“This is an historic day,” said South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster.
The 2020 observance of the National Day of Prayer marks the 70th year and this Jubilee anniversary on the North Steps of the South Carolina State house is historic in a number of ways.
The Governor continued, “We are facing a contagion that we have not seen before.”
Chris Smith, Coordinator for the National Day of Prayer in Columbia, SC said, “What’s going on not only in our state, but in our nation right now with this virus, the reaction to the virus…”
This year’s event has been dubbed the “virtual observance”. Some preferring strict social distancing measures have chosen to shelter at home and watch the event live streamed on Facebook and Youtube.
Chris Smith has been the Coordinator of the Columbia event for the past 12 years and wants this year’s observance to be a demonstration of courage, “To alleviate the fear… the Bible says ‘Fear not’ and so we’re not going to live in fear. Its okay to be cautious, but don’t be in fear.”
Aside from the historic nature of having a public prayer gathering during a pandemic, South Carolina has a few other firsts and honorable mentions that are also worthy of praise.
“In the entire history, 70 year history, of the National Day of Prayer, the official noon day event, only two governors have come out. Both of them were from South Carolina: Governor Haley and Governor McMaster; and then we had Pamela Evette come out who is our Lieutenant Governor.”
“And especially in what we’re going through now, prayer is so very important to all of us. It gives people comfort,” said Lieutenant Governor, Pamela Evette.
Representative Stewart Jones also came down from Laurens to pray at the event. This event is led by pastors in the Midlands community from various denominations who stretched forth their hands and interceded for Stewart Jones and all of the elected representatives who attended the event.
“The commonality that they all have is that they all are focused on the Kingdom, not their church, even though they all pastor a church. They’re all focused on the Kingdom and they’re all focused on God’s glory and they’re all focused on that one church mentality of being able to come together as a body of believers as one, united to go do ministry.” said Chris Smith.
Zoe Warren is a photojournalist. He is also a husband, father of 3, missionary, musician, filmmaker, documentarian, and storyteller. He is the founder of Pistuo Productions, a narrative film and commercial video production company, the media ministry God’s Plain Truth TV, the Pakistan mission organization Gospel Fire Army, and the studio music project “Striving and Rest.” This is Zoe’s inaugural news piece for The Standard.
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