School children, church leaders, congregations, police, councillors across south London are being galvanised to attend a prayer meeting taking place on Sunday 13 May to ask for God's healing in light of widespread gun and knife crime in the capital.
The meeting at St Mark's Church, Kennington Road, has been organised by Rev Les Isaac, the director of The Ascension Trust who launched the Street Pastors initiative in 2003 to combat gun, knife and gang crime by sending trained pastors to provide pastoral care, support and a listening ear onto the streets of Britain's towns and cities.
Since the launch of the first batch of Street Pastors onto the streets of Hackney, east London, 700 people have now been trained as Street Pastors and the scheme is now operational in 17 London boroughs and 10 towns and cities across the UK.
While patrolling communities across the country, Street Pastors have played a major role in stopping fights and turf wars and prayed with drug dealers, prostitutes and at-risk young people.
Rev Isaac commented, "Everyone has been deeply concerned about the numbers of killings that have taken place amongst young people, whether as a result of shootings, stabbings or gang fighting, during the first few months of 2007.
"One of the important ways in which the church can respond to this crisis is by asking for God's guidance, that's why I am calling all concerned Christians and members of the general public to join us to pray about this serious issue."
He continued, "I hope this meeting will also galvanise people to take part in social action programmes whose focus is youth and crime safety."
The Rev Joel Edwards, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, will be a special guest speaker. Other people taking part include local police and councillors.
