Southeastern Hosts First National Day of Prayer Breakfast

Southeastern Vice President for Spiritual Formation Chuck Lawless welcomed attendees and opened the breakfast by reading from 1 Chronicles 16:2.

Over a hundred guests attended the event, including Congressman Brad Knott; Representative Mike Schietzelt; Wake Forest Mayor Ben Clapsaddle; Town of Wake Forest Commissioners Faith Cross, Keith Shackelford, Hasseb Fatmi, and Nick Sliwinski; and Wake Forest Town Manager Kip Padgett. They were joined by Southeastern students, staff, faculty, and administration during the time of fellowship and prayer.

After an opening prayer from Cross, Southeastern President-Elect Scott Pace shared a brief message on the importance of prayer, as demonstrated by Jesus’s disciples who asked him to teach them how to pray.

“Prayer really is more about us celebrating, praising God, aligning our lives with his will, his desire,” said Pace. “So as we’re coming to him in prayer, we’re really surrendering, submitting ourselves to him and asking for our lives to be ultimately surrendered to his purpose and his plan.”

“When we come to God in prayer, we’re not praying to an unknown God,” Pace explained. “We’re praying to the one true and living God, and he invites us to pray.”

God’s love, Pace expressed, is clearly demonstrated in the death of his son, Jesus Christ, to save sinners. In Christ, believers have a great high priest before God.

“Therefore, we can approach his throne to receive mercy and find grace in our time of need, because we’re trusting the God who loves us,” Pace said.

We can approach his throne to receive mercy and find grace in our time of need, because we’re trusting the God who loves us.

Following Pace’s message, Congressman Knott addressed attendees, sharing with them both an encouragement and a challenge.

“Recognize that we have been blessed beyond measure in this country to wake up, to have the opportunities we have to be able to pray, to be able to go to someone and say, ‘The Lord Jesus loves you; he can heal you,’” Knott said.

“I will submit to you that it is incumbent upon people in this room to exercise faith, to take some risk, and to really challenge ourselves, not to steward this country because we’re American, but to steward this country because we’re Christians, because this country has afforded all of us and millions around the world a semblance of freedom that we take for granted.”

Knott challenged attendees to be present in the world around them, representing Christ wherever they go, in whatever context they find themselves.

“Let me thank you for the work that you’re doing,” Knott said. “Let me applaud the work that you’re doing. There is opportunity aplenty right across this street, right across this state, right across the country, right across this world. People just like you make a tremendous difference. And I mean what I said at the beginning, that the change that we need locally, nationally, and internationally — it will be better effectuated in this room much more so than the rooms I left in Washington, D.C.”

At the end of the breakfast, Mike Powers, lead pastor of Richland Creek Community Church, closed in prayer, asking God to move among his people and to grant them strength and gospel conviction.