File Photo The Belmont County Courthouse will be the site of a gathering for prayer led by the East Richland Friends Church congregation Saturday morning. Anyone can attend. The focus will be a prayer for community, state and national leaders.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The East Richland Evangelical Friends Church congregation will be finishing a week of prayer with a gathering at 10 a.m. Saturday in front of the Belmont County Courthouse, and the public is invited to share in fellowship.

Pastor Matt Close said the congregation is focusing on a different aspect of society each week.

“Our focus on prayer and the reason we’re meeting at the courthouse is we just want to pray for our government leaders, so we’ll be praying for the mayor, we’ll be praying for the city council, praying for our local judges and our local leaders as well as our state leaders, as well as our national leaders. The Bible tells us that we should pray for our leaders,” Close said.

“The Bible tells us that God puts governments in place and he’s in control, and we trust him. We love our community and we love our leaders, and so we just want to pray that we would have unity in our communities, that our leaders would be strong, would be courageous, would show goodness and love for our communities.”

Close said the church congregation has prayed throughout the week.

“Anybody is welcome to show up and pray, if they would like to join us, for praying over our leaders,” he said.

Close declined to speculate on the number of people who might attend, but he added that social distancing and other safety restrictions will be observed.

“If people aren’t coming out to the courthouse, they’ll still be praying at home, and that’s the important thing,” he said of congregation members.

The church leadership was motivated to hold a week of prayer by tumultuous events happening around the country.

“Here at the church, we have been doing just a week of prayer where we have focused on different things. For each day of the week we’ve had a specific prayer focus within the church,” he said.

Close said that on Monday, they prayed for missionaries and persecuted churches throughout the world. On Tuesday they prayed for family members, friends and neighbors who are struggling.

“(Wednesday) our focus on prayer was in our local schools,” he said. “Some of the schools did a ‘see you at the pool’ prayer, and so we as a church just wanted to be praying for the students and for the schools. For their safety, for the school year at the same time as they were gathering.”

On Thursday, they prayed for military personnel, first responders, police and medical workers.

“With everything, unrest as well as the pandemic in our nation, Friday, we’re gathering here at the church just to pray for our ministries here at the church, our school we have here, praying for our leaders we have here in the church, just the different ministries we do, in the church and in the community, that they would be helpful and impactful on people’s lives,” he added.

Normal Sunday services are scheduled for 8:15 a.m., 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. at the chuch, located off National Road west of St. Clairsville.