Prayer, what is it? And, how does it work?

Prayer!  It is such an incredible gift! Yet, I think so few Christians understand the real power, blessing, and potential that came come from a life of prayer. 

This week is the first Sunday in Lent.  Now many of us have come to think that lent is a time in the Christian calendar when we are called to take some time to grow in our understanding of what it cost God to be in relationship with us.  Traditionally Christians have given something up for Lent, and of course the reason for that was to help the believer to share in some small way in the cost of Christ’s suffering, and to be reminded of what it cost Christ to set us free.  For example some of us have taken up fasting, every time that we are hungry we are reminded that we have become much more dependent on food than on God, that in fact we have a greater hunger for food than we have a hunger for God!  It also reminds us that what we can choose to do, that is remain without a meal, is not a choice for so many.  My temporary hunger is a daily reality for millions of people all around us.  Lent helps us to reconnect with the God who did not count the cost of loving us.

Now, I am not sure what you’re giving up for lent (if anything).  However, this year I want to encourage you not just to give something up, but to TAKE SOMETHING UP. 

In this podcast (which is an episode of my radio program from Radio Pulpit) I discuss prayer by considering an aspect of the prayer life of Jesus.  24/7 prayers as a lifestyle of intimacy with God.

You can download the episode here (6.2mb, MP3).

I'd love to hear your feedback, comments and input!

21 Ways to Pray at Work

A friend on facebook (H-K-R) shared this great link from beliefnet - 21 ways to pray at work.  

There are some wonderful resources here to add a new level of significance and purpose to your daily work life! Remember that Paul admonished the Colossians saying, “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” (Col 3.23).

We spend so much time and energy in our work environment, why not invest that time wisely by taking the hours you spend at work to a deeper level of commitment? 

Here's my input on some of the steps they share:

• The workday doesn’t start when you walk into the office, it starts when you wake up. Start by thanking God for the job you have.
• Ask God to bless the people among whom you work, and the place in which you work.
• Pray that God will make you a good steward of your time and resources of your company.  As Christians at work we should offer a clear witness through our commitment to our work.  Mark Twain once commented that you should "live such a good life that when you die even the undertaker will be sorry!"
• Pray that God will use your communication to communicate God's love and care for the people you interact with (whether that be your manner on the phone, the way you deal with a difficult client, or the tone of an email).
• A simple exercise is to choose to pray through your 'address book' or phone list. I do this - I take just 10 minutes each day and pray for a few persons on our company phone list.  Amazingly I pray for each of our office staff by name every second week. It changes my interaction with them, and I trust that God uses my prayer to bless and help them.
• Be willing to pray for those who lead your organisation.  Pray not only for them, but for their family and home lives.  Executives often face great pressure.  God can use you to transform their lives (James 5:16)
• Before meetings ask God to guide you and give you calm and peace.  Let God guide your thoughts, your words and your interactions.  During the meeting listen for God's guidance through the words and inputs of others.  Be sensitive enough to hear God's voice, and brave enough to speak.  Your voice mayy be the one that God wishes to use to change a situation or bring a solution!
• It is worthwhile praying that your organisation will be a just and good steward of the resources they have been entrusted with.  Ask God to guide your leadership to make wise and generous choices that will help to transform society.
• Practice MBWA during your lunch break.  What is MBWA?  It is different from an MBA (Masters in Business Administration), MBWA stands for 'management by walking around'.  Try to connect with as many people as possible in a sincere and significant way during your free time (remember not to steal time from your employer, so use our time wisely!)  Friendships build trust and allow you to offer care, help and prayer to those in need.  I can bet you there are many people in your sphere of influence who are longing for someone to connect with!
• In God's Kingdom few things happen in isolation - we were made for community.  So, find likeminded colleagues to pray with during the week.
• When you have to travel for work pray that God will protect your family and give them patience.  Pray that God will protect you and keep you from any form of sin or temptation, returning you quickly and safely to your loved ones.

 If you have any ideas or inputs to share I would love to hear from you!  How do you make the most of your workday as a  Christian? 

A blessing for today... May God bless you with discomfort...

