The Leadership of the Gathering United Prayer and Worship effort is designed to enable each pastor and leader equal input into the decision of the format, structure and planning of this event. In very real sense, this effort will be and must be led by all the pastors and leaders from this city and region who are willing and able to become involved.

This effort started and is only possible because of the countless prayers which have been offered up by individuals, churches and groups for the unity and for the witness of the Church in Grand Rapids and the surrounding region.

Because of these very many prayers, toward the end of the Summer of 2009, a diverse group of pastors and leaders who had been organizing various united prayer times in Grand Rapids came together to consider a way to invite churches to come together in order plan and participate in a united prayer event. In November this “Steering Committee” hosted an event which about 100 people attended representing a diverse 40 churches and 16 organizations. The feedback was very positive and so this effort moved on to the next stage of planning. In December, the pastors and leaders who were able to attend the next meeting, came together for some initial decisions and then broke into four planning teams, each person choosing where they wanted to contribute. These teams are:

Service Planning

Promotions / Marketing

Prayer for the Event

Finance

As mentioned, this structure was intentionally created to allow each pastor or leader equal influence and leadership in the planning of this event. We will continue to meet as a large group once a month to pray and to hear the progress of these teams, and then to meet as teams afterwards. The teams may also meet between times to accomplish their work. If you would like to attend these meetings and help plan this event, please send an email or call letting us know your desire and how you would like to help.

The original steering committee will also continue to meet monthly to ensure that the committees are on track to accomplish what needs to be done, but we want to stress that all decisions concerning the event will be made by the teams themselves.

It is our hope and prayer that this event would help us as the body of Christ to learn how to pray together so that we would be inspired and empowered to have ongoing prayer and worship gatherings in this city and region. After this initial event, we will have an opportunity to re-constitute the planning teams as well as the steering committee to help achieve this goal of ongoing unity in prayer by the churches of this city and region.