The National Day of Prayer in the USA

Overview

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Overview:

The acronym "NDP" refers both to the National Day of Prayer in the U.S. and to the New Democratic Party, a socialist political party, in Canada. There is no connection between the two NDPs.

The National Day of Prayer (NDP) is held on the first Thursday in May, according to Federal statute. Dates have included:

America's National Prayer Committee created the National Day of Prayer Task Force (NDPTF) to coordinate NDP activities among local Evangelical Christian groups. _1,2 The Task Force fulfills a coordinating function. The actual prayer events are organized by independent Evangelical Christian groups in a multitude of towns and cities. Groups include: conservative Christian congregations, March for Jesus organizations, Christian schools, Christian para-church organizations, etc. Many are prayer breakfasts; others are public gatherings; still others are church services. ₆

NDP events are also organized by non-Evangelical Christian groups, by non-Christian groups, and by interfaith groups. However, we are unaware of any national group which coordinates these events in the same way as the NDPTF does for Evangelical observations of the NDP.

The NDPTF is based in Colorado Springs, CO and rents their facilities from Focus on the Family, a very conservative Christian group which promotes conservative Evangelical beliefs about the raising of children, power sharing between spouses, spanking, prayer in the public schools, rights of homosexuals, abortion access, and many other topics. The task force has been led for many years by Shirley Dobson. She is the wife of James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family. Her predecessor was Vonette Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

The public gatherings are often held at City Halls across the U.S. One reason for this is that prayers are offered to government leaders at all levels. Although people of all wings of Christianity and of all other religions are welcome to attend these public events, the meetings are generally exclusively conservative Christian in terms of the prayers offered and the leadership.

The 1999 Day of Prayer came a few weeks after the mass murder and suicide of 14 students and one teacher at Littleton, CO. Other Days have occurred during the Kosovo crisis in the former Yugoslavia, and during the invasion of Iraq. Turnout was particularly high during those years. Currently, 40,000 volunteers expected to organize tens of thousands of prayer events across the U.S. Countless individuals pray privately.

NDPTF Themes:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force has selected an annual theme for those NDP events that it coordinates. Note that these are intended for Evangelical Christian expressions of the NDP. Non-Evangelical Christian groups who organize separate NDP events generally choose their own themes:

The NDPTF has chosen the following themes:

A Nationally Broadcast Concert of Prayer (NBCOP) is broadcast over a network of conservative Christian television and radio stations and over the Internet on the evening of the Day of Prayer.

References:

Copyright © 1999 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally published: 1999-MAY-5
Most recent update: 2008-MAR-26
Author: B.A. Robinson