One minute of prayer each night-Grass Roots Effort!

Pray for One-Minute Each Night for the U.S.-Grass Roots Effort!

Summary of the eRumor:
A message that references one-minute of prayer practiced each night in England during World War II. It says that such an effort is being organized in the United States and urges one-minute of prayer every night at 9:00 Eastern Time.

The Truth:
This particular email started circulating in 2007. There was no particular group that we know of that was sponsoring it, but the email circulated widely as other grass-roots campaigns of the past. How much it caught on was impossible to tell.

The message mentions World War II and an adviser to Prime Minister Winston Churchill who organized prayer each night for one-minute to pray for the safety of England.

This may be referring to the efforts W. Tudor Pole, an English author, adventurer, businessman, and mystic.

During World War II, he campaigned for what came to be called "The Big Ben Silent Minute." The chiming of the Big Ben clock in London at 9:00 PM took about a minute. The chimes were broadcast each night on BBC radio at the beginning of the 9:00 news. Pole suggested that the hearing of the chimes, either in person, or on the BBC should be accompanied by one minute of silent prayer for those who had been killed that day in battle as well as remembering all who had been killed in the war. Churchill supported the idea, which became known as the "Big Ben Movement."

A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:

ONE MINUTE EACH NIGHT

In WWII, there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of
people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed
hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England,
its people and peace. This had an amazing effect as bombing stopped.

There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in
America.

If you would like to participate: each evening at 9:00 PM
Eastern Time (8:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Mountain, 6:00 PM Pacific),
stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the
safety of the United States, our troops, our citizens and for peace
in the world.

If you know anyone who would like to participate, please
pass this along. Someone said if people really understood the full
extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be
speechless.

Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have.