Prayer gathering focuses on unity

Approximately 70 people gathered in the Mahomet Police Department parking lot to pray for first responders Monday evening.

Pastor Jason Schifo of Community Evangelical Free Church Mahomet said it was time to pray for unity.

Standing in the middle of a socially distanced circle, he didn’t have an agenda other than just to allow a space for people who wanted to be in that space with him for the same reasons. 

The mask-wearing crowd covered the majority of the parking lot. Schifo talked about how to find peace in the midst of noise.

“We need to admit our own mistakes,” he said. “We need to realize that we’re all moving through this thing imperfectly. And then we need to hear one another and we need to see one another better. We need to admit that we’re frustrated and that’s making it hard for us to see one another. We’re feeling this tension and it’s hard for us to move together.”

Schifo offered Psalm 46 as a reminder that God is the place to start when trying to repair during troubling times.

“Psalm 46 really just says that God is our refuge and our strength; that he is the voice that we need to listen to that you know the nations will be in chaos; that the earth will shake that there’ll be all kinds of trouble around them, but that he the place where we lean into in the midst of all that.” 

By leaning into God, Schifo feels like people will see each other again.

“I don’t believe that we’re going to see and celebrate the diversity of one another until we see each other the way that God sees us,” he said. “If we believe that He created us, if we believe that we’re wonderfully beautifully made, that’s what the Bible says, I’m not going to embrace any of that until I see people the way he sees them.”

Mahomet’s Adi Puckett also offered a similar perspective in prayer. 

“I acknowledged that the struggle within our community and world forces us to take sides, but that we needed God’s help to understand that there are no sides – that we are all human beings and if there is an actual side, the only ‘side’ that will ever matter is that of Jesus,” Puckett said. “I also gave God thanks for loving us so completely and providing an opportunity or us to go to Him in unity.”

Schifo, who lives near and is friends with several police officers, said that their families are “so stressed right now.”

He said it is important that while looking at systems, history and present issues, it is also important to get to know people for who they are, not just what we see on social media platforms or in the news.  

“There are bad people, who have done bad things, who need to be dismissed of their positions of authority because they have harmed and hurt people,” Schifo said. “But there in the midst of that there are lots of really good people who get up every day and go and serve and want to do their best.”

Schifo watched as the June 8 Promise March for Humanity ended at the Mahomet Police Department. A month later, another protest brought attention to the Mahomet Police.

“There seems to be a lack of unity in the community regarding the police department,” Schifo said. “That’s why I chose to do it there.”

“We could passive aggressively do it somewhere else to skirt the issue, but for me I wanted to go to the center of that. The fact that there was considerable conversation or pushback around that made me know that that was probably the place of disunity that we really needed to be at.”

“They needed prayer,” Schifo said.

Puckett said that she came to the prayer gathering because she admires first responders who are the first ones at a scene to respond to situations full of unknowns.

“It takes a special human being to accept such an occupation,” Puckett said. “What they do is a great example of love, in my opinion, and it should be respected, honored and supported. Prayer for them should be always, but in this time, it is especially important as public tensions increase the amount of danger first responders may encounter.”

That prayer for unity is where Schifo believes the world will come together.

“Unity is the only way we’re going to hear one another, we’re going to value one another. Whatever is happening right now, it isn’t working. I mean, it might be working on some level, because it’s making a lot of noise. But I’m looking at wondering, where the substantive changes?”

Aside from prayer, Schifo believes the substantive change that he can make in his community is trying to connect with people face-to-face or in the pandemic world.

The only place he posted the prayer gathering was on Mahomet Talk’s Facebook page. He said he didn’t want to define anything, other than a 30-minute time for prayer for first responders, so that people would feel like they could come. 

But through that posting, he was able to take questions then connect with people over the phone. 

Children were also present at the prayer gathering.  A six or seven year-old girl standing behind Puckett caught the attention of adults nearby.

“In her prayer, she asked God that we would love each other the way Jesus loves us all,” Puckett paraphrased. “The difference created in my perspective was an increase of awareness –  that while we adults are scrambling to figure out ways to include and respect one another, a child struggling to keep her little mask in place managed to sum it all up so thoroughly.”

Mahomet’s Jane Smoes also heard the young girl vocalize her wishes.

“I was thrilled I was standing close enough to the young girl who prayed that Jesus would help us all be more like Him.”

Smoes said that she came to the event because prayer is a part of her individual routine, but that being able to gather with others is beautiful.

“I appreciated the prayers I heard for honor, respect, and love; I enjoyed seeing such a good cross section of our community there,” Smoes said. “It’s vital, powerful, and encouraging.  I appreciate being given the opportunity.”

Schifo ended the prayer gathering at 6:30 p.m. by inviting people to do the same thing in their neighborhoods.

“If you think this was profitable, if you think this was good, then go home and start doing it in your neighborhood,” Schifo said. “There’s no reason why people couldn’t. There’s no reason why the people that gathered together, couldn’t do the same thing in their neighborhood; grab a few of their neighbors and say you know what, I don’t know what’s going on in our nation, I don’t even know what’s going on in our community, by and large, but can we pray for what’s going on in our neighborhood? 

“There’s so much stuff that I can’t control. But you know what I can control and really affect is my neighborhood. I know these people. I live every day with them. I share life with them, we wave hi all the time. Why wouldn’t I start here? So many of us want to start in the wrong place. We want to start like in Washington. I don’t know about anybody else, but the President never called, he never made me a sandwich.

“But you know what? My neighbors, they have. I’ve eaten in their homes. I know them.

“I told everybody if you thought this was profitable, please don’t wait for the next time for us to do it here in a parking lot, do it in your neighborhoods.”

With the start of the 2020-21 school year, Schifo said he’d like to make sure that the community is also praying for the students and staff who will either occupy the buildings or be learning at home during the pandemic. 

Through the last four months, he’s learned that making plans does not always turn out the way you envision them, so he does not have a date set at this point. 

“I would love to pray in that same way for our schools,” he said. “I would love to pray in that same way in all different kinds of places: where we can come and we can admit where we’ve messed up where we’ve mis-stepped, where we’ve misspoken. We can admit that we can do better, where we can ask the Lord to help us somehow come together in a way that we can hear one another and value one another. 

“I’m willing to do that anywhere. In fact, if anything this season of life has taught me that the one thing I really want to apply my life to is trying to have some semblance of unity, trying to navigate that middle. It’s still imperfect, I still have my biases. I still have the things that I’m frustrated with. But I want to try my best to say, listen, we can be better together.”