Prayer pointers compiled by Roger Millman

Prayer pointers compiled by Roger Millman - click on links below to read earlier prayers

As we entered CA's 21^st year the theme of the annual conference in January was “Kingdom Economics”. There, we specifically shared ways and wisdoms aimed to bring justice and peace in which both rich and poor are freed up to serve and care for each other for mutual enrichment and the common good.

Micah 6:8; 2 Corinthians 8:9;

Prov 8: 1-3; 9:10; 3: 7a; 3: 5-6; Jer 6: 16a; Isaiah 30: 31; Jer 6: 16b; Col 2:2-3

“In [many developing countries] there's a [growing] educated upper [and] middle class much neglected by Christian agencies. Here are people searching for answers – but in the wrong places – whose sophistication conceals neuroses, who need to go beyond superstition, ritual and form to find something that is truly life changing. Jesus is not just for the poor: His words also have something to say to the people with power and influence to reform society.” Priscilla Breekveldts in LatinLink magazine 2009.

Continue to pray for all churches and communities still oppressed by harsh, often inwardly fearful, doctrinaire and cynical regimes. Pray also for the oppressors who – often blindly and unwittingly - degrade the image of God in themselves as much as they do in those they unjustly and often ruthlessly persecute. Keep on remembering, as the Spirit leads you, the work of Christian Solidarity Worldwide and other agencies supporting the suffering church which are working in Burma (Myanmar), North Korea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Congo, Iran & many other countries.

“The provisions of Deuteronomy 15 and Leviticus 25 have debt forgiveness amongst the people of Israel every 7 years while the year of Jubilee every 50 years focuses on the return of land to the families that were allotted it on entering the promised land...the Jubilee ensures that subsequent generations were not cut off from their roots through the loss of family land in a particular generation. This safeguarded identity, rootedness and access to the land as a means of production... Forgiveness of debt might seem a radical suggestion but the truth is we need an even more fundamental and biblical reorientation of our economic principles to avoid another 'credit crunch' in the future.”

Pray all politicians, faith group leaders and leaders of business, social and cultural enterprise will shun vain glory and selfish irresponsibility. Pray they seek - in truth, justice, love and hope - to restructure and rebuild economies and financial institutions. Pray for new opportunities for all to move towards greater freedom and openings for real fulfillment in the service of God and others.

Continue to give thanks and praise to God for all that CA is, and does. Pray for all those who work in the CA office in Leicester, and for all those active as CA regional reps. and local supporters in the UK and world-wide.

Pray especially for Rowan Williams, CA's president, for God's inspiration in his heavy schedule as Archbishop and has ongoing contacts with other UK and international church leaders and with people in many other walks of life in Britain and abroad. Remember also John Flack, CA's chair, busy in rural parish work, as - with CA Council colleagues - he seeks vision and wisdom best to guide and equip CA to realise exciting new areas of opportunity in its 21^st year as a charity, and beyond.

Pray also for the further development and success of the CA web site, regional activities, visits programme, publications list and over the list of forthcoming CA events (see CA website and back inside cover of current CA magazine). Pray that all involved with CA will gain a clearer vision of what CA is and does and a bolder will to grow it. Above all, to see CA, with its global partners, as a truly prophetic agency and movement for our times.

“Go deeper still into what healing is about, and you will discover a strange yet creative exchange among those who admit to each other that they are wounded. In bearing one another's burdens, in the sharing of one another's pain, we begin to dance.”

As we continue to pray for healing and and economic recovery in Haiti after January's disastrous earthquake, pray for integrity and good governance among national politicians and administrators, and wisdom for international agencies helping to rebuild the country in the hope of longer term prosperity.

Continue to reflect on how injustice in the world seems often a consequential judgment on our own, and society's, departure from truth, trust, love, compassion, commitment and accountability. God's remedy is summed in the words of Micah 6:8, Isaiah 58: 6 – 14, Zech 4: 6 and 10a and Matthew 6: 33

“...our underlying problem is being “dissociated”, and we ought to be asking constantly how we restore a sense of association with the material place and time and climate we inhabit and are part of.

It tells us of a material human life inhabited by God and raised, transfigured, from death; a sharing of material food which makes us sharers in eternal life; a community whose life together seeks to express within creation the care of the Creator.

In the words used by both Moses and St Paul, they are not a message remote from us in heaven or buried under the earth; it is near, on our lips and in our hearts (Romans 10: 6-9, Deuteronomy 30: 11-14). And as Moses immediately goes on to say in the Old Testament passage “You know and can quote it, so now obey it. Today I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death...choose life” (Deuteronomy 30: 14-15 & 19)

“Let's forgive one another for the past, so we can help build together a common future.”

Kingdom economics is about justice, forgiveness and the restoring/affirming of human dignity and respect for the earth. It involves the freeing up of real choice and opportunity for both materially rich and poor.

As Isaiah 58: 6 – 14 shows, God promises, in response to trust and obedience, rich blessings both to those who give and those who receive, ie a mutual blessedness in the circle of God's grace.

Let us all pray to know from God practical ways and wisdoms to grow the blessings of His Kingdom in the situations in which He has placed us.

Zaccheus, in his conversion, was given new freedom in the Spirit to unlock the material power and resources often held so tightly – even at times cruelly – by the rich to prop up self-referenced, surrogate identity, meaning and purpose, as they try to live without real reference to God (see Book of Ecclesiastes). But when he met Jesus, Zacchaeus' joyful response was to turn from being a despised,self-loathing and anxious hoarder to a hilarious giver. This kind of life-changing encounter offers a model antedote/cure to what celebrity psychologist Oliver James terms virulent “affluenza”. The cure that overturns the acquisitive, power/wealth/status ladder in the zero sum game we all play – most often unwittingly – as we build our mini protective “towers of Babel”, that is cocoons of status and affluence – either as citizens of relatively wealthy (mainly Western) countries or rich elites in many “developing” states. All such seek to live in degrees of denial, which works against the truly “more abundant life” which God yearns for all people to have, which both mirrors, and flows from, Himself in Blessed Trinity.

“Lord – Your whole creation speaks Your praise, so that our souls rise out of their mortal weariness unto You, helped upwards by the things You have made and, passing beyond them unto You who have wonderfully made them, find in You refreshment and strength unfailing.”