41 Pray America – Pray! Organizational Guide Perspectives America’s First Solemn Covenant – the 1607 Prayer Proclamation by Robert Hunt America’s First Christian Martyrs Re-consecrating America - Using Our Spiritual Authority A Note About Immigrants An Appeal to Heaven – the Flag Background Pray America – Pray! ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDE All Rights Reserved www.americaspraymeeting.org America’s Prayer Meeting Movement – A Movement of Hope! 42 Pray America – Pray! Organizational Guide AMERICA’S FIRST SOLEMN COVENANT n 1607, a little-known occurrence took place that history has almost been forgotten. Upon landing in the New World, at Jamestown, the nation’s first 105 colonists and sailors, the group knelt and prayed. The I prayer was solemn, intentionally so, not informal or casual. Historians believe it was one of the first Protestant prayer of which we have a record, the prayer transcript, prayed in North America. It was a calculated and premeditated moment of solemn corporate consecration intended to forge a covenant with God on American colonial soil. The prayer, and the moment, was thought to have been warm, sincere, purposeful, and offered to God with the appropriate spiritual protocol. The nation was embryonic, at best. There had been a previous settlement in North Credit: standingcommissiononliturgyandmusic.org Carolina, but that colony had vanished. It was lost. Only st recently do historians seem to have a clue about what Robert Hunt, 1 Chaplain at Jamestown, 1607 might have happened to them. And there was an earlier settlement, near St. Augustine, but all those Christians were martyred. And that is story, almost never told. The Jamestown colony would survive. And God, we believe, took note, as He always does on such occasions. Kneeling by a wooden cross they had planted in the sandy soil; this small group of Protestant Christians dedicated the land we now know as the United States to God. They consecrated themselves and the future to God in a covenant oath of loyalty. “‘We do hereby dedicate this Land, and ourselves, to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to raise up Godly generations after us, and with these generations take the Kingdom of God to all the earth. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this earth remains, and may this Land, along with England, be Evangelists to the World. May all who see this Cross, remember what we have done here, and may those who come here to inhabit, join us in this Covenant and in this most noble work that the Holy Scriptures may be fulfilled.’ (Robert Hunt, Cape Henry, Now – Virginia Beach, 1607) This prophetic prayer declaration has been lost to history, ignored by revisionists. It provides a basis on which we can make a legal appeal to heaven. It is a legal, historical covenant, established with God by some of the nation’s first settlers. God, we know from the Biblical record, remembers such covenants. Those who offered it did so, not merely on the basis of spiritual authority, as heaven’s kings and priests, though such authority is regal and effectual. However, they had jurisdictional authority as well, having been sent to found a colony under the flag of England and for the cause of the king. They believed that this land had divine destiny. … to reach the People within these shores with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Pray America – Pray! ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDE All Rights Reserved www.americaspraymeeting.org America’s Prayer Meeting Movement – A Movement of Hope! 43 Pray America – Pray! Organizational Guide Forgive us, Lord, for our failures to win native Indians to faith in Christ, for the failed treaties, for mistreatment – forgive us! … to raise up Godly generations after us, Forgive us, Lord, for failing to protect the rights of our children to pray openly and study your word. For hostility against the Christian faith in our Universities. We pray for a revival among Millennials and Gen Z. … And with these generations, take the Kingdom of God to all the earth. Father, send a Great awakening to reach the unreached who live among us and propel us to finish the Great Commission. May this Covenant of Dedication remain to all generations, as long as this earth remains… May all remember what we have done here… Prayer: Father, we appeal to the covenantal language of the first settlers, the prayer of Robert Hunt, recorded in heaven and our history, that “from these very shores the Gospel shall go forth not only to this New World but the entire world.” “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s and he rules among the nations” (Ps. 22:27–28). Father, we appeal to the promise of this Scripture, read by Robert Hunt and the first settlers in 1607. Answer their prayer. Hear our voices added to theirs. Fulfill the promise of your word – in our day! The covenant forged with heaven at Cape Henry in 1607 was echoed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. The Mayflower Compact that they forged declares that they also came to American soil… “…for the Glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith.” In 1630, John Winthrop offered the “Model of Christian Charity” to those aboard the Arbella as they sailed into Massachusetts Bay: The Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us as His own people. He will command a blessing upon us in all our ways so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness, and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us… He shall make us a praise and glory… For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Indeed. Prayer: For your glory, send a revival to the church of North America and a great spiritual awakening that sends its sparks around the world. Father, we plead with you to not forget the covenants forged by the fathers of our land. Though there is but a remnant of Bible Christians left, hear our plea – not merely for our good, but for your glory. That our sons and daughters may know You as the Living God, holy, yet gracious. Pray America – Pray! ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDE All Rights Reserved www.americaspraymeeting.org America’s Prayer Meeting Movement – A Movement of Hope! 44 Pray America – Pray! Organizational Guide We cling to the fact of your mercy, the hope of your promises. Raise up true prophets among us. Raise up voices which declare your word, who speak truth, in love, with power. Turn the hearts of the fathers and sons. Heal the generational chasm. We pray for a tithe – for 10 percent of the population to have a radical encounter with You. We pray for an unfathomable Spiritual harvest. We ask for signs – that point to the resurrected Christ. For wonders – that create a cultural pause that forces us to reconsider our wayward actions, our deviant culture direction. Awaken the church. Shake the nation. Soften the hardest of hearts. Shock us with radical conversions. Turn whole cities to You. Sweep over the whole land. Embolden your people to speak without shame or intimidation and yet with tenderness and gentleness. Holy Spirit, may we move as you move to awaken the nation. Pray America – Pray! ORGANIZATIONAL GUIDE All Rights Reserved www.americaspraymeeting.org America’s Prayer Meeting Movement – A Movement of Hope! 45 Pray America – Pray! Organizational Guide AMERICA’S FIRST CHRISTIAN MARTYRS ur nation’s oldest continuing European city is St. Augustine, FL. It was founded on September 8, 1565, 42 years before Jamestown. In 1587, 22 years after the St. Augustine founding and 20 years O before Jamestown, we have The Lost Colony of 117 English men, women, and children who came ashore on Roanoke Island to establish a permanent English settlement in North Carolina. The disappearance of those settlers is still a debated mystery. The Plymouth founding by the Pilgrims was in 1620. Predating all of these, in 1562, was a group of French Huguenots, devout Protestants, members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, who fled to the new world, coming ashore in what is now Florida. In the House Wing of the U.S Capitol, in the ceiling of the Cox Corridor, not quite the most conspicuous place is a map. It is titled “Fort St. Augustine.” This mural denotes the founding of the nation’s first four cities - St. Augustine (1565), Jamestown (1607), Plymouth (1620), and Savannah (1733).2 We know about Jamestown and Plymouth and the later Savannah. Still, few know about the earliest - St. Augustine, or more precisely, La Caroline. This first settlement and is the ‘root’ of the nation’s Protestant Christian beginnings. The settlement may be a prophetic foreshadowing of our future.3 The religious persecution in Europe and the lure of religious freedom in the New World had resulted in an exploratory team that set foot in North America just south of Jacksonville. On May 1, 1562, they placed a marker there for France near present-day St. Augustine. The Spanish, however, had claimed ownership of Florida based on the explorations of Juan Ponce de Leon in 1513. They were alarmed by news of the French colony on what they considered Spanish 2 See this mural at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/uscapitol/6425347721/in/set-72157627880223562/. 3 Sara Ballenger, America’s First Martyrs: The Martyrs of Matanzas (Redding, CA: Encouraging Word Publishing Services, 1999), 9.