Author Bill Federer featured at National Day of Prayer event at Missouri State Capitol
JEFFERSON CITY – The leaders and the people of the United States have turned to God in prayer from the nation’s founding and throughout its history, William J. “Bill” Federer told Missourians gathered at the state Capitol for the National Day of Prayer, May 4.
Federer is a nationally known speaker, best-selling author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America’s noble heritage. His American Minute radio feature is broadcast daily across America and on the internet.
Missouri Baptists also took part in the National Day of Prayer event. Timothy Faber, the MBC’s legislative liaison, led in a time of prayer for the state’s government leaders. Then, Missouri Baptist minister Matt Goodsell, assistant North American global director at Capitol Ministries, closed the service with a gospel call for faith and repentance and with a prayer of benediction.
Two Missouri Baptists – Bev Ehlen and Bob Vandenbosch – were part of the National Day of Prayer Program Local Committee, helping to organize the event.
“This country has a heritage of prayer,” Federer told Missourians, sharing story after story about how U.S. Presidents and other great American leaders – even some, like Benjamin Franklin, who weren’t pious Christians – called the nation to prayer and thanksgiving.
Today, the need for prayer becomes clearer as a generation of stalwart Christian leaders across the nation age and pass away, Federer said. Their deaths remind us “that our time here isn’t always enough and that we must pray for the things that need to be addressed and for people’s hearts.”
Federer specifically mentioned Don Hinkle, founding editor of The Pathway and former public policy director for the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC), who passed away last fall. Hinkle, who was involved for several years in organizing the annual prayer event at the Capitol, was honored earlier in the event with a moment of remembrance.
The passing of one generation of Christian leaders, Federer added, also makes more urgent the need to raise up a new generation of leaders.
“We the church must rise up and raise up a generation that is motivated in righteousness, morally fit and biblically sound,” he said. “In that, we will see violence cease, alcohol abuse cease, see gender confusion cease. Let us open our eyes to see we don’t have a political problem. We don’t have a social problem. We have a spiritual problem.”
Throughout the end of his message, Federer also mapped out the solution to this spiritual problem – namely the gospel of Jesus Christ.