Hundreds of pastors and national faith leaders have gathered on barely three weeks notice in Plano, Texas for the Watchmen on the Wall Summit, seeking through prayer and work-shops ways to right the nation from its troubled course.

Summit organizer Tony Perkins of Family Research Council kicked off the two-day event by declaring we are at a moment of urgency unlike anything in our history. But it’s not enough to understand the times. Like the godly priests in the days of Uzziah, today’s pastors must stand up to the corrupt civil authorities. And we “must respond with an answer that brings comfort to the people.”

That answer, as Dr. Ronnie Floyd, President of the Southern Baptist Convention explained, rests on three columns. The pastors must “Seek the Lord,” “Reach the Lost” and “Impact the Culture.” This three-fold plan is nothing new. Paul spells out in Colossians 4:2-6:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving;  and pray for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison,  that I may make it clear, as I ought to speak. Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.  Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.

What is new in our history, Floyd says, is that pastors in local churches used to be influential in the public sphere. This is no longer true. Declaring “this needs to change,” he urged the pastors to call their entire church to prayer. “There is no great movement of God,” he said,  that has ever occurred that is not first preceded by the extraordinary prayer of God’s people.”

Floyd, like many speakers to follow, felt such a movement is at hand, the greatest since the Jesus Movement of the ’70s.

The Urgency of the Hour

Pastor Carter Conlon, Pastor of Times Square Church, said as he led a call to corporate prayer and repentance, that “division is a luxury of peacetime.” Whatever differences there may be in the Body, they must fade in the current assault on the church. Nothing could bring this point home more than the four men who spoke during the main Summit session of the day, titled “The Urgency of the Hour”: Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Pastor Jacob Aranza, James Robison and Ken Barun. One black, one Hispanic, one white, one a Messianic Jew from New York.

Though unity is called for, Bishop Jackson is seeing a division between what he called the “real” church and the “false” church; the false church being those that fall away from the clear teachings of the Bible. It is through the remnant that remain true that God will move. Citing Psalm 47, he declared “God is sitting on his throne waiting to act.”

Pastor Aranza, Senior Pastor of Our Savior’s Church, asked, “How did we get here?” He cited recent American history: The removal of prayer from schools, the legalization of abortion, the redefinition of marriage. Such a turn from God made our turmoil inevitable. “When you lose the conscience of the nation, you shouldn’t be surprised when the unconscienable becomes the new normal.” His congregation in South Louisiana recently experienced the “new normal” in an up-close and horrific way. Two members of his congregation were in that theater in Lafayette where a gunman opened fire a couple of weeks ago. One was injured. The other spared injury or death by an invisible hand that pushed her away from the direction she instinctively was set to go. And as Pastor Aranza went onto reveal, the gunman had actually been to his church just two weeks before the attack.

In the face of this “new normal,” said Pastor Aranza, three facts remain:

1. The word of God still holds all things together.
2. The local church is still the hope of the world.
3. And if we don’t speak for God, who will?

Franklin Graham has been one fearlessly speaking for God, and on Monday, Graham’s chief of staff Ken Barun was speaking for him. Barun urged the local church pastors to join Graham next year as he undertakes to preach in all 50 states. That effort kicks off in January.

James Robison was inspired to share some memories of Franklin’s father, Billy Graham. The LIFE Today host and Stream publisher recounted some advice the legendary evangelist gave him back when he was “God’s angry man in the wilderness.” Graham told him, “I would like to suggest you spend time with people you’ve been taught to avoid.” This led Robison to begin reaching across denominational lines.

It also spoke to a major theme of Robison’s remarks: “The heart of the people and this world is broken. Those trapped in bondage are broken and desperate and must be the loneliest people on the planet.” Robison said the worst thing we can do as believers is make others feel worse through condemnation. “Yes, we lift up God’s standard of truth,” he said, “but we lift it up with compassion and love. The church must hold God’s standard of truth high and never move it to accommodate anyone’s failure. We must also live seeking to be an answer to Jesus’prayer in John 17.”

The Appropriate Warning

Before the day closed with corporate prayer and worship, attendees heard a word of warning from Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, author of The Harbinger. Cahn described what we’ve experienced this year, in particular the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage as a “desecration”; a “tectonic event” marking a radical shift in America as profound as the opening of the atom.  Said Cahn, the nation is “breaking nothing short of the order of God.”

George Washington had warned this nation that if America turned from God, God would turn away from it.

On Tuesday, those attending the Watchmen on the Wall Summit will reassemble, resuming the search for concrete ways to turn our nation’s heart back to its Source.

This story has been updated since it was first published.