Beehive staff pray for Government

Press, 11 October 1982, Page 10

Beehive staff pray for Government

Parliamentary reporter

A group of staff at Parliament Buildings is holding a weekly prayer meeting in the Beehive to pray for the Government.

The meetings, held in the Beehive Quiet Room originally set aside for use by members of Parliament, began three weeks ago. The leader of the group. Mr D. Cone, executive assistant to the Minister of Labour. Mr Bolger, said the group met to pray for direction for the Government, industrial peace in the nation, and strength and wisdom for Cabinet Ministers and members of Parliament.

"We do not have any preconceived ideas about what the Government should be doing about this or that." he said. "We just do what I Timothy, ii says, pray for all men. especially for kings and all in high positions so that

we will live an undisturbed life.

"At the moment things are anything but undisturbed - the Marsden Point dispute, the Commonwealth Code of Conduct and its ramifications for New Zealand, the threat to our bujter market, and lamb sales." Mr Cone said that the prayer meeting started when two groups of Christians in the building each unknown to the other booked the Quiet Room for the same date, same time, for their first prayer meeting

"We began to believe we were meant to be meeting when that happened.” he said.

The group also held Bible studies on the role of governments.

"We are not looking so much at the rights and wrongs of the spread of Government activity, but al what the Bible savs the

moral and spiritual obligations of governments are." Mr Cone said. “We believe that God judges a nation in various ways according to the moral record of its government. Once we define God's requirements for a Government, we can better pray that it will not make mistakes.” Ministers secretaries, members of the press gallery. members’ secretaries, clerical assistants. Bellamy's staff, and messengers attended. Mr Cone said. Members of Parliament had their own prayer meeting and Bible study once a fortnight, and so it was not expected that they would attend.

"We did not get going to try to get members of Parliament along." Mr Cone said. "We set up to pray for them."