Hi Baker,

Thanks for letting me know why you missed yesterday’s Pray Culpeper session. It was powerful. We missed you.

After yesterday’s prayer time, Pastor Brad Hales talked about the need for our local pastors to put this weekly gathering for prayer ahead of all other programs and ministries. Brad says this time of prayer is very uplifting for pastors. He says our community will be transformed when our pastors commit to coming together weekly to pray. He says praying together in the name of Jesus brings unity.

I am NOT available to attend the Pray Culpeper session on Sept 23 in person because I’ll be in Utah next week supporting my wife Julia as she prepares to compete in the Xterra National Triathlon Championships. However, I plan to be on my knees praying in Utah while the Pray Culpeper session is taking place on Wed Sept 23 at Noon. As I write this I am overcome with the presence of God.

Pastor Brad Hales, Pastor Howie Holmes (Providence Bible Church), Dewey McDonnell, and Jim Charapich (President, Culpeper Chamber of Commerce), all said yesterday after the Pray Culpeper session that they definitely want the weekly prayer time to continue every Noon on Wednesdays at Reformation Lutheran Church no matter what.

Our community prayer team looks forward to your participation at Pray Culpeper on Sept 23 at the Reformation Lutheran Church, 415 S Main Suite # 101, Culpeper, VA 22701.

Incidentally, Wednesday Sept 23 is a HUGE day spiritually. It marks the birth of the greatest prayer revival in the history of America. On Wednesday September 23, 1857, Jeremiah Lamphier held his first prayer meeting in a Reformation Church in New York City that launched the Fulton Street Revival. See http://yourdailyblessing.com/prayer-revival-in-america/

I encourage you to invite other pastors and people who have a heart for prayer and worship to join as well.

I’m sending a copy of this email to members of the Culpeper Ministerial Association so they can come and invite others with a heart for prayer and worship as well. I’ll posting it at the Pray Culpeper (www.prayculpeper.com) and Transformation Virginia (www.transformationvirginia.com) blogs to help get the word out. I’ll sending a seperate email to my emails lists for Your Daily Blessing, Pray Culpeper, and Transformation Virginia as well. God is going to get His word out for people around the world to pray as communities on Sept 23.

To God be the glory, now and forever.

Blessings for an extraordinary finish to an extraordinary year!

Randy
“Blessed to be a blessing”
THE CONNECTOR & The Journal Guy

P.S. Your love for prayer and worship is birthing something very significant.

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From: Baker Rigg
Date: Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 8:54 AM
Subject: Re: Connection
To: Randy Peck

Thanks Randy
had a ministry session that lasted to 12:15 yesterday. Will try again next week.

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From: Randy Peck
Subject: Re: Connection
To: “Baker Rigg”
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 7:42 PM

Hi Baker,

Thank you for your email and prayers. I appreciate all you are doing for our community.

We missed you today at the weekly Pray Culpeper meeting at Noon. Hope you can make it next week.

Blessings,
Randy

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From: Baker Rigg
Date: Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 2:19 PM
Subject: Connection
To: randy@empower2000.com

Randy,

Great connecting with you at the ministerial meeting. I will make plans to attend the prayer meeting at the Lutheran church tomorrow. Our prayer time for Church on the Rise is 7pm on Monday nights. I am praying for you today.

Baker

How a local Baptist preacher changed the course of U.S. history
J. Michael Sharman – Editorial Columnist
Published: September 15, 2009

Source: Culpeper Star Exponent

On Sept. 15, 1787, George Mason and James Madison were delegates from Virginia to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, which was presided over by their fellow Virginian, George Washington.

That morning, Mason argued that the proposed Constitution had a “dangerous power and structure of the government” which “would end either in monarchy or tyrannical aristocracy.”

A few days earlier, on Sept. 12, Mason, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, had asked for a vote on whether to include a bill of rights, guaranteeing individual freedoms, into the Constitution.

There were many things about the Constitution that Mason did not like, but if it could be “prefaced with a Bill of Rights,” he said, it would “give great quiet to the people” and he could support it. But not even a single state delegation supported the concept of a federal bill of rights.

Mason’s argument did not win out, and late on the afternoon of Sept. 15, the Constitutional Convention voted, according to Madison’s succinct journal entry “on the question to agree to the Constitution, as amended. All the States Ay.”

A decade earlier, in 1776, John Leland began pastoring at his first church, the Mount Poney Church in Culpeper, a ministry that Leland said “was not a blessing to the people. … I was too young and too roving to be looked up to as a pastor. Difficulties arose, the church split, and I just obtained a dismission and recommendation. God had another man for Mount Poney church. William Mason became their pastor, and he has done wonders in the name of Jesus.”

The Lelands moved from Culpeper to Orange County, which was their ministry base for the next 13 years. There Leland became “probably the most popular [preacher] of any who ever resided in this State.”

From the fall of 1787 to 1789, a revival was spreading throughout James Madison’s congressional district, and Pastor Leland preached at revival meetings all over Orange, Culpeper, Spotsylvania and Louisa counties.

Meanwhile, the states were holding ratification conventions to decide on whether to accept the Constitution.

In the spring of 1788, James Madison was a candidate to be Orange County’s delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention. His chances for success did not look good.

He was running as a Federalist (pro-Constitution) candidate in a strongly anti-Federalist county. George Mason, Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry did not want Virginia to ratify the Constitution.

Madison’s father and others wrote to him that the region’s Baptists, led by Leland, were also opposed to the Constitution. Leland’s two main concerns were that it lacked a Bill of Rights and “Religious Liberty is not sufficiently secured.”

On the day before the election, Madison spent a half-day with Leland, escorting him to speak to Baptist gatherings, with the result that Leland and the Baptists switched their position, supported Madison and Madison was elected with 80 percent of the vote.

The Virginia convention ratified the Constitution on a vote of 89-79. If Virginia had failed to ratify, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and all other Virginians would have been ineligible for office in the first national government.

Years later, on Jan. 3, 1802, two days after writing his famous “wall of separation” letter to the Danbury Baptists, President Thomas Jefferson invited Pastor Leland to preach before both Houses of Congress. In a wonderful demonstration of pastoral courage and political irony, Leland preached to Congress about Jesus Christ’s proclamation of His total wisdom, His constant presence, and His permanent sovereign authority.

Sharman’s column appears Tuesdays on the editorial page.