Pupils' Persistence Pays Off in PA; Principal Permits Prayer
by Jim Brown
October 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - A group of Christian students at a Pennsylvania high school are rejoicing after finding out they are no longer barred from praying together in their school. Fifteen students at Girard High School had been repeatedly told by principal Gregg McClelland that prayer was not allowed anywhere, anytime in the school. Now, following their attempts to persuade McClelland to have a change of heart, the principal has relented.
Terry Miller, a youth leader at Erie Christian Fellowship Church, where the group of teens attends, believes the principal initially displayed an anti-Christian bias and ignorance of the Constitution.
"For about a week and a half, there was a group of kids that went down every day, asking if they could just get together and pray -- not during a class period or anything, [but] just before homeroom, corporately as a group," Miller explains. "And everyday he would send them away [saying] he didn't think they could do that."
According to Miller, the group of new believers did not understand why they were being prohibited from praying because groups of students at other schools in the district were being permitted to do that. But the students' persistence paid off. In her words, the teens have gotten "very radical for Christ."
"They're just ready for revival throughout their school and throughout the county," Miller explains. "And they're ready to see other students' lives changed just like theirs."
The group of students had been seeking permission to gather in a locker bay before homeroom and pray corporately.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
