World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

God, Forgive Me for Good Friday: An Easter Prayer After the Lahore Park Bombing (March 27, 2016)

Today, it is Easter. Today, this day, every day, Christ is risen, the world is made new, and we celebrate God’s triumph over evil and death. Today, at least 60 people were killed and many more injured–most of them women and children–in an apparent suicide bombing at a park in Lahore, Pakistan. Today, remembering that the […]

My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me: A Good Friday Prayer After the Brussels Bombings (March 24, 2016)

The weight of pain, brokenness, despair and grief is profound after yet more bombings and killings in Brussels, Belgium, the almost obscenely routine massacres in Syria, Iraq, Sudan, the murders and kidnaps in Columbia, Mexico, the corruption and destruction of trust and order in too many countries to name on most continents of our shared, […]

Free Me from the Shackles of My Privilege: A Prayer from Somalia to Haiti (March 11, 2016)

  Alpha and Omega God, I realize again and again that I am a person of privilege.  I am confronted with the fact that I have so much, so many opportunities.  I am convicted by my daily “concerns;” which restaurant will I go to for dinner, will my latest on-line shopping purchases be delivered on […]

For Such a Time as This: Prayers After the Chibok Bombings, the Kabul Attack, and Damascus (February 4, 2016)

“Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to […]

In the Bleak Midwinter: A Prayer for All Whom God Knows by Name (January 28, 2016)

Loving and Holy God, “in the bleak midwinter” is our sometimes expression of Christmas Christian faith.  Like the hymn writer of old we impose our cultural images on the Good News to suit our tastes.  You understand us, Holy God, our seriousness and our foolishness; You understand us at our most generous and our most […]

Let Us Go Forth: A New Year Prayer Amid Floods, War, and the Many Who Live on the Edge (December 31, 2015)

“Forgetting what is behind, and reaching towards what is ahead, I press towards the goal of the high calling in Christ”.     –Philippians 3:13-14 A new year, new resolutions, so often it is a new setting up of ourselves for failure and disappointment. As I sit here to the aural backdrop of Chinook helicopters trying to […]

There Is Nowhere God Is Not: Prayers After the Sinai Plane Crash and the Afghanistan Earthquake (November 5, 2015)

God of love, God of inclusion, God of justice and peace, we come to you with hearts heavy with the things that are happening in our world over which we have no control. Lack of control is scary, feels threatening. And yet, even in the midst of our confusion and frustration, there is a truth […]

Darkness in Our World and Hope for Your Light: An All Saints Prayer for South Sudan (October 29, 2015)

Gracious and Good God, we come towards All Saints’ Day with darkness in our world and with hope for your light.   We pray for the saints who have entered your kingdom who healed individuals and neighborhoods. We pray for those angels among us: those who feed the hungry, comfort the aggrieved, and love their neighbors. […]

You Understand: Prayers for Korean Family Reunions, a School Attack in Sweden, and Typhoon Koppu (October 22, 2015)

‘God is not aloof; God is not a spectator.’  Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs, American union leader.  Creator God, we would pray for the whole world, but it’s too big and we are overwhelmed.   We understand that you can see all and know all that is before we even think to talk to you about it.  […]