CityView Magazine

publisher's note United in Fayetteville S aturday, April 14, there was a Christian rally at Festival Park in downtown Fayetteville that was simply amazing. The purpose was to have Christians from all types of churches and de- nominations gather to praise God and have a prayer walk for the city and its officials. As far as rallies go it was probably the largest in Fayetteville's history. The local newspaper reported the crowd at 4,000, but officials told to me it was over 6,000. I think the crowd may have been even larger than that. Some of the other famous rallies that come to mind were S in stark contrast to this one. Jane Fonda came to Fayetteville in the early 1970's to protest the Vietnam War and that rally drew a few thousand people to Rowan Park. There have been numerous other protest rallies in the years since, but they nev- er had more than a few hundred people shown up for those. Also, at Fort Bragg there was an atheist rally in late March that fewer than 200 people attended. The event on April 14 was called "God Belongs in My City" and it was part of a national movement. Anthony O'Neal, the youth pastor of Simon Temple Church in Fayetteville, was the 12 | May/June • 2012 chief organizer for the event. He said that Fayetteville was the smallest city out of 23 cities nationwide to do the rally, but Fayetteville has the honor of having the largest number of attendees of any of the rallies so far. What made the rally so special was that so many Chris- tians came together with the power of the third person of the Trinity present and moving with the praise and worship band and the people as well. I looked out over the crowd and I got a lump in my throat when I saw most of the people rais- ing their hands to the Lord in praise. We were all there on one sunny Saturday in downtown Fayetteville praising God and praying for our city. No denominations, no theology, no division. Just one body as Christ commanded in prayer for our city. We were blessed. group of people present. I told her that "we all bleed red blood and when we are in the kingdom together with Christ there will be no difference in the color of our skin." We got a glimpse of what that unity will feel like during that moment in time on that beautiful spring day in April. A reporter there asked me what I thought of the diverse

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