Presbyterian Church in Ireland - Mission Overseas - EGYPT: Millions unite in live 'Prayer Night' broadcast by SAT-7

18th November 2011

The live broadcast of a 12-hour night of worship and prayer from Egypt has helped unify millions of Christians across the Middle East and North Africa - to pray for their countries at this time of critical change in the Arab World.
 
The event took place on 11.11.11 at the 'Cave Church' in Cairo, under the title: 'A Night to Repent and Return to God'.

Up to 70,000 Egyptian Christians, including those from the Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical churches participated in the worship and prayers.

The involvement of SAT-7 in the event not only made it possible for participants to follow the proceedings on big screens, but allowed millions more to share in, or witness, the event as it was televised across the region. In fact, it was the biggest (and certainly the longest!) live television event that SAT-7 has ever done.
 
Additional media coverage was provided as other TV channels approached SAT-7 at the last minute, asking for live video feeds for their own stations.

“The event made a big impact on both the Christian and secular media,” says Farid Samir, the Director of SAT-7’s operations in Egypt."

“Six other Christian channels took the feeds to re-air on their own channels. Several of them are already repeating the whole event again. Al Jazeera and Dream TV (a popular secular Egyptian channel) took the feed and ON-TV, a channel that played an essential key role during the Egyptian revolution, also covered the event.”

The Egyptian national press also provided positive coverage of the night and a Facebook page, created especially for the night attracted more than 800,000 comments!

 
Many of the encouraging SMS and Facebook posts received from SAT-7 viewers during the broadcast were put up on screen.

Many people watched clips from the event posted on YouTube.

Some, outside the satellite coverage area, tried to watch the event through the SAT-7 website’s channel streaming, which eventually overloaded and crashed the service!
 

The 12 hours of worship, which began at 6 pm on Friday, 11 November included contemporary worship led by worship bands from different churches, all working together in a gratifying show of unity.

Personal repentance, the needs of the church and the country were among the topics addressed by the different priests who spoke and led in prayer.

The prayers for the night also focused on issues of personal and social peace, and seeking God’s blessing on all Egyptians - Muslims and Christians, the authorities, and the important parliamentary elections that begin on 28 November.
 
Among the many church leaders attending were priests from churches in Los Angeles and Syria.  All came together with a humble spirit to seek God.

SAT-7's Farid Samir, commented further:

“The inter-denominational nature of the occasion and unity demonstrated by church leaders made a big impact on the audience, encouraging them to also join hands in unity with other Christians and seek God together.

"Even the SAT-7 crew was not just committed to present the event in the best possible way, but also worked very much in the spirit of the event – something that was clearly reflected on screen. There were a lot of tears, cheers, smiles, and excitement!”

Eva Botros, who led the group of 250 ushers and had watched the SAT-7 crew preparing for the event, comments:

“I was amazed by the spirit and helpfulness that the crew showed towards others involved in the event. Even when there were difficult last minute changes they showed a professional and Christian spirit of servanthood.”

The participants remained enthusiastic to the end – sending 'love cheers' to Muslims through SAT-7’s broadcast and, at one point, cheering ‘JESUS’ for a full 15 minutes.

SAT-7’s participation also helped to guide audiences throughout the region in prayer for their own respective countries, as well as share in the general prayers.
 
At the time of this release, five days on from the event, Farid Samir reports that he is still receiving requests for recordings of the event from other TV stations.

“We pray and believe God is going to do miracles in the Middle East and North Africa through His Church” concluded Samir.

“We are so excited by the way God has blessed us, in trusting us to be a part of His Great Commission.”

SAT-7 | SAT-7's links with PCI

SAT-7 runs 3, 24/7 Arabic satellite channels: SAT-7 ARABIC | SAT-7 PLUS | SAT-7 KIDS, the region’s only Christian channel for viewers under 15 years old

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