I came across this wonderful Franciscan blessing earlier today. It reminded me that I so quickly become comfortable in my life. I very quickly forget that I am saved by Christ to serve others, and in order to do that I need to be able to experience the pain and struggle of those amongst whom God is sending me.

There is a great Church in Pretoria that has the slogan (in Afrikaans) 'Leef iemand raak' The best translation I can give is something along the lines of 'live your life into the lives of others', or 'in your living, make sure you encounter others'.

I too easily get busy, distracted, selfish and when this happens I forget what it means to truly live - to live one's life for others. Here's the blessing - I would love to hear how you remain mindful of the needs, cares, and struggles of others. Please do share some insights that help you to remain connected and intentional about living your life as a gift from God, intended to be given generously for others.

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide,
be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.

AMEN

Please pray for our little Liam

Please say a prayer for our little son Liam. He has developed a lung infection and is quite ill at the moment.

Thanks.

Some great news about Liam, but his dad is blind as a bat...

Yesterday little Liam the great went for all his 1 year checkups (eyes, ears, muscle tone, development, but also for his injections and immunizations)...

The great news is that he is perfectly healthy! In fact, not only is he healthy, he is doing so much better than we ever anticipated! He is reaching all of his milestones, and even surpassing some. The effects of the damage to his brain are minimal, and we hope they will become even less of an issue as he grows and mature. Naturally, our doctor (responsibly) warned us that with such a premature child the first 2 years or so are always dicey, so he is not out of the woods yet. However, you wouldn't say that there is any problem if you were to see him!!!

How different things were last year this time. I know some of the photos below have been posted before, but they never seem to stop amazing me and filling me with gratitude for all that has passed.

Last year this time Megan was in hospital (for the second time) trying VERY hard not to have our baby! I remember when the pediatrician and neonatal ICU manager came to see us, we knew something was amiss. They arrived together and gave us the rundown (worse case scenario) of what could happen:

• If Liam was born during that week he would be very frail and prone to infection.
• There was a high chance that his lungs were not developed, so we needed to prepare ourselves for him to spend months on a respirator, and then further time an ventilator once he had learned to breath.
• It was likely that he would suffer some brain hemorrhages as a result of his brain being so fragile and not yet capable of coping with the stimulation and trauma of being out of the womb three months early.
• There was a high likelihood that he would need numerous bouts of surgery to help sort out any digestive problems (which are common to neonatal premature babies).
• It was likely that he would either suffer damage to his eyes, or be entirely blind, as a result of the respiration and ventilation (oxygen damages the eyes).

After they had shown us some pictures, explained all of the risks, and allowed us to ask questions they took me into the neonatal ICU (my first of MANY visits over the next few months). I scrubbed my hands and arms, put a mask over my face, and was instructed not to touch anything or anyone. Then they showed me a little boy who was born at more or less the same stage as Liam was due to be born - he was on an open resuscitation table (with heathers), pipes, probes, and a myriad of bells and whistles attached.

It was so traumatic - when I left the ICU and had to return to the ward to tell Megie about the experience I remember sitting in the parents lounge for a few minutes just weeping... I couldn't believe that we were actually going through this! After I had composed myself I went in to Megie's room and did my best to paint everything in a positive light - but in my heart I feared that we were going to loose our little miracle boy. It was a feeling that I would feel many, many, times after his birth.

Megie and I cried our eyes out! Heck, when I think back on November, December, and January last year all I can recall is an aching hole in the pit of my stomach, and seeing the world through teary eyes.

I remember that we prayed and pleaded with God to help us, and to keep Liam from being born. We begged God to keep him and Megie safe, and then we sat in a stunned silence...

Those were dark times! But, I will confess they were made bearable by the loving support and prayers of so many friends and family - we were receiving literally hundreds of emails and text messages from concerned people (some whom we had never even met)! It was an image of the body of Christ loving itself to wholeness.

Each afternoon of that week I would leave the hospital, fetch Courtney from aftercare and do my best to be composed and strong. We kept her bag packed, so that if I got a call from the ICU Courtney could go to her aunty Madika (and have clothes for school etc.). Then we would go to the hospital and watch a bit of TV with Megie - Courtney would cry all the way home.

