On Saturday, I received a text from Frank Amedia saying he and other Christian leaders were calling for prayer for Donald Trump before the first debate on Monday. Even though it was short notice, I assigned an article to be written. As far as I knew, a call to prayer for a presidential debate was unprecedented.
We posted the article at 5 p.m. Sunday, barely 24 hours before the debate at Hofstra University in New York. I posted it on my public Facebook page. By the time I went to bed, it had 2,700 shares.
Clearly people believe we need to pray, and my inbox was full of messages of support. By the time the debate took place it had an amazing 34,000 shares and has continued to climb since the debate between Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. It has now reached more than 56,000 shares.
Amedia, the founder and director of Touch of Heaven Ministries in Canfield, Ohio, was one of the early supporters of Trump. He hosted a rally last Wednesday along with Rev. Darrell Scott at Scott’s New Spirit Revival Center church in Cleveland, Ohio. At the end of the rally, he led a prayer binding and loosing over Trump and vice presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence from Indiana. Watch here to see how respectful they were as others laid hands on them and prayed.
Charismatics and Pentecostals aren’t usually visible in politics. If they pray it’s behind closed doors out of sight of the media and the public who often don’t understand or appreciate how we pray or how we understand the spiritual realm. Yet there are those like Amedia and Scott who feel what is happening in our nation is result of spiritual warfare and the time to be passive or secretive is over. It may make some of Trump’s handlers uneasy if they aren’t familiar with Pentecostal-style worship, but Trump seems to appreciate it.
Of course, there are so-called evangelicals who are liberal and support Clinton in spite of her policies and beliefs that run counter to what we believe. A number of them wrote nasty things on my public Facebook page.
But I was encouraged by how many feel the need to pray.
The election was one of the topics I discussed Monday with Jim Bakker when I was a guest on his program. We talked about the October issue of Charisma, in which I endorse Trump for president and included powerful articles by Pastor Jim Garlow and Lance Wallnau that we’ve featured online. (That episode of The Jim Bakker Show will air next week.) If you missed the Charisma issue, click here to subscribe.
Monday I was glued to the TV as I watched the pre-debate discussion, the debate itself and the post-debate analysis. To me, neither candidate made any big mistakes and each scored points. Of course, Trump missed opportunities to drill home about the problems with influence peddling and the Clinton Foundation as well as about Benghazi and the email scandal. But there are two more debates and plenty of time to make his case.
Meanwhile, Amedia is continuing the prayer effort with a “24-7 to heaven” prayer website.
“We will be posting prayer points and will keep this momentum going,” he told me. “Many networks are affirming—providing prayer points and sending out information. You can stay connected to the Prayer Watch on revivalone.org. Also, we estimate the total outreach has touched 100,000-plus, taking into account the multitude of ministries and networks. Our goal is to grow the Watch to 200,000 by the second debate.”
We will continue to cover this prayer movement. I urge you to share this article on social media and to check out the website when it’s ready as a way to be involved.
And be sure to pray. This is a critical time for our nation. {eoa}
Stephen Strang