Along with the seasonal wishes of “Peace on Earth, good will toward man,” Bill Bittner hopes Butler County Christians add “unity among churches.”

Bittner is the moderator of Butler Christian Ministries, a group of ministers, ministries and individuals, that has been promoting community concerts of prayer for the past five years.

Meeting in a rotating group of churches and even in downtown's Diamond Park, the prayer concerts are designed to forge an alliance among area churches.

Bittner said, “The whole purpose of this is to bring believing churches together in unity to pray together.”

He said there have been 51 of the community concerts of prayer in the last five years.

“We come together for praise and worship and prayer,” he said. “It can last from one and a half hours to three hours. We are talking about going longer and praying longer.”

Bittner said the last community prayer concert was Dec. 14 at Whitestown Road Baptist Church, 409 Whitestown Road, and the first one of 2019 has been set for 7 p.m. Jan. 18 at the same location.

“Attendance can be anywhere from six people up to 80,” he said. “It's trying to get people together. It's so hard to get people to work together. It's difficult.”

Participants pray for the county, local and federal governments and the people and churches of Butler County.

The Rev. John Pistorius, pastor of St. John's Reformed Church, 334 W. Slippery Rock St., Chicora, said, “I've been involved with Bill and others to pray for the city and the county.”

Pistorius added, “The body of Christ is not operating together. He (Bittner) wanted to have a community prayer concert, have some music, and get to some serious praying.”

Pistorius said St. John's had hosted the prayer concerts four or five times, and he himself had attended all but one of the 51 community prayer concerts.

Bittner said he is undeterred because of his knowledge of Scripture and prophecy.

“There's more disunity in the church,” he said. “But truthfully, if you study Scripture and study prophecy, prophecy told us what's going to happen. When you read it and study it, you see that.”

This discord among the churches is the “Great Falling Away” predicted in both the Old and New Testaments, he said.

Bittner concedes it is disconcerting to view what he sees as disunity among Christians.

“It's hard on you when you love the church and you love God and want to serve him,” he said.

A lot of the resistance to a call for prayer is because people don't understand or read the Bible much anymore.

“People today don't know the Scriptures. Very few people study the Scriptures. Your average person in church doesn't study Scripture,” he said.

“God calls on us all to pray. Jesus prayed himself that we would come together in prayer and unity as one,” Bittner said.

The present holiday hoopla is another example of people not understanding the Bible in his view.

“Christmas is so distorted, it's almost lost its real meaning,” according to Bittner.

There's too much focus on the birth of Jesus and not enough on the promised return of Christ, he said.

“The celebration of Christmas has gotten totally out of hand,” he said. “The Resurrection was the biggest thing. His disciples almost all of them died horrible deaths and they believed in the Resurrection and Christ's return,” he said.

Butler Christian Ministries is always looking to add church participants to the community prayer concerts, he said. Those interested in hosting a future prayer concert should contact connie@kayberry.com.

WHAT: Community Concert of PrayerWHEN: 7 p.m. Jan. 18WHERE: Whitestown Road Baptist Church, 409 Whitestown RoadINFO: Contact connie@kayberry.com if interested in hosting a future prayer event.