Tough times.... I get quite emotional even thinking about it!

Yup, so he was born very early. I got a phone call on the Thursday evening, 15 November, to say get here quickly since Megie's water had broken and there was no way to keep Liam from being born. The nurse who phoned me warned me that it was serious and that we need to be prepared for the worst. I rushed to the hospital as fast as I could (my Polo Tdi has never been quite so fast since! I was doing close to 200km/h on the highway to the hospital). When I got there Megie was in the delivery room and our gynecologist, the pediatrician, the neonatal ICU staff, and the theater sisters were all ready. There wasn't enough time for a C-section, so.... Well, you can imagine. (The photo above shows how small he was with the little blue teddy bear. The one below shows how large he is in relation to that same bear today!)

Our lives changed that instance... Suddenly so many things that were not really important just fell out of our sphere of concern. For the next three months our lives were simply focussed on spending as much time as we could in the ICU with him, and making sure that Courtney (who was not allowed into the ICU) has as normal a life as possible.

Well, it's a year later, and Liam is healthy, strong, intelligent, agile, in fact he is just perfect, perfect in every possible way!

I just don't know how we could ever thank God for such an incredible and undeserved gift! If you read this post today, or find it in a year, or two, or three, please could you offer just a short little prayer to thank God for the gift that he has bestowed upon us? We cannot do it by ourselves, we need your help to fully than God for His mercy and grace!

Well, I also had my eyes tested yesterday... it turns out I am blind as a bat.... I do have glasses, but like most people who THINK they can see without them I don't often wear them. Well from now on you'll see me 'be-specticled' much more frequently... It's a bugger getting old!

Making the most of this day, come what may.

My wife has been facing some challenges at work recently. She works for a public finance company that does work for departments of the South African government. One of their primary tasks is doing skills development and upliftment training for unemployed school leavers, and persons who have been hired into posts but lack the skills to adequately perform the tasks their jobs require. It sounds crazy, but that's a reality. People are hired for many reasons other than competency to do their work. And, let me hasten to add, often these reasons are very good! Of course, at times they are not.

What she does sounds like wonderful work doesn't it? She is in charge of a team of people, managing them, overseeing a number of qualifications and short courses, helping the unemployed, and those we desperately need employment but face the struggle of going to work daily feeling inadequate to do what they have been hired to do.

Sadly though, as with most companies that do work for government departments, payment from the State is slow in coming.

Not only is the system of payment to providers fraught with inefficiency and unnecessary bureaucracy, but there is a great deal of corruption and maladministration in some government departments - this often stops payment completely. It has meant that the company my wife works for has had to wait for payments amounting to millions of Rands, some for up to a year, because the department that was supposed to pay them has had its accounts frozen, or the money that was supposed to be used to pay them has landed up in some government official's private bank account and has been spent, and many other such problems. As anyone who balances their books knows, it is difficult to survive from month to month when you don't have enough money coming in - no matter how much is owing to you! I have often prayed, and wondered, how many good companies have closed down because of poor cash flow? I am praying for their company. They do such good work.

Sadly the reality is that sometimes even the most noble and admirable work can be thwarted by evil and sinful people, and by corrupt and inefficient systems.

So, today she left for work feeling a little downhearted. I offer this prayer for her, and for all others, who face the prospect of this day with uncertainty and struggle, for those who are employed and unhappy, and for those who long to be employed but cannot find any work. For those who desperately need their employment but find themselves out of their depth.

A prayer for this day:

My God, you saw me in my unformed substance and numbered my days before I had lived even a single one of them. Be close to me today, my God, and help me to love you first, and to do my best for you in all that I do. Help me to live freely, and without the restraints of this world and my circumstances. Give me the assurance that ultimately you are in control of my life, and that there is nothing that I shall face this day that you cannot help me to deal with. And so, help me to approach all people, and all situations, with the love and openness that only you can give. Let me manage all my affairs in accordance with your will so that when I stand to give an account of this day, I may do so with confidence, and not be ashamed. In the name of Christ, the servant and the savior, I pray. Amen.

