WASHINGTON—Hundreds of Christians gathered on the National Mall on Oct. 31 for a day of prayer and repentance, while organizers said millions around the world watched on television networks and livestreams.
The event, dubbed the Sacred Assembly, brought Christians together in a call for spiritual renewal, continuing a long American tradition of national prayer for the nation. Held three days before the midterm elections, the gathering marked the culmination of the Nehemiah Alliance’s 52-day prayer initiative.
Organizers said participants joined from all 50 states and more than 100 nations.
The initiative took its name and structure from the biblical book of Nehemiah, which records that Jerusalem’s walls were rebuilt in 52 days. Organizers set their own window at 52 days, from sundown on Sept. 10 through sundown on All Saints Sunday, Nov. 1. The Mall assembly fell on Reformation Day, the midpoint of a weekend that ends with pastors around the world leading congregations in a shared “United Prayer for America.”
Barbara Ann Jeter, executive director of the Nehemiah Alliance, says the global Sacred Assembly was intended to bring together thousands of believers. The gathering is one of the Alliance’s latest efforts to mobilize Christians around what it calls national spiritual renewal.
Jeter said she is praying for Americans “that hope would be restored, that their hearts would be revived, that liberty would be renewed, and that we would be reunited as one humanity, one blood, one nation under God.”
“We’ve been so divided as a nation,” she said. “We need civility.”
A Tradition Older Than the Nation
Historian William Federer, author of “Prayers and Presidents,” said the assembly stands in a line that runs back before 1776. In researching the book, he read every address by every president.
“I was amazed at the consistent times of them having days of prayer, days of fasting and prayer, and days of thanksgiving,” Federer told The Epoch Times.
In June 1775, weeks after the battles of Lexington and Concord, the Continental Congress recommended that the colonies observe July 20 as a day of “public humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” he said.
Federer also noted George Washington called a day of prayer and thanksgiving the same week that Congress passed the First Amendment, and that John Adams, James Madison, and Zachary Taylor proclaimed fast days during threats of war and a cholera epidemic.
Those proclamations were invitations, not orders, he said.
“It wasn’t ordered but it was strongly recommended that the citizens offer voluntary prayer,” Federer said of Madison’s approach.
In 1863, at the request of the U.S. Senate, President Abraham Lincoln set aside April 30 as a national day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer as the Civil War ground on.
“Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us,” Lincoln wrote.
Federer said that is the passage he most wants Americans to remember.
In December 1944, with fog and snow grounding Allied aircraft during the Battle of the Bulge, Gen. George S. Patton asked Third Army chaplain Msgr. James O’Neill to write a prayer for fair weather. The prayer was printed on cards and handed to troops, and within days the skies cleared. Jeter said that prayer helped inspire the United Prayer for America.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the nation in prayer by radio on D-Day in 1944. In 1952, President Harry Truman signed legislation creating an annual National Day of Prayer, and a 1988 law signed by President Ronald Reagan fixed it to the first Thursday in May.
Eric Metaxas, host of “The Eric Metaxas Show” and author of “Bonhoeffer,” told The Epoch Times that much of that history has been lost. His latest book, “Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World,” released this year for the nation’s 250th anniversary, examines the role of faith in America’s founding.
“There’s literally nothing more important than that Americans understand that apart from God, we cannot have liberty,” Metaxas said. “Generations of Americans knew that, but we have, in my lifetime, mostly forgotten it.”
He compared the present moment to the Revolution and the Civil War.
“We’re in an existential battle,” Metaxas said, warning that Americans who fail to see “the link between real liberty and the God of the Bible” risk losing those liberties.
Prayer Before the Vote
Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), who was invited to pray at the assembly, said the timing gave the gathering added weight.
“While we are having the opportunity to go vote for our leaders, we trust that God is guiding the hearts of the people,” Stutzman said. “We’re putting our priorities in order and making sure that we’re always remembering that God comes first, and then our families, and then our country.”
To critics who say such events mix church and state, Stutzman said he agrees there should be no official state church.
“That’s what our Founding Fathers meant, but they never meant that people of faith shouldn’t be involved in government,” he said.
Federer made a similar point, saying the First Amendment grew out of the founders’ concern that one Christian denomination would be made the national church, as was the case in nearly every European nation at the time.
