ASHLAND — Ashland mayor Matt Miller began the annual Ashland prayer breakfast with a story about meeting Dr. Charles Stanley.
Stanley, formerly the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Atlanta, had the largest impact on Miller’s own faith, he shared with the crowd.
School, city, county and state leaders were in the audience, along with representatives from several churches and social services in Ashland.
Miller had an opportunity to visit First Baptist, and a tour guide showed him Stanley’s private office and a prayer closet. The mayor became emotional as he shared how Stanley would spend entire Sundays on his knees in the closet.
“Let me tell you: Prayer matters,” Miller said.
Thursday’s annual event included a performance from the Salvation Army Kroc Center’s youth choir, several local spiritual leaders praying for community leaders and a keynote speech from Polish Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski.
Event organizers told Ashland Source ahead of the breakfast that its purpose is to bring people together for unity and prayer.
The keynote
Pawlowski, the keynote speaker, shared about his past and urged the crowd to be courageous in standing up for freedom.
He comes with a storied past, including several arrests by the Canadian government and associations with hate and extremist groups. Some have also called him a Christian nationalist.
Pawlowski spoke about it Thursday, casting himself as the character of David in a “David vs. Goliath” battle against the Canadian government, which he called a “tyrant” during his speech.
“My trouble always came because I refused to bow,” Pawlowski said.
Pawlowski then outlined how, from his purview, his actions have aimed to serve God. But, he said, the church is in hiding. In the last four years, Christians have been tested, he said.
He told others to stand up for the church and against its “enemies,” by which he referenced the government.
“We have never seen a bigger amount of suicides than we are seeing right now,” Pawlowski said. “Fentanyl is wiping out our youth. Will you stand against evil in the heart? Will you say no more, not an inch?
“Not one more child sacrifice on the altar of abortion. Not one daughter lost to drugs. Not one boy even to suicide. No more poverty, no more despair. Not on our watch. Not today. Not in America. I hope and pray that you will rise up, once again, and flap your wings, great American people. It is time.”
Pawlowski also spoke directly to police officers at the event. He told them that if they “refused to bow,” then politicians wouldn’t have power to “do what they did to us,” referring to him and his family.
His speech was greeted with a standing ovation from the crowd.
Wrapping up
The event concluded with pastors from several churches, along with State Rep. Melanie Miller and Cheryl Benway, executive director of the Ashland Christian Health Center, praying for several groups.
They offered up specific “prayer movements” for the military, national leaders, state elected officials and several other groups before releasing attendees for the morning.
Attendees each had a sticker that said, “I prayed today,” to wear out of the event. They also had prayer cards placed in front of them.
John Bouquet, the Ashland County Ministerial Association’s chairman for the National Day of Prayer, told attendees to fill out the cards. He said at the next county pastors’ meeting, they’d pray for attendees based off the cards.