Here is something to consider:

"There is a two way relationship between prayer and life. Prayer can be seen as the focusing and redirecting of an attitude to God and to our fellow [human beings] that runs through all that we do. On the other hand we can see our daily life as something which prayer purifies, directs and consecrates. This interrelationship of prayer and life was expressed by William Temple in his well know saying "It is not that conduct is the end of life and worship helps it but that worship is the end of life and conducts tests it." Temple is here using worship in a brad sense to include all of life. For in worship, as the derivation of the work from worth implies, we declare what we value most. If in prayer I declare that I value God above all things and in my life I show that my own selfish interests come first I am making a nonsense of my praying. We declare how we value God as much by our actions, by the way we treat other people, by the manner in which we do our work, as by anything we say. If my actions are wrong or wrongly motivated prayer cannot make them right. If however, despite my failures and inconsistencies, I do on the whole want to put God above all things then prayer will help to purify my motives and clarify my judgment."

-- From The river within by Christopher Bryant

Scripture verse for today:

Col 3:23-24 (NIV) Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Drop me a line and let me know if I can pray for you.

Technorati tags: prayer, work finance, encouragement, strength, government, South Africa

Worship at work - a lovely liturgy

My last post indicated that I was about to enter the Chapel service to worship with our students. Rev Kedibone Mofokeng led the service. I've retyped her liturgy below (with some slight amendment, and excluding the Xhosa and Tswana prayers and hymns). The responsive sections are printed in italic script.

Opening prayer:
Let us pray:
Let us sing a new song to our Lord, a song praising and thanking God for this day.
A song of joy and happiness

Celebrating endurance and peace!
A song of love and victory, A song of faith and power.

O let our voices hover with the wind! Clap hands with the warmth of the sun and shout with the noise of the birds!
For our blinded eyes are opened, and our deafened ears unstopped; our crippled feet are leaping, and our muted tongues have found their real song.

Loving God, you have delivered us through another night. You have brought us, like your Son Jesus, from that world created and ruled by our wishes and hopes, and ushered us into the world that you, alone, create and rule.
For the grace that has searched for us, and found us, we praise You gentle Creator

Silent reflection:

You found what we were doing, and you intervened. 'Come and do it the right way, let us do it together, come and do it with me' you said.
We thank you Lord, for intervening in our lives.

In the beginning
Before time, before people
Before the world began
God was.

Here and now
Among us and beside us
Joining the people of the earth from different tribes, and tongues, and nations
For the purpose of your Kingdom
God is.

In the future,
when we have gone our separate ways
and we continue to fulfill our calling.
God will be.

Not denying the world, but delighting in it,
Not condemning the world, but redeeming it,
Through Jesus Christ,
By the power of the Holy Spirit,
God was, God is, God will be.

Closing prayer:
Speak your Word, O Lord, as you spoke your Word in the beginning, and in Nazareth, and on Pentecost. As we do our work today we shall be your faithful servants and witnesses, using our work as worship. Amen.

Technorati tags: Litrugy, Prayer, Work, Creation

More than bearable... In fact, a blessing!

Continuing in the theme of "an every day spirituality", I thought I would share a short reading that came from my devotions this morning -

Think of the number of people who have been encouraged in this way by the simple writing and profound life of Brother Lawrence. How vastly enriched we are that he was finally persuaded, almost against his will, to write down how he had learned "The Practice of the Presence of God". His famous words still throb with life and joy, "The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.

-- from Freedom of Simplicity by Richard Foster.

And, here's one of the prayers from the little prayer book for exams -

There are times, O God, when I am overwhelmed by the evidence of Your presence. It can be seen in the work that I study, the conversations during the day, the scenes of nature about us on this campus and area.

Let these build my faith, and rededicate my resolve to do the best possible revision of my work for these exams. They are important both me and to You.

As I read books I find Your presence with people in every Age. As I examine the microscope, I see the minute beauty and excellence of Your creation. As I enter the library I find others studying so they too might bring hope to our world.

"Come see what the Lord has done, the astounding deeds he has wrought on earth" Psalm 46:8 (REB)

Technorati tags: Spirituality, Prayer, devotion

A prayer guide for use during examinations - Wohooo!!! My first international sale!!!

