Prayer was the main course of Mayor Ed Pinero’s first Prayer Breakfast with the Mayor.

The senior center was filled to capacity with education, business, community and political leaders from aroung the county.

The focus of the breakfast, Pinero said, was to talk to county leaders about getting children to go to church.

“What can we do as Christian leaders in Pearl River County and what’s been weighing heavy on my heart of what we should do as Christian leaders is invite our children back to church,” Pinero said.

He said about five years ago when he and Rev. Keith Warden were coaching a girls’ softball team, they would pray before each game. After one game, Warden invited the girls to attend church.

“Not his church. Any church,” Pinero said. “What he did that day was planted a seed. He planted a seed in my heart because he was not being greedy by bringing a team to his church. He wanted to bring these young ladies back to Christ and keep them in Christ.”

Pinero said since that day there hasn’t been a day he hasn’t invited the girls on his daughter’s team to church. He said one his daughter’s former teammates calls him to keep him informed that she’s going to church and maintaining good grades.

“When this is all done, I don’t care if anyone ever remembers that I was a mayor. I don’t care if they remember I have a Ph.D. None of that matters. But I do want to be remembered by our future leaders as ‘the guy who invited me to church. He was the guy who wanted me to understand Christ and be brought up in the Biblical sense’,” Pinero said.

He asked attendees to not just focus on their own children, but for the other children who may not be encouraged to find Christ.

The breakfast started with the reading of prayers written by America’s founding fathers and prayers by Alan Hickman, Senators Tony Smith and Angela Hill, State Representative Mark Formby, Judge Richelle Lumpkin, Supervisor Sandy Kane Smith, Charlie Haynes and Warden.