Prayer group marks 30th year together

SIKESTON - They have met every Friday for the past 30 years and haven't missed a Friday yet.

They call themselves simply The Friday Morning Prayer Group and members say its impact has changed their lives.

It started with individuals wanting to go on a deeper search for God, explained Jean McCord who was instrumental in starting the group.

"We wanted to go more in depth in the Bible and know more about God," noted McCord. "It wasn't started as a social group, it was started as a search group. In 1972 we started on the first Friday in September which was the first day of school so everybody was free."

The group started with 15 individuals who were told what organizers had in mind. If it sounded like something they'd be interested in they were encouraged to return.

"The next week I think we had eight who came and little by little that grew and grew," said McCord. "Now, it's not a large group, but we have an average of 12 or 13. The largest we've had was around 50."

Over the years more than 150 people have been a part of the prayer group.

The group meets in homes and its members are composed of local and area women of varying ages and beliefs, which according to members makes it all the better.

"Probably since it's just women you're more free," reasoned McCord. "Besides, we meet in the mornings. We never even thought of it being anything other than just the women's group."

It was Jane Boyer's enthusiasm about the New Living Bible at the time and her desire to learn more about the Bible itself that piqued her interest. And since she's been a part of the group, not only has her spiritual life grown but she said she's a different person today.

"I think the biggest difference is probably the way I treat other people and I understand a lot more about the Bible than I ever did. That really makes you feel good," said Boyer who has been a member from the start. "I know it's because of this group and I look forward to going each week."

"I think this is probably what everybody would say, definitely," smiled McCord. "It's been a deep spiritual experience. Our faith has gotten deeper and stronger and we certainly learned that the Bible is probably the most important book that has ever been written. We study the Bible all the time and we try to read in depth and discuss deeply what we read."

The group also utilizes different versions of the Bible. "Whatever we're reading, we go ahead and read it out of every one of the Bibles," Boyer said. "Sometimes there's a word in there that just jumps out at you and that's for you for today or maybe for the whole week."

"We use all the footnotes that everyone has too," chimed in McCord. "We all write in our Bibles and we'll find something maybe that in 1980 one of the members said and we'd written it down. We have things like that written all through our Bibles and it means so much. We've just learned so much, not that we aren't still the same ornery people that all of us can be though," she quipped.

What's made the group so successful, the women believe, is its lack of structure.

"We never have a structured lesson or anything like that but it never fails that somebody has read something in the Bible that week or in something else and they just have a scripture that we want to read and discuss," said Boyer.

"We also have little songs that we sing and we pray. A lot of times we pray for our families or for someone in Sikeston who is sick. We've prayed for babies and most of us have had grandbabies, we have had twins and we have also had a set of triplets," she chuckled. "It's just the fellowship that you feel in there and the peace that you feel when you walk out of it, that's what is so wonderful about it."

Today the Friday Morning Prayer Group is celebrating it's 30th year in existence. The group met at the First United Methodist Church where current members and anyone who had ever attended the prayer group in recognition of its longevity. About 120 invitations were sent. Afterward the group continued the celebration over lunch.

"We're excited about the celebration, we have some people coming from Memphis, St. Louis and we have a friend who is coming from Kansas," Boyer said. "We want this time to be a special spiritual renewing. We're excited about being 30 years old and about the fact that sometimes there might just be two of us, but in all that time we've never missed a Friday."