Thursday will be the 179th anniversary of Toledo’s incorporation, and one group will be focusing on the city’s motto, Laborare est Orare, which means “to work is to pray.”
The group members pray in their work, and for the Thursday event they are inviting Toledoans to join them.
At 7 p.m. Thursday atthe Parkway Place Banquet Hall, 2592 Parkway Plaza, Maumee, “ToledoPrays,” which emerged from a network of about 40 pastors called Merge, will involve more than a dozen pastors and other leaders of faith who will offer prayers for Toledo.
To get tickets for the free event, go to pray.500k.org.
“The focus on the prayer is faith-in-Christ motivated,” said the
Rev. George Williams of Toledo’s CityLight Church, one of the event organizers. “We’re not necessarily praying for prosperity of our city, although we’re praying for peace and safety, but we’re really praying for people to encounter Christ.
”The Merge network has a vision called 500K, a movement “birthed out of a corporate prayer movement here in Toledo to see every lost soul in Greater Toledo saved,” the pray.500k.org page notes. For Toledo Prays, “We will be praying for the government, families, media, entertainment, and religion,” said the Rev. Barb Herzog. “We’re going to be praying over the seers of influence in our city.”
Pastors Herzog and Williams were asked about the inclusiveness of the prayer time. People of other faiths who want to stand with them are welcome, “but at this point it’s not an interfaith event,” Pastor Herzog said.
Toledo-area Muslims have held peace rallies and common prayer services open to all in response to hateful rhetoric directed against all Islamic people and the Islamist terrorist attacks that they denounce. Members of the United Muslim Association of Toledo recently stood together with Christian pastors from the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Toledo and Vicinity, Jewish students from University of Toledo Hillel, and other faith-oriented people to emphasize common bonds.
“Orare” in Toledo has not been limited recently by religion.
Pastors Williams and Herzog said all are welcome at Toledo Prays but, as Pastor Williams put it, “I don’t know if it would be relevant to someone who doesn’t have Christ on the same level.” It will be prayer in Jesus’ name, with their 500,000-souls objective, and Pastor Williams said for Muslims, “Jesus is represented in their scriptures, but not necessarily in the same capacity that the Christian faith does.”
Even so, standing in solidarity with prayers for the city has been and will continue to be a multifaith practice.
Pastor Williams shared another aim for the event, one on an earthly, not heavenly, level: to inspire other communities to have similar prayer meetings and have an impact on the region. “I’d like to see an event like this duplicated on a smaller level, like Sylvania, in a sense of saying as the church community gathered together, let’s pray for the people of Sylvania,” he said.
Prayer maps have been printed by 500K, covering the greater Toledo region from “Bowling Green to Lambertville and Bedford,” Pastor Williams said. Prayer points are marked, and there are prayer spots to fill in, he said.
Besides Toledo Prays, Merge is encouraging participation in a fast that began Friday and will extend to Jan. 21. A fast-ending “Pastor’s Prayer Summit” is planned Jan. 21 and 22 at the Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake, Mich. See merge.500k.org for details.
Contact TK Barger @ tkbarger@theblade.com, 419-724-6278 or on Twitter @TK_Barger.
First Published January 2, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
