National Day of Prayer Task Force Expands Operations Through Gift from Harvest Prayer Ministries
The National Day of Prayer Task Force, which mobilizes thousands of gatherings of the National Day of Prayer across all 50 states and in Washington D.C., is expanding its operations through a generous gift from Harvest Prayer Ministries.
Harvest Prayer Ministries, who for the past 25 years has equipped pastors and leaders across America to develop prayer ministries in their churches, has gifted its resource division to the National Day of Prayer Task Force. The gift includes the Church Prayer Leaders Network and its PrayerLeader.com online platform, PrayerShop Publishing with all published assets and the Prayer Connect Magazine.
Combined, the gift adds more than 20,000 constituents, plus hundreds of print and online resources, to the National Day of Prayer Task force, and arms the organization with a publishing house capable of producing up to eight books a year, a quarterly magazine and a store fully equipped with a processing center and fulfillment system.
"At a time when our nation is reeling from another heartbreaking tragedy, when people are looking for answers to their pain and a way forward for us to heal and be whole again, it has never been more important for Christians to pray fervently for a spiritual awakening in America," said Dr. Ronnie Floyd, president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force.
"This is precisely why we are so thrilled for Harvest Prayer Ministries' generous gift. These resources strengthen our ability to equip pastors, ministry leaders and churches to be more effective in gathering and calling their communities to prayer. Most important, the gift broadens the scope of the National Day of Prayer beyond a single day, helping us to mobilize Americans to pray daily for our nation and our communities."
"America might need a thousand solutions for the challenges we currently face, but no solution we can come up with will be able to accomplish more than our unified prayers," Dr. Floyd said.
For Dave Butts, president and founder of Harvest Prayer Ministries, donating a significant portion of the ministry he and his wife Kim started was a matter of seeing the larger picture.
"As we see the desperate need in our nation for revival and spiritual awakening, individual ministries like ours must stop protecting their own turfs and work together toward the greater purpose of God's Kingdom," said Butts. "We believe in the National Day of Prayer Task Force's mission to mobilize Christians to unified prayer for America, and we pray this gift will expand, strengthen and take this mission to a new level."
As part of the gift acquisition, Jonathan Graf, vice president of resources at Harvest Prayer Ministries, and an additional employee will join the National Day of Prayer Task Force. Graf will bring his expertise in digital content marketing to the National Day of Prayer Task Force, expanding its content creation and resource division.
"I am both humbled and excited to join the National Day of Prayer Task Force. Together we have the opportunity to reach more people, equip more churches and create a prayer movement that can change America," said Graf.
Officially, the acquisition will occur in March, but the two ministries will complete the gift acquisition after the 2018 National Day of Prayer on Thursday, May 3, when millions of Americans will gather in Washington D.C. and across thousands of events in all 50 states to pray together for America. Anchored around Ephesians 4:3, this year's National Day of Prayer theme is "Pray for America — Unity."
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the senior pastor of Cross Church and president of the National Day of Prayer, which each year mobilizes millions of Americans to unified public prayer for the United States. He's the immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Follow him on Twitter @ronniefloyd.
The National Day of Prayer was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the amended law designating the first Thursday of May as a day of national prayer. Every year, millions of Americans, in tens of thousands of meetings across all 50 states, come together for unified public prayer for America. Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force.
