A collective focused prayer time will be Thursday at the First Presbyterian Church, 119 S. Pearl St. The event is hosted by the Natchez chapter of Mission Mississippi. From 6:30 to 9:30 a.m., you may drop in to pray silently for our community to come together in the spirit of the group’s focus, which is “reaching across racial and denominational lines to seek out and to build new relationships which strengthen the body of Christ.”

“The message of Mission Mississippi is to encourage people to do what God has said we ought to already be doing,” statewide Mission Mississippi leader Dolphus Weary said. Weary is the father of Natchez pediatrician Dr. Danita Weary.

One of Dolphus Weary’s books, “Ain’t Going Back,” was the inspiration for several meetings at the Natchez Children’s Services building on Union Street. (The group still meets there from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. each first Tuesday of the month and hopes that more people will join). That book and other discussion deepened our understanding of that which divides us and that which — or rather He who — now begins to bring us together. Those of us gathering monthly have grown in our relationships, and it is our desire to bring a larger part of the community together — even if only for a few minutes.

Please come as you are. There is no program or agenda, rather, it is simply for prayer. A handout which the parent Mission Mississippi office used in September states, “Bless us, Lord, to find unity with each other and to work to deliver Your Word. May we be a blessing to others as we strive to be more like Jesus: kind, caring, compassionate, loving giving, forgiving and humble.”

“A movement of reconciliation and unity has to be a movement where we can listen to people who think differently than we do. If reconciliation is only the fact that we’ve got to get people to act like we act, and think like we think, then we’ve got a weak premise for developing it,” a Mission Mississippi leader said. “Unity and reconciliation ought to be that you and I can differ on some issues, but we can still work together and share together because there is a bigger something that we ought to be looking at rather than finding ways to divide us.”

Who would not desire resolutions for the divisions and problems which we read about daily? Reconciliation is a wonderful beginning, but it is a process and a long journey. While much has been accomplished since the days of slavery, current events spell out for us the fact that we still have a lot of ground to cover.

“I think we are in a winnable war in the Christian community,” Dolphus Weary said. “It is not the easiest on, but it is a winnable war.”

So please, let us take one step of this journey. Let us move forward simply by coming together for this time of prayer on Thursday.
Helen moss Smith is a Natchez resident and regularly attends the Natchez chapter of Mission Mississippi meetings.