LITTLE ROCK – Anyone hungry to be in the presence of the Lord is invited to a night of worship and prayer on Nov. 9 at the City Center in Little Rock.
In February, Hillcrest Community Church Discipleship and Communications Coordinator Sarah Bowen intended to attend Collegiate Day of Prayer at Texas A&M with her husband, Jordan Bowen, pastor at Hillcrest Community Church in Little Rock, but was unable to go. While at home streaming the event, Sarah said she began praying and the Lord spoke to her through the book of Daniel about prayer, specifically telling her to “pray for revival in Little Rock, but don’t do it alone.”
When Jordan returned from Collegiate Day of Prayer, she learned the Lord was telling him the same thing. Jordan shared he felt the Lord was calling him to gather pastors in the area together to pray for the city with a vision of uniting churches together.
“We started praying about that together, and we met with Bill Elliff … about what the Lord had put on our heart, and Bill said, ‘There are definitely people that are praying for this city. You just need to ask that the Holy Spirit would tell you who those people are,’” Sarah said.
Immediately, the Lord connected her and Jordan with others with the desire to pray for central Arkansas. “The Lord just kept obviously placing these people in our lives,” Sarah said.
After connecting with a few others with the same desire and prayer, a group of about 15 people decided to start meeting at 8:30 a.m. every Monday at Fellowship Midtown in Little Rock with the purpose of praying for the city and revival in Little Rock. They originally only scheduled these prayer meetings for the four weeks leading up to Easter. But the Lord was telling them to “keep praying, keep meeting.”
As the prayer meetings continued to grow, now about 60 people representing over 20 churches, they asked the Lord, “What’s next?” That’s when the idea developed for this United Gathering, a night of prayer and worship.
“There are lots of people from different churches who all have the same heart. We’re all praying for the same thing. Why don’t we do it together?” Jordan said. Aside from their group, he said there are several other churches in Saline County that want to start having weekly prayer times, as well as folks in Conway and Searcy. “We just want to be a part of uniting together for prayer and worship, in bringing churches together, and working together to see the Lord come and bring revival into central Arkansas.”
Jordan said they have been using the word “simple” to describe the upcoming event.
“We want to make it what it is, and that’s we’ve just got to encounter the Lord,” Jordan said. There will be prayer prompts taken from 2 Chronicles 7:14, “and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”
“We simply want to see as many churches as possible in central Arkansas come together to humble ourselves, be hungry for more of his presence, and through repentance turn towards holiness so that He will hear from Heaven, forgive our sins, and heal our land as we see in 2 Chronicles 7:14,” Jordan said.
“It is just a simple time to get together to pray and worship. You don’t have to have any previous encounters with our Monday meeting times or anything like that. It’s just for anyone who’s hungry to be in the presence of the Lord,” Sarah said. “It is a way to facilitate people coming together to just seek the presence of the Lord. We’re excited about it, excited to see what the Lord does, and we just want to pack the place out.”
To help prepare for the night of worship and prayer, folks are encouraged to invite their churches, invite others and pray. For more information on the event, click here.
United Gathering will begin at 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9 at City Center, 315 North Shackleford Road, in Little Rock.