Develop a Discipleship System
Praying for Change: Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism
By Derek Weber
In this Kairos moment of protest and awakening, Discipleship Ministries and other agencies and bodies of the United Methodist Church are providing resources and guidance on how to become anti-racist individuals and churches. Please seek out the help you need in this time of transformation.
The Worship Team of Discipleship Ministries believes, however, that such a change will not happen unless the whole process is bathed in prayer every step along the way. To that end, we will be providing daily prayers to help keep us all centered on the journey ahead. From Monday through Friday, a new prayer will be posted here for your use as personal devotion, to share in your small group, or for use in corporate worship.
If you wish to receive these prayers each day in your email, the process for signing up is outlined below. If you would like to submit a prayer, please contact the Worship Team and we would be glad to work with you on how to submit for posting. Join with us in this season of prayer and change in our denomination and beyond.
January 26, 2021
Loving God, you are the most holy Redeemer.
I confess my complicity in White Supremacy by my silence and my blindness to the truth about the church oppressing people in the name of saving them so that they could be exploited through slavery, stealing their land, imprisoning them, taking of their children and other inhumane treatment.
God, thank you for the Black Lives Matter Movement providing the opportunity for the church now to learn about and understand the harm that we have caused by what we wrongly had believed from our White Supremacy perspective to be for their good.
God, give us courage and strength to journey and to struggle together to repent of our transgressions towards people of color and to interrupt racism in all of its ungodly manifestations.
Amen.
Chesie Lee, participant in the Mountain Sky Conference (UMC) virtual journey of daily prayer, organized by Rev. Bich Thy (Betty) Nguyen, Multicultural and Advocacy Ministries Developer, Mountain Sky Conference, https://www.mtnskyumc.org/pilgrimage-week-9.
January 25, 2021
God of all, we observe small children of varied races embrace each other warmly and joyfully;
Help us recognize our own adult sad lack of innocence making us draw back unthinkingly from your people of other races, even to see them threaten in our dreams!
Help us know ourselves to be tarnished from ignorant assumption when we were young ourselves; help us to acknowledge the old, deep flaw and overcome it willingly, out of love of you, who love all ages and races as your children, even, mercifully, us.
Sharon K. Dunn, from Race and Prayer: Collected Voices Many Dreams edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester L. Talton (Morehouse Publishing, 2003), 183.
Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, served churches in Indiana and Arkansas and the British Methodist Church. His PhD is from University of Edinburgh in preaching and media. He has taught preaching in seminary and conference settings for more than 20 years.
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