National Prayer Accord

AMERICA’S NATIONAL PRAYER ACCORD

Hundreds of church leaders representing some 200,000 churches, 70 denominations and hundreds of ministries signed and issued the following on Palm Sunday 1999:

Call for Extraordinary Prayer…

In recognition of:

• our absolute dependence upon God

• moral and spiritual crises facing our nation

• our national need for repentance and divine intervention

• our great hope for a general awakening to the Lordship of Christ, the unity of His Body and the Sovereignty of His Kingdom

• the unique opportunity that the dawn of a new millennium presents to us for offering the gospel of Christ to everyone in our nation

We strongly urge all churches and all Christians of America to unite in seeking the face of God through prayer and fasting, persistently asking our Father to send revival to the Church and spiritual awakening to our nation so that Christ’s Great Commission might be fulfilled worldwide in our generation.

Call for United Action…

Therefore, we humbly, yet strongly, request all churches and all Christians to join together, at a minimum, in the following five rhythms of prayer:

• by daily spending time with the Lord in prayer and in the reading of His Word so as to yield ourselves fully to the control and empowerment of the Holy Spirit

• by weekly humbling ourselves before God by designating a day or part of a day for united prayer with fasting – Friday, if possible – as the Lord leads

• by monthly designating, in individual churches, one service for concerted prayer emphasizing this call, with special focus on its neighborhood applications

• by quarterly assembling in multi-church prayer events emphasizing this call, with special focus on its city-wide applications

• by annually participating in nationwide prayer events emphasizing this call, with special focus on national and global applications

Related Articles:

Historic Prayer Accord Reinstated 1999 PDF 70K

Friday “Watch-Fires”

By Gary Bergel

The U.S. Military is currently deployed to more locations globally than ever before in our nation’s history. The Pentagon announced in March that U.S. troops are becoming militarily engaged in Colombia. The situation in Iraq and Iran has resulted in more than 250,000 U.S. troops deployed in a regional Middle East triangle formed by Turkey, Afghanistan and Somalia. In addition to the Middle East, we can expect open warfare to erupt, or for U.S. Special Forces to be actively engaged in the war against terrorism in these primary deployment regions: Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Pacific, South America, Southern Asia, Western Europe.

On July 7, 1999, Clinton Administration Secretary of Defense William Cohen stood in Washington and said, “Welcome to the grave New World of Terrorism.” He warned that every American city had become a potential “battlefront.” On January 31, 2001, the Rudman-Hart Commission on National Security issued its finding that “the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack. A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century.” That attack happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on. Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!”

Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), Battle Hymn of the Republic

I believe that President George W. Bush’s 2001 State of the Union speech declaration that North Korea, Iran and Iraq are an “Axis of Evil” is proving to be as much of a prophetic turning-point statement as was President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 “Evil Empire” speech declaring that the Soviet Union was “the locus of evil in the modern world.”

No “sane” person likes war. Yet, the most sane man who ever lived, Jesus Christ, never said that war would cease before His return. Instead, He warned that we will “hear of wars and rumors of wars,” but cautioned that we not enter into a spirit of “alarm” because “all these things must come to pass.”

But Jesus also stated: “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all the nations [ethnos], and then the end shall come.” (Matthew 24:6-14)

Jesus knew that the ethno-religious strife, which so often erupts into bloody combat, would continue until His return. But, He also knew that these ethnic struggles for identity and freedom, and the shifting of borders, and the tragic displacement of people as refugees would cause many, many men and women to “grope for Him and find Him.” (Acts 17:26-27) This is why Jesus has been called the “desire of the nations.”

God is Sovereign and can use all things for His kingdom redemptive purposes—even war. Does this make war good? No. It is one of the most bitter fruits springing from humanity’s rebellion and fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Yet, God desires and does redeem human beings in the midst of it. This higher redemptive work of God must remain our highest intercessory focus.

As we deployed for war with Iraq, I found myself reflecting on the Great Awakening that was underway before and during the Revolutionary War. Even before and during America’s very bloody Civil War, God was mightily at work to redeem. Many of you will also recall that a great moving of God swept throughout military ranks just prior to the start of the Persian Gulf war in 1991. And, there are accounts of battlefield conversions. These all reveal the Father heart of God—His great desire to woo and redeem, even in the midst of calamity and war.

I woke one morning with this chorus from Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic “singing” in my spirit: “I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps.” I sensed the Lord was calling for war “watch-fires” at this time.

I have been “haunted” by the call issued by hundreds of church leaders on Palm Sunday 1999 as part of a National Prayer Accord—that we would affirm our dependence upon God, recognize the crisis and severity of the hour, humble ourselves and unite to seek the face of God in prayer and fasting one day each week—“Friday, if possible.”

Have we fully walked this out? Not yet. Why not? Is this not a time to do so? Will we build Him altars in the “dews and damps” of generation-long warfare? Or, will we go about busy-ness as usual? If so, many more than the Lord desires will die unredeemed.

Will you prayerfully consider gathering with others around a weekly Friday prayer and fasting “watch-fire?” I guarantee that, if you do, you will see the face of Jesus there.

Remember, we meet for prayer the first Friday of every month.

Friday "Watch Fires" PDF 70K