World in Prayer

Sharing in God’s loving compassion for all

Kitten-Shaped Prayers: Ethiopia’s Oromo Protests, Hong Kong’s Security Law, and a Myanmar Landslide (July 2, 2020)

The World in Prayer team member who wrote this week’s prayers has spent the past 6 weeks catching, taming, and finding homes for a litter of feral kittens. It has, she says, definitely affected how she understands God, and how she prays for the world. “You’ll have to forgive me,” she writes, “if these prayers […]

Jesus, Light of the World: A Prayer Against Racism and Injustice, from London to Navajo Nation (June 18, 2020)

What does the Lord ask of us? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.~ Micah 6 : 8 “My thoughts are not like your thoughts. And your ways are not like my ways,” announces the Lord. “The heavens are higher than the earth. And my ways are higher than your […]

Crack Our Hearts Open: Prayers for Brazil’s Pandemic, a Qom Family in Argentina, and New Delhi (June 11, 2020)

Christ, Jesus our friend and companion in the streets, in police stations, on curbsides, at take out restaurants, in hospital waiting rooms, in public health offices that are conducting contact tracing phone calls, in hallways of governments, and with those who listen to testimony. You, Lord, who wait for us to open the door, to […]

A Life in Service to Others: Prayers for Yemen, India’s Migrant Workers, and Tripoli (April 2, 2020)

Nobel Peace Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018, including during the Ebola crisis) writes: Dear fellow citizens of the world, … It does not mean that we are on our own, every country for themselves. On the contrary, it is the sign of a communal response, that border closures make […]

The Prince of Peace in a Weary World: A Christmas Prayer for Refugees and the Poor (December 26, 2019)

As we approach the end of another year, we tend to reflect and look back over the last year or decade but unless this informs our choices and behaviours going forward it is in danger of being an empty and futile activity. So many have expressed frustration, anger or disconnectedness with the political process in […]

Are We Nearly There Yet: Albania’s Earthquake, Floods in France and Italy, and Thanksgiving (November 28, 2019)

Father God, are we there yet? We are between the last Sunday of the year and the first – are we nearly there yet? “The days are coming” (book of Jeremiah) – are we nearly there yet? We are between the new beginning and end of the last new beginning – are we nearly there […]

We Build Walls: A Prayer for Those Waiting at Borders and Drowning in the Mediterranean (November 7, 2019)

Dear Lord, Great Mystery, Comforter and Reconciler of All. In your Great Mystery you are a bulwark, a fortress and watchtower.  You protect and shield and send light forth to guide and unite. We build walls, over 70 of them across lands and around the world from the U.S.-Mexican border to the fences separating Hungary […]

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 […]

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child: Prayers for Kashmir, Kenya, and Hong Kong (September 12, 2019)

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, A long way from home.     – African-American spiritual Mother-Father God, we come to you when we feel lost. We come to you when we feel discouraged. We come to you when our strength […]