A church in North Suffolk will bring blessings as it burns the midnight oil during a 24-hour praise and worship service later this month.

The marathon service at Greater Faith Worship Center, 4633 Sleepy Hole Road, will begin at noon on Dec. 20 with a praise and worship program through 3 p.m., Pastor Nathaniel L. Thomas said.

The next three hours, Thomas said, will bring teaching sessions and seminars; then 6 to 9 p.m. will feature a tag team of various preachers who will each preach for 20 minutes.

Including himself, five pastors are lined up for this part of the event, Thomas said.

For the three hours to midnight, a “delivery service” will bring healing to people with drug addictions and other problems. “People struggling with voices — demonic demons — will be delivered,” Thomas said.

A “midnight musical” will then kick in until 3 a.m., followed by a prayer session until 6 a.m.

“We have several different people praying about various things,” Thomas said, including, for instance, the president, military, police department, churches and families.

A testimony service follows the prayers, running through until 9 a.m. Folks will share how Jesus Christ has impacted their lives, Thomas said.

At this point, the regular Sunday service begins, starting with Sunday school. Thomas preaches from 11 a.m. to noon — a full 24 hours later.

Thomas won’t be going to bed: “God told me to stay up the entire time,” he said.

It’s not lock-in service, he said. Folks can come and go, and everyone is welcome.

The event will also involve a ministry collecting canned and other non-perishable food items for the needy, which will be collected from the church and distributed by the Suffolk Department of Social Services.

Thomas said he has reached out to the business community to support the food ministry by hosting a collection box, and he invited interested parties to call him at 252-287-6484.

Thomas believes the building his church worships in has existed for about 30 years. He said Greater Faith started in it in February 2012, after about a year was spent fixing it up after it had stood vacant.

The energetic Thomas also leads another church in North Carolina and co-pastors at his father’s church in Hampton.

Having once held a service on the beach with 150 worshippers, he says he’s an “out-of-the-box guy” and that the 24-hour event is another extension of that.

“I’m hoping to be able to bring a group of people together to worship God with no boundaries,” Thomas said.