Jeter said the dates were set in prayer, not by the election calendar. Organizers began at sundown on Sept. 10, the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and counting 52 days forward landed on All Saints Sunday.
“I didn’t plan it to be around the midterm elections,” she said. “What we’re doing is not political. We are going to be praying for the elections. We do want to encourage people to be good citizens and to go vote.”
By historical standards, Federer said, that is restrained. Today’s gatherings are “watered down” compared with earlier eras, he said, when pastors routinely preached election sermons on the issues before voters.
Jim Garlow, CEO of the San Diego-based ministry Well Versed, which teaches biblical principles of governance to government leaders, said the stakes feel unusually high.
“I suppose there’s no time we don’t say this, but it does feel like a crisis,” Garlow told The Epoch Times. “The forces of good and evil are really facing each other in very clear ways.”
Walls in Need of Repair
Jeter said the idea for the 52 days came after she visited the White House with about 70 other Christian women leaders in August 2025 and prayed beforehand about what to ask.
“I really sensed He was saying an extended time of prayer, fasting, and repentance,” she said.
She modeled the effort on Nehemiah, the Jewish cupbearer who sought the blessing of a Persian king before returning to rebuild Jerusalem’s broken walls.
“The spiritual walls around our nation are in need of repair,” she said.
The alliance said it collected proclamations, resolutions, and commendations from governors and lawmakers across the country, including a commendation from the Congressional Prayer Caucus and support from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), and more than 20 other members of Congress.
Jeter said the call centered on repentance “for things that are just not right in our nation, in our own lives, in our families’ lives.” Federer said the presidential proclamations he collected strike the same note.
“They all would say things like, we repent of our sins, we humble ourselves,” he said.
Organizers also said they felt led to ask participants to fast for three days, following the example of Esther and Mordecai in the Old Testament, and to become “modern-day gatekeepers” who pray over their own families, schools, and communities.
Voices From the Crowd
Elizabeth Castellone traveled from Texas with the Purifying Fire National Prayer Call.
“In many ways, America has lost its way,” she told The Epoch Times, “so it is important to join in an event like this and cry out to the Lord for his guidance. I want to pray that people [will] be led by the Lord in their vote.”
Clayton Venema drove from Michigan and arrived the morning of the assembly after months of receiving the alliance’s emails, each carrying the United Prayer for America.
“We need to save our country,” Venema said. “We’ve got to pray for the right leaders to be in office.”
The prayers also reached beyond U.S. borders. Lily Ricci, an Iranian-born member of Dallas-based Iran Alive Ministries, prayed over her home country from the stage.
Lily Ricci of Dallas-based Iran Alive Ministries prays for her native Iran during the Sacred Assembly on the National Mall in Washington on Oct. 31, 2026. (Russ Jones/The Epoch Times)
“I want you to pray for Iranians and for Iran to truly experience the freedom that only is found in Christ,” she said.
A Broad Coalition
Organizers said participants came from across Christian traditions, including Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, charismatic, evangelical, and Messianic Jewish. Native American leaders also took part.
Singer, songwriter, and worship leader Beckah Shae performs during the Sacred Assembly on the National Mall in Washington on Oct. 31, 2026. (Russ Jones/The Epoch Times)
Other speakers and performers included singer Michael W. Smith, Alveda King, National Day of Prayer President Kathy Branzell, actress Sam Sorbo, Father Frank Pavone, and evangelist Nick Vujicic.
Beyond the Mall
The assembly was streamed on the alliance’s website na52.org, on YouTube, and through media partners including GOD TV, Daystar, CBN, and Pray.com. Jeter said she had prayed at the outset for 2 percent of the U.S. population—roughly 7 million people—to take part.
The alliance reported more than 120,000 decisions for Christ and rededications during the 52 days. The Epoch Times could not independently verify the figure.
The initiative concludes on Nov. 1, when participating churches are asked to pray the United Prayer for America together.
For Jeter, the larger aim is for ordinary believers to take responsibility for what is in front of them.
“It’s like you have a gate, and you can keep evil out. Or you can welcome blessing in,” she said. “We certainly have authority for our own home, our own families, our neighborhoods.”
