship training and equipping leaders and teachers as part of WCC discipleship strategy. He also serves on the weekend teaching team.
Representatives from the community will be leading prayers for seven focus areas. They include: business, Dennis Cultice, executive pastor of operations at Warsaw Community Church; education, Jeffrey Peck, director of Presby Preschool and retired professor of education at Grace College; family, Rebecca Dawson, counselor and author with Simply Becoming; government, Craig Snow, Indiana state representative, District 18; media, Melissa Montana, CEO/president of Start Educational Media Network Star 88.3; military, Bill Cook, Vietnam veteran; ministry and missions, Christy Hill, professor of spiritual formation and women’s ministry at Grace College.
Dr. Judie Meulink, music director at Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and the men’s quartet, Kirk Case, Steve Meulink, Steve Stauffer and Don Wilka, will provide the music.