Hey friends, I just wanted to share some great news with you (good news HAS to be shared!)

I sold the first copy of my little book (emphasis upon LITTLE) A prayer guide for use during examinations. Through Amazon.com today! How's that? Of course the postage will cost more than what the buyer paid for the book! But, it's worth it if it helps someone gain some encouragement as they face their examinations.

If anyone already has a copy and would like to write a review on it for me, then please won't you go the Amazon.com page for 'A prayer guide for use during examinations' and say a few (kind) words!?

P.S. If you life in South Africa and would like to order a copy (or more) please contact me directly (my email address is on the right hand side) - it is both cheaper and faster, plus I can write you a little love note in the front it you want one!

Thanks to whoever bought that first copy in Kentucky, USA! You book is on it's way!

AND, PPS Janet, your copies are on their way tomorrow.

Technorati tags: Prayer Guide, Dion Forster, Amazon.com, Prayer, Exams

Resources to guide your prayers, thoughts, and choices during World Hunger relief week.

Did you know that Hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined!?

This week is World Hunger Relief week. I would encourage all Churches to insert some prayers into their liturgies, service sheets, or weekly devotionals.

From the links below you can get Prayer resources, Bible verses, and even games to help focus your prayers, and the choices and thoughts of your cell group, or Church during world hunger relief week.

Here are a few facts about world hunger:

You can download a MS Word prayer guide that has 40 prayers, with additional information, to guide your prayer during the week by clicking on this link.

• 854 million people are hungry
  
• 20 million people are undernourished
• 1 billion people live on less than $1/day
• 146 million children under age 5 are underweight
  • 10 million children under age 5 die every year, over half of hunger-related causes
• 1 in 6 people is hungry
• 1 in 6 people lacks safe drinking water
• 
  
• In the developing world, 20 million low-birth-weight babies are born each year. They are at risk of dying in infancy or suffering lifelong physical or cognitive disabilities.
  
• 3/4 of all deaths in children under age 5 in the developing world are caused by malnutrition or related diseases.
  
• Each day in the developing world, 16,000 children die from hunger or preventable diseases such as diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, or malaria. Malnutrition is associated with over half of those deaths. That is equal to 1 child every 5.4 seconds.
  
• Hungry children are more likely to be ill and absent from school.
  
• Hungry children suffer from 2 to 4 times more individual health problems--such as unwanted weight loss, fatigue, headaches, irritability, inability to concentrate, and frequent colds--as low-income children whose families do not experience food shortages.

---

Africa quick facts - hunger and HIV/AIDS

• The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that there are 206 million people who are hungry in sub-Saharan Africa. This region accounts for 13 percent of the world's population, yet it is home to 25 percent of the world's undernourished population.
  
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, 24.9 million people live with HIV/AIDS, which is 63% of the world's 39.5 million total cases.
  
• In half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa, per capita economic growth is estimated to be falling by between 0.5 and 1.2 percent each year as a direct result of AIDS. (Bread for the World)

For detailed information, resources, and a truly wortwhile read, please visit Evangelical Lutheran Church of America's website.

Technorati tags: World Hunger, resources, Church, Social Gospel

Looting, Eating, or Praying? What would you do if the world was going to end in an hour?

If a meteor was to destroy the earth in an hour's time, what would you do?

This was a question posed in a recent survey in Britain. I include the report (with results) from the Mail & Guardian newspaper below.

What I found interesting in the results of this survey is that only 3% of the population said they would pray, beating gluttony, and theft by looting, with just 1%! Amazingly sex did not feature all that high on the list (Hollywood must be wrong), although it dead beat prayer hand down!

That got me thinking about traditional forms of ministry. Perhaps the 'open doors' policy of the Church is no longer relevant - it certainly seems that it is not working in secular cultures such as that in Britain! What do I mean by 'open doors' ministry? Well, it is the kind of ministry that I'm sure many people of my generation and older are used to - it says "We'll be here every Sunday at 9.30 and 18.30. Our doors will be open, we'll be doing our thing. We know it is during your free time, but you should come to us, God is more important than anything else in life!" Of course God is more important than anything else in life... Except perhaps our sinful and selfish nature...

