Category: Prayer

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Prayer Concern: Earthquake and Tsunami — Update

According to CNN, yesterday there was an 8.9 magnitude earthquake, the largest to hit Japan in 100 years. The quake was followed by a tsunami and at least 32 deaths are being reported. A tsunami warning has been issued for many countries on the pacific including the west coasts of the United States and Canada. Right now let’s pray for those affected, I’m sure there will be an opportunity to contribute to relief efforts in the days to come.

Note: I know that CNN isn’t considered a neutral news source by many people (in the past I’ve often thought them biased myself), but I can’t think of a well regarded hard news source that is acceptable to everyone. If you know of one I would love to hear about it. What I’m looking for is a source that would be well regarded by the wide spectrum of members of our church.

 

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A New Year

It’s a brand new year. Today seems a particularly appropriate day to post Jenny’s recent article for The Coffeyville Journal today. Here it is:

As we get ready to begin a new year, many people are busy making New Year’s Resolutions.  The beginning of a new year provides us with a reminder that we can start over.  It provides us with the incentive to give up a bad habit or to take on something new.  Of course we can make a change and start down a new path in life anytime, but sometimes it takes something bigger to give us the incentive to make a needed change, and often that comes at the beginning of the year.

My United Methodist heritage offers a wonderful prayer adapted from one by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, for use in the Covenant Renewal Service.  The Covenant Renewal Service is a service where people recommit themselves to the covenant they have made with God.  The covenant prayer below is a prayer that reminds us that when we enter into a relationship, or a covenant, with God, we begin to live a life that is shaped by God.  When we renew our covenant, or renew our baptismal vows, we remember the vows we once made and we recommit ourselves to that covenant.  While we have times during the life of the church that we do this together as a faith community, the covenant prayer is a prayer that we can pray at any time to help us remember the covenant we have made with God and to help us listen to what God is calling us to do and be.  As the new year begins, may we take the opportunity to renew our covenant with God, to renew our commitment to our faith.  And may we have the courage to follow wherever God is calling us to go.

A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition (United Methodist Hymnal #607): “I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

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The Upper Room is now offering an online prayer wall on which you can post prayer requests so that other can join you in prayers of thanksgiving, praise, confession, petition, and intercession. The project is part of what they’re calling “MethodX — the Way of Christ.” The Upper Room also has information on different forms of prayer and other prayer resources on the left of the same page.

Link: http://www.upperroom.org/methodx/thelife/prayermethods/prayerwall.asp

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9/11

ground-zero-cross-webToday is the 9th anniversary of September 11. Let us remember the past and pray and work for the future God has promised.

The photo above is titled “The Cross at Ground Zero.” It was produced by flickr.com user BostenBill and is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License. If you wish to learn more about the cross, Wikipedia has an article. Larger versions are available at flickr.com.

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Chaplain Asks for Prayers for Soldiers in Iraq

Via United Methodist News Service:

A BASE IN IRAQ (UMNS)—As Memorial Day approaches, a United Methodist Army chaplain has a special request. “I would ask that you continue to keep all our soldiers in your prayers. While there is the ever-present danger of those who wish harm upon us, another growing danger is the hot weather. It is well over 100 degrees here now; today it is 106,” the Rev. John Fimple of the Arkansas Annual (regional) Conference wrote home. “We have a lot of soldiers who work outdoors in the sun and heat, please keep them in your prayers.”

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A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition

There is a Wesleyan tradition of “Watchnight” services on New Year’s Eve which often took the form of a Covenant Renewal Service. The United Methodist Hymnal offers the following prayer in that tradition:

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

I’m reprinting the prayer here because a Wikipedia entry on the Wesley Covenant Prayer attributes the same prayer to the 1936 Book of Offices of the British Methodist Church. That entry also states that there is normally a bidding such as

… Christ has many services to be done. Some are easy, others are difficult. Some bring honour, others bring reproach. Some are suitable to our natural inclinations and temporal interests, others are contrary to both… Yet the power to do all these things is given to us in Christ, who strengthens us.

The above phrasing aligns so closely with the service in The United Methodist Book of Worship that I have no doubt of its basic accuracy.

We’re not having a “Watchnight” Covenant Renewal Service, but I would encourage you to reflect on the prayer and the invitation nonetheless. For a New Year’s resolution, one could certainly do worse.