"In the mid 1700s, pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards coined the term “concerts of prayer” to describe corporate gatherings of Christians for intercession and spiritual renewal. Regular prayer meetings at the time became a spark for the First Great Awakening in the United States.
Similarly, the Third Great Awakening was largely initiated and sustained through a movement of prayer. In 1857, Jeremiah Lanphier started a noon prayer meeting on Manhattan’s Fulton Street. The meeting quickly grew to several thousand business leaders and revival spread across the country, spawning some 2 million conversions and great works of social reform. Slavery was cut short in the United States through the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865 largely because of this awakening. The Salvation Army, The Christian and Missionary Alliance, and other Christian movements found their birth during this period, and the mighty Student Volunteer Movement was launched which sent approximately 25,000 students to the mission field in the coming decades.
Such corporate gatherings for prayer and around-the-clock Prayer Watches have worked together through history to strengthen prayer ministry. The New York City “Concerts of Prayer” initiative, for example, combined their Concerts of Prayer with a Prayer Watch that united 35 churches in 1995. The combined effort continued and over the next five years, the murder rate in New York City dropped 70%, making it one of the safest cities in the country with over a million people" -- Concerts of Prayer [click to read].
Henderson County Ministerial Association.
Spark 2013 [click to read] begins May 12, 2013 and continues through May 19, 2013.
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