Perhaps we are needing to 'take it to the streets', so to speak? I am always encouraged when I read of new models of sharing the love and grace of Jesus Christ! Here's a wonderful model that has begun to add value to communities in the UK - Street Pastors at Work in the UK.

"We're not here to preach heaven and hell at people, we're here just to help people with whatever help they might need," said pastor Paul Rush... They are trained to have skills in meeting and counseling people before starting work on the streets.

The eight-week course also tackles anger management and crowd control as well as health and safety, first aid and drug awareness.

Here's the report on the survey from the Mail & Guardian:

Quick! Hand me the fatty food, the world's about to end
London, United Kingdom

An asteroid is on a collision course with the earth and you have one hour left to live. What would you do in your last 60 minutes?

Not surprisingly, the majority of Britons questioned in a survey -- 54% -- said they would like to spend it either with or on the phone to their loved ones.

But the survey revealed a strong hedonistic streak -- 13% would sit back, accept the inevitable and reach for a glass of champagne.

Sex appealed to only 9% while just 3% would turn to prayer.

Two percent intriguingly said they would reach for some fatty food while another 2% decided, with just an hour's life to go, that it was time to start looting.

The survey was commissioned by Ziji Publishing to mark the release of Cloud Cuckoo Land by debut novelist Steven Sivell, who "uses the classic premise of an impending meteorite collision as a metaphor for threats to the human race". -- Reuters

Technorati tags: doomsday, hedonism,Church,survey, creative

A prayer for the world... Acceptance, God's Character, Christ's ministry, and our responsibility.

Yesterday I had the great joy of preaching at Calvary Methodist Church in Midrand (just between Johannesburg and Pretoria). My friends Alan Storey and Siviwe Waqu are the ministers of this incredible congregation. I have the great fortune of traveling throughout Southern Africa visiting many of our Methodist Churches. Each Church that I visit has some unique and special element that makes it a gift from God to the world, and a gift from the faithful members of that congregation to the Kingdom of God (I like to think of Churches as being gifted, and being gifts).

Calvary is one of the most remarkable Churches in the world! I have the great pleasure of preaching there every few weeks (mostly when Alan is traveling to Sudan, or the USA, or somewhere in South Africa, to do the 'Manna and Mercy' course (do a google search for 'Manna and Mercy' and 'Daniel Erlander'). It is always humbling, because he is a far more gifted and prophetic preacher than I shall ever be. However, what makes the experience so wonderful is that this is perhaps the most integrated congregation in the 6 nations that make up the Southern African Methodist Conference.

I will never forget the first Sunday that I was asked to preach there (way back in 2004). In the morning service as I presided over the sacrament of Holy Communion I had an elderly white woman, a young Indian woman, a young black professional man, an older black homeless man (who lived in the shelter at the Church), and myself a young white male, behind the communion table. It reflected the diversity of the Kingdom of God, all ages, all races, varied demographic, economic, and theological positions, various sexual orientations, and varied needs and desires. Yet we were all united in service of Christ our King - united in our common need for salvation, forgiveness, and acceptance and love in the Body of Christ. That was perhaps the first time in my life that truly understood the mystery of the Eucharistic meal.

This is truly what the Gospel LOOKS like... Not just what it sounds like!

Yesterday I preached a message on 'Acceptance' (you can download the MS Word transcript of the sermon here: Acceptance7Oct07.doc - if anyone is interested) - it was based on that question 'What does the Gospel look like?' Sitting in the congregation were young people, old people, white people, black people, gay people, straight people - in some ways it felt like preaching to the choir, or trying to convert the already converted. Yet, I realise that there are still issues and prejudices that needed to be address and dealt with. My prejudice against those persons who will not lovingly open the Church to all. There were men in the congregation who struggled to submit to the leadership of women. There were parents who struggled to accept the new perspectives, lifestyles, and choices, of their Children. There were HIV + positive people who were struggling to accept their status. There many, many of us, who needed hear that acceptance is part of God's nature, that it is central to the ministry of Jesus, and that it has to be foundational in the ministry of every disciple for the Kingdom of God.

