To the editor:

Recently in The Laurinburg Exchange, First United Methodist Church received an accusation of being a church that is being exclusive and an agent of furthering disunity concerning our attempt at promoting the National Day of Prayer. I wanted to respond to this accusation.

I would ask you, can our churches, town, community, state and federal government have too much prayer? We wanted to provide an opportunity for more people to pray during the lunch hour. The spirit of the National Day of Prayer is summed up well in the verse, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles‬)

Christians today are under constant attack in the world. It would have been nice if the individual that wrote this editorial or any others who have concerns would have called our church office to ask why we were having a time of prayer after the observance at the courthouse.

An attempt at the intentional division described in the editorial would have been to plan our event at the same time as the observance at the courthouse. Once we found out there was going to be an observance downtown, we made sure to plan this one at another time conducive to lunch schedules. I hope that residents in Laurinburg and Scotland County can see past the limited vision of a few and continue to grow together through conversations about disagreements and not use public press or backbiting to smear others.

I hope and pray every church will commit to regularly pray for our nation, and especially join in prayer on the National Day of Prayer as we ask God to intercede on behalf of our nation, community, and our churches.

Please pray for unity in our county as we strive to make Scotland County an even better place.

Rev. Dr. Jonathan Jeffries

Pastor, First United Methodist Church