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ASHLAND — You cannot make an omelet without first breaking a few eggs. This coming Thursday one of the largest National Day of Prayer observances in the state will be taking place early in the morning with a heavy-hitting message: about how ‘Freedom’ is more than a word, and how it can only be sustained through courage and determination. Those in attendance are sure to get a belly full of how desperate the times we are living in.
The Ashland University’s Convocation Center will be site of the 2024 Ashland Community Prayer Breakfast this coming Thursday on May 2nd between 6:30 a.m.-7:59 a.m. Chairman John Bouquet, Senior Pastor at Bethel Baptist Church, is in his thirtieth year leading the Prayer Breakfast Committee for the Ashland County Ministerial Association.
“This event brings our community together: the civic leaders, our business partners and our leaders in education, medical, law enforcement, social services and faith community,” Bouquet said. “This gathering also inspires everyone to pause to pray. It does not matter if one is a trustee of a small township or the Mayor of Ashland. For this prayer breakfast, I have seen our ministerial community put aside our differences and distinctions to focus on the Gospel and a single-mindedness for the spiritual good of our leaders.”
Pastor Bouquet stresses anyone with an interest is welcome to attend and the event has room for everyone. “Our pastors and spiritual ministry leaders genuinely serve the spiritual concerns of the Ashland County population. You can be a novice in faith or a seasoned veteran and the Prayer Breakfast will bless you,” he says. The event usually averages over seven hundred in attendance.
“Like a soldier, I have tasted the bitter price of freedom and endured the cold handcuffs and harsh judgement. The soldier stands unflinching knowing that freedom bears a cost, there is a price to pay.”
Artur Pawlowski, Canadian Pastor
The Guest Speaker will be Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski. Bouquet said Pawlowski was speaking to State Representative Melanie Miller (R-Ashland) a few months ago and Miller shared the story of the Ashland Prayer Breakfast with him. Pawlowski quickly agreed to participate in the event. “Free speech and freedom to worship are sacred values to our way of life,” Bouquet says. “Those freedoms were taken away from Artur during the Canadian COVID lockdown. Once we take freedom for granted, we could easily lose it.”
Artur Pawlowski initially spent three days in jail for the crime of opening his church during the COVID pandemic. But the persecution did not stop there. “I have spent fifty nights in jail standing up for our rights to gather and worship,” says Pawlowski. “It is time to rise and say ‘Never again!'”
Ashland County is no stranger to fighting government tyranny. The first attempt within Ohio to suspend a business license for an alleged mask violation during the COVID pandemic occurred in Savannah. The Ohio Court of Common Pleas slapped down the overreach by the local health department. In addition, area faith leaders made national news opposing the Biden vaccine mandate by saying in an open letter “We have no King but King Jesus.”
The speaker is sure to get attendees to ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ regarding their religious freedoms. Freedom is just one generation from extinction. Doors open at 6:00 AM Thursday morning.
The Bottom Line:
The Bible says in John Fifteen, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.”
View video below produced by Trust & Freedom on the story of Pastor Artur Pawlowski. (4 min.)
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