‘Pray for the City’ Seeks Blessings for All
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Every Tuesday since early April, Jason Cashell has been praying for Youngstown. And he's not alone.
Cashell, pastor of Cross Point Bible Fellowship in Vienna Township, is one of the regulars at “Pray for the City,” held every Tuesday noon in Trinity United Methodist Church in the downtown. He welcomes everyone who shows up to pray about everything that affects the city, from schools and crime to police and officeholders.
Through their prayers, they hope to improve Youngstown.
“The thing is that whenever you desire to see a city redeemed or rebuilt or revitalized, you need to begin by praying for those things," Cashell begins. “One is the people on the front lines. You also pray for what has been broken in this city, so things like the family and other things like crime [improve]. So [we're] really praying for those things, that God will revitalize those things and that we can be a part of that in some way, shape or form.”
Every meeting touches on four areas: confession, schools, family and community. While focus within those areas shifts to reflect recent events and those who attend, prayers rarely get off-topic. The focus of “Pray,” Krueger says, is just that -- the city and all related matters.
“When we had the breaking news about [the indictments of Mayor John A. McNally and Mahoning County Treasurer Michael Sciortino], there was a lot more emphasis that particular week praying for political leaders,” says the Rev. Jerry Krueger, pastor of Trinity. “I know that we had kids who were coming up on the end of the [school] year and they had a lot of tests. There was a lot of focus on that. So there is kind of ebb and flow.”
The premise of “Pray” is to provide a setting for religious contemplation that moves the community in a positive direction.
“A lot of people have a heart for the city. So we we’re sharing the fact that a lot of people were renovating and doing restoration. But we needed to really talk about the spiritual foundation of the city,” says Beth Valantine, Fellows Program coordinator for the C.S. Lewis Institute of Northeast Ohio. “That's the first place to start and we started praying.”
Attendance has waxed and waned since the sessions began April 8. Some drew only three or four -- six attended May 27 -- and as many as 35 have showed up at another, Krueger says.
A few members of Trinity Methodist come to the sessions,so Kreuger and Valantine invite pedestrians just passing by to join them. Workers from the Mahoning County Courthouse across the street, Youngstown police officers, teachers and students, have participated, Krueger says.
To Valantine and Krueger, numbers don't matter. What matters is that people come together in prayer. The May 28 session had participants say prayers for the president-designate of Youngstown State University, Jim Tressel, McNally, and for those who just graduated or are about to graduate from high school and college.
“It's just one of those things that we're going to continue to do until we get the sense that we're not supposed to do it any more,” Krueger offers.
Two months isn't enough time to assess how “Pray” has benefited Youngstown, say those involved, but they believe the city is better because of their efforts.
People care about Youngstown, Cashell says, and as word grows about “Pray,” more will join “and that’s just an encouragement to keep pressing on.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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