Faithful Americans get ready for the National Day of Prayer

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Wednesday, May 06, 2026

Prayer warriors and other faith-driven Americans are expected to gather at hundreds of sites and online platforms across the country Thursday as the nation marks the 75th annual National Day of Prayer under the theme, “Glorify God Among the Nations — Seeking Him in All Generations.”

NDP Task Force President Kathy Branzell explained on the organization’s website that this year’s theme was inspired by 1 Chronicles 16.

“In 2026, our theme is inspired by a passionate prayer of Thanksgiving, prayed by King David in 1 Chronicles 16 after bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. This chapter records Israel celebrating the return of the Ark after being separated for 70 years earlier,” she noted.

The National Day of Prayer was officially established in 1952 by a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Harry Truman. This was later amended in 1988 to be held on the first Thursday of May following the advocacy of Christian leaders like Billy Graham to bring “the Lord Jesus Christ” to the nation through a return to prayer.

In an interview with The Christian Post, Linda Harrison, the East New York regional coordinator for the NDP, who will be hosting an event at the Coney Island Gospel Assembly on Neptune Avenue in Brooklyn, pointed to this history and said educating the public about prayer is part of the mission of the NDP Task Force.

“It’s a lot of education that needs to be done. People don’t know that Congress asked the president to call the nation to prayer on the first day of May,” Harrison said.

She explained that since she began doing NDP events in 2019, they have never been crowded, yet she continues with the “remnant” anyway.

“New York City is very challenging … but nevertheless, there are people out there who want to pray,” Harrison said. “You just have to go out and ask … some people don’t really understand the concept of unified prayer.”

Members of the public interested in attending prayer events nationwide can locate prayer events on the NDP website planned for May 7. All 50 states and territories list multiple prayer meetings open to the public except Hawaii, which lists only one at Glad Tidings Church in Hilo, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which has no event listed.

Seven states — Florida, Connecticut, California, Michigan, Texas, New York and Tennessee — all list more than 100 prayer events each. Nine events are scheduled for Washington, D.C.

Jim Lagnese, state coordinator of the NDP in New York and senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Southside in Honeoye Falls, told CP that every county in the state has at least one site where people will be gathering to pray on Thursday.

“We gathered in Washington last September, and we set out — the coordinators of all 50 states — to make it a goal to get at least one National Day of Prayer meeting in every county in our state. And for New York state, that was a big task. There are 62 counties, and we did it. But we give all the glory to God,” he said.

Jonathan Guastaferro, who is organizing the only National Day of Prayer event in Yates County, will be hosting his meeting at the Wellspring Fellowship Church in Penn Yan. He told CP the meeting will be an organic gathering of prayer warriors, which he has been promoting for about three weeks.

He’s now looking forward to exploring God together with the faithful who show up “together as one, despite what our background is, and our denominational differences.”

Jason McGuire, executive director of the New York Families Foundation, who previously served as a pastor for 12 years, said his organization will be hosting a fully booked prayer brunch for about 50 people at The Capital Convention Center in Albany before joining other prayer events in the area on Thursday.

“I came to this ministry realizing that our greatest need is spiritual, not political. But I think in the current climate, sometimes we put too much stock in the politics of the day. We forget that politics reflects who we are as a people,” he told CP, noting that he was recently involved in the America Reads the Bible initiative in Washington D.C.

“There’s been a call to come back to the simplicity of reading God’s Word, into seeking God for our state and the nation. So I want to see a gathering of believers that recognize that our first calling is, is really, it’s confession, it’s repentance, it’s for us to get serious with God. And then, as we begin to get serious with Him and to come to that place again, we’ll see a change in our state and the nation. But I think it has to begin with God’s people,” he said.

“We’re in America’s 250th year this year, and so there have been multiple generations already of Americans. But if we forget that our faith and our confidence is not in God first, then we, as a nation, will not continue to be what we have been and what we want to be for future generations,” he added. “So part of why I’m involved in this is I want my kids, I want my grandkids, to know what liberty is. And we know that true freedom comes in Christ.”