World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Prayers for Turkey

Grief and hospitality sit side by side in the prayers for Turkey: mining accidents, bombings, the 2023 earthquake shared with Syria, and the millions of refugees the country hosts. Contested elections and the aftermath of an attempted coup appear here, as does its part in peace talks over Cyprus.

Be Gentle With Us: Prayers for the Kurds, Typhoon Hagibis, and Lebanon’s Wildfires (October 17, 2019)

Be gentle with us, O Lover of Souls. Be gentle with us, for surely in this fractured and fracturing world, that above all is what we need: To (re)learn to be gentle with ourselves. To be gentle with each other. To be gentle with our planet. Be gentle with those – especially with those – […]

I Have Called You by Name: Prayers for Hong Kong, Iraq’s Protesters, and the Turkey Syria Border (October 10, 2019)

[Yay, our website is finally back up!  If you subscribe to the email edition of World in Prayer, we apologize that you’re getting last week’s prayers again.  Unfortunately, we have no way of telling the email service to skip a post that we’ve already sent out manually.] But now thus says the Lord, he who […]

Kindle a Flame to Lighten the Dark: Prayers for Hurricane Dorian, Yemen, and Refugees (September 5, 2019)

Kindle a flame to lighten the dark and take all fear away. ~ John L Bell and Graham Maule* When nations are being riven by fear, lies, lack of trust in political, business and so many seeming to seek leadership positions for their own aggrandisement rather than the common good: Kindle a flame to lighten […]

Liberty to the Captives: Prayers for Imprisoned Journalists and Children Separated at the Border (December 20, 2018)

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  Luke 4:18-19, Isaiah 61:1,2 Oh […]

On God Alone I Wait Silently: Prayers for Wildfires, Water Shortages and Refugees (August 2, 2018)

On God alone I wait silently; God my deliverer, God my strong tower. Paraphrase from Ps. 62, John L. Bell* When all efforts have been made to cope with natural disasters: the earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia; the wildfires in California, USA, Sweden, Siberia, Russian Federation, Greece, water shortages in Yemen, the UK, Syria, Kenya; On God alone I wait silently; God my deliverer, God […]

Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying: For Volcanoes, Separated Families and Contested Elections (June 7, 2018)

(The hymn used in these prayers is “Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying” by Ken Medema) Lord, listen to your children praying, Lord, send your Spirit in this place; Lord, listen to your children praying, Send us love, send us pow’r, send us grace.  Lord God, open our eyes to the power and promise of […]

There Is a Balm in Gilead: Prayers After the Kabul Bombings and the Nigeria Mosque Attack (May 3, 2018)

There is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul.  (African American spiritual) O God, when our hearts are breaking, when our souls are wounded, to whom else shall we turn? Where else shall we bring our prayers, our concerns, our woundedness, our confusion, […]

Cradle Your Children: Prayers for Europe’s Snows, Syria, Parkland, and Ethiopia’s Emergency (March 1, 2018)

Holy One, You are a God of Might and Majesty, Tenderness and Vulnerability. You are the one who casts stars into the heavens and who brings forth the first green shoots from the fertile ground. All of Creation cannot hold your glory; and yet you cradle us in gentle wings of mercy. All this is […]

Complicit as We Are in Humanity: A Prayer of Confession and Wonder (February 2, 2018)

Our prayer is for ourselves, complicit as we are in humanity. We pray for the humility to admit that we understand, sometimes participate, in the sins of humanity: the sin of tribalism that sets Turk against Kurd in mortal combat, the sin of denial that tries to reduce the horrors of the Holocaust to verbal […]

Look With Your Eyes: Advent Prayers for Hungry Children in DR Congo and Refugees in Limbo (December 14, 2017)

Holy One, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.” (John 1) “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of […]