Canadians ‘Cry Out’ on Woodstock Anniversary

A prayer event on the 40th anniversary of Woodstock seeks to reverse the tide of rebellion and sexual immorality that organizers say was typified by the 1969 music festival that drew a half-million youth to a farm in Bethel, N.Y.

Several thousand people are expected to convene at Stanley Park in Vancouver Saturday for TheCRY, a 12-hour event that will be marked by prayer, worship and fasting.

Lou Engle, founder of a similar U.S.-based prayer ministry known as TheCall, is among the speakers. Ministers such Stacey Campbell of RevivalNOW! Ministries and Patricia King of Extreme Prophetic were to participate in prayer meetings in the run-up to the eighth CRY event.

“With both TheCRY and TheCall in the U.S., so much of what we target in prayer is the exact antithesis of that whole late-60s movement of turning away from God, rebellion to authority, sexual perversion, seeking spiritual encounter apart form God,” said TheCRY founder Faytene Kryskow, who realized the prayer event was being held on the Woodstock anniversary two months ago.

“It was way too prophetically perfect that we would be landing on the 40-year anniversary of Woodstock,” she added. “We have a massive section of the day that’s going to be dedicated to really praying into this stuff and believing God to reverse the ungodly tide of rebellion that came in, in the late sixties.”

Kryskow said TheCRY is also focused on praying for the 2010 Olympics, which is being hosted in Canada. Although the international sporting event will benefit the nation economically, she worries that it could also bring an increase in human trafficking, crime and violence.

“We’re … calling the church to just say, we’re thankful that this is going to be a blessing to our economy, but we don’t want these other things to come in,” Kryskow said. “We don’t want an increase of the sex trade; we don’t want an increase of crime and violence and all these things.”

She is expecting between 5,000 and 10,000 attendees on Saturday but said the event could become the nation’s largest prayer gathering ever if on-site participation reaches 15,000.

The prayer service will be broadcast on God TV Sunday. On that day, TheCRY also will send teams into the streets of Vancouver as part of an arts-based evangelistic outreach.