This annual observance is the means for promoting understanding and sympathy and for drawing together Baptist women around the world. Indeed, the Day of prayer is the lifeline, the umbilical cord, if you please, to the success and well being of this movement of Baptist Women. Offerings taken on this day provide a large portion of funds needed for the Department's maintenance and ministries. It was the European women, the first to organise themselves into a continental union, who gave birth to the idea of a special day of Prayer among Baptist women. It began in 1948, following the devastation and division of World War 2.
Historians mention finding earlier references to plans for a special prayer time.
However, those informal prayer times remained just that. Plans for a day set aside for this purpose did not materialise until the late 1940's. After the devastation of the Second World War, Baptist women in Europe felt compelled to begin the healing processes for women isolated by war and national loyalties. Promotion of the movement spread quickly to other continents. A number of women leaders met in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, prior to the 1950 world congress.