Hundreds Join Day of Prayer Observances

From Thousand Oaks to Ventura, legions of the county’s faithful spent Thursday toting Bibles, singing Christian hymns and raising their arms to the sky in celebration of the annual National Day of Prayer.

Some prayed over plates of steaming eggs, pancakes and hot coffee at one of the many prayer breakfasts across the county while others waited for the lunch hour to demonstrate their faith.

Although the annual prayer day has long billed itself as a nondenominational event with room for all faiths, Thursday’s observances in Ventura County had a distinctly Christian feel with even a sprinkling of politics mixed in.

At the Ventura County Government Center, Thousand Oaks Christian songwriter Melody Green spoke out against legalized abortion at a noon gathering of about 300 adults and children.

In Santa Paula, about 200 people, including Police Chief Bob Gonzales and Sheriff Bob Brooks, crowded into the city’s community center for a prayer service and candlelight vigil. At Camarillo’s Constitution Park, a sparse but spirited crowd chanted and sang as a husband-and-wife evangelical team headed off on a cross-country “prayerwalk” that will end at the White House.

Farther east in Thousand Oaks, about 300 people packed the city’s Civic Arts Plaza to hear preachers and the faithful from dozens of Conejo Valley churches speak about the power of mass prayer.

“Nothing happens without prayer,” said Norm Pussehl, an associate pastor at Sonrise Christian Fellowship in Camarillo. “We should all be getting on our knees and asking, ‘God what shall we do?’ ”

Repenting would be one answer, said Fawn Parish of Ventura’s South Coast Fellowship Church and one of the organizers of the government center gathering in Ventura.

As courthouse clerks, lawyers, defendants and police officers headed off to lunch, Parish and more than 200 others took part in a prayer vigil in a trestled patio area.

“We teach our children self-indulgence,” Parish told the crowd. “Our arrogance is known throughout the world.”

Instead, Parish said, parents should steer their children away from offensive television shows, movies and recording artists.

Before leading the group in prayer, songwriter Green cited the Roe vs. Wade decision, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed abortion rights, as the beginning of a downward cultural spiral that continues today.

“Since abortion has been legal . . . there has been massive destruction,” Green said. “The ones that are here need our help.”

Green then asked anyone born since 1973 to join her at the podium. About 60 people, including dozens of schoolchildren from a nearby Christian school, obliged.

The references to Jesus Christ at several of the events had one Jewish rabbi hoping next year’s event is more multidenominational.

“They say this is done to bring the community together, but this is separating the community,” said Rabbi John Sherwood of Oxnard, who did not attend any of the events. “It excludes the majority of the American people. Fundamentalist Christianity is not the only show in town.”

At the Santa Paula gathering, a candle-lighting ceremony “symbolized the light in the world,” said Kay Wilson-Bolton, a Santa Paula Realtor who helped organize the event. It also featured a keynote speech by a rabbi who preaches from his Upland synagogue that Jesus Christ is the son of God.

Wilson-Bolton said anyone can start their own prayer event and “it was not meant to exclude anyone.”

“Anyone can have a national day of prayer and focus it any way they choose,” she said. “This was our choice.”