So, what did we do? Well, we prayed! We were lead in prayer by Siphiwe Ndlovu, an incredible lay preacher (and a former colleague of my wife Megan). He lead us in a prayer that blew the cobwebs out of my soul! Afterwards I commented both to him, and Alan, that Siphiwe's prayer was enough... I did not need songs, liturgy, sermons - all that I needed to was that prayer. I will pray it over the next few days, or weeks, in the hope that it will become a part of the common life I share with all the people who God loves and accepts - even the one's that I struggle to accept.

The context that shaped Siphiwe's prayer was an experience on a previous weekend where he and other members of the Congregation engaged in 'Kairos' prison ministry. Kairos prison ministry is much like the Emmaus movement, but it is directed lovingly towards persons who are in prison.

Here is Siphiwe's magnificent prayer:

We bring now our chains to you who have set us free from the clutches of sin and death and brought us new life. Even though you have freed us we continue to be bound, our sin forever seeks us, fears and anxiety form our shadow, suffering and many problems hold us captive, unwilling to release us, to live fully the life to which you have called us. So we cry out to you this morning. Look upon this world with merciful eyes. Look upon us with merciful, love-filled eyes and release us. Free us from that which entangles us.

Oh Lord we bring to you this morning those among us bound by fear. Lord you know us, you see us, we who are immobilized by fear of failure and rejection; we who are unable to speak the truth or have meaningful relationships; we who are fearful of tomorrow; we who are bound in the mentality of scarcity, afraid to release our resources of time and money to free others from the chains of poverty and hunger. Oh Lord you see us and you see our chains – so look upon those who are caught in improper relationships, unable to escape. Have compassion upon us, those for whom the fear of death and crime are real as a result of having had guns pointed at us and our privacy violated. Those of us who have tasted death and live in perpetual fear that it will come soon. See those of us caught in many addictions – drugs, alcohol, busyness, work and sin. Jesus, you came so that we could have life in all its abundance, our fears bind us and limit our lives, our addictions call us back to feed them again and time again. Come again and again, come everyday and free us!

Oh graceful God, we pray for those bound by grinding chains of poverty. Parents who have to sacrifice their dignity to stand at traffic lights to beg from people who will not even look at them. Children who have to forego school and opportunities to learn and grow because they have no money, families for whom the rains are not good news because their roofs leak or they have no shelter.

Kids who are unable to enjoy the carefree ways of youth, caught in an adult world of being providers for their siblings; bound in chains of a world they can hardly cope with. Laughter has dried, questions of what games to play replaced with heavier questions of what they shall eat or what they will do if their parents die.

And Lord we pray for those who are bound in the system of wealth and the pursuit of it. Those for whom riches and fantasies of having more mean everything; those who sacrifice the relationships with spouses and children as they want more of the things that make them look good on the outside while they are dry and empty on the inside. Look upon those caught in an untenable situation of debt with no relief in sight. Come, Lord and loose their chains!

Even as we pray for freedom and release, Lord you know that for most of us chains are all we know. We are so used to being bound that the idea of freedom is threatening in itself. So we continue to resist your freedom. We long for it and yet do not have courage to take hold of it. We pray for courage to be free, to live free, fulfilling and life-giving lives. Root out all systems of oppression, those that are institutional and those that are entrenched in our hearts and minds.

And Lord we pray for those who are bound and live behind prison walls. For those who have wronged society we pray that you will bring them to a place of repentance and a new life. We pray for those who are in jails of the world. We pray for those who are in the jails of Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Darfur and for all those who fight to free their people from the chains of dictatorial powers. You Lord are on the side of the oppressed and the bound, for you know too well what it means to be bound, to be tried unfairly and to be given an unjust sentence. So we know that when we pray to you, we pray to the one who can emphathise, and one who intercedes on our behalf. The world is bound in chains – come now and free us – for whom the son frees, is free indeed. Amen

Technoratti tags: sermon, Gospel, prayer, Acceptance, Methodist, Dion Forster