Home Worship Planning Preaching Resources Praying for Change: Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism

Praying for Change: Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism

By Derek Weber

Three people holding hands in prayer

While the headlines may have receded, the sin of racism continues to be seen and felt on both individual and systemic levels. Dismantling racism is not a short-term task but a lifelong moving forward to perfection in love—to use founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley’s words. Therefore, Discipleship Ministries and other agencies and bodies of The United Methodist Church will continue to provide resources and guidance on how to become anti-racist individuals and churches. Please seek out the help you need to maintain your efforts to transform your community into an anti-racist fellowship.

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 continue to provide daily prayers to help keep us all centered on the ongoing journey of transformation. 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 for anti-racism, click here to contact us. Join with us in this season of prayer and change in our denomination and beyond.

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February 7, 2025

Compassionate and Gracious Creator Spirit, you breathe life into all of creation.

In you, we live and have our breath.

Breathe into us, as we breathe together in the stillness of our hearts.

Breathe with us, as members of Marquette family and community, created in your loving image.

By your breath, re-create us as one family and community, rich in diversity, rooted in love, filled with respect for one another.

By your breath, fill our conversations with thoughts of peace and inspire our actions with deeds of justice.

Breath of life, hold us in your heart, where we can all breathe together as one.

Breath of love, heal us all – black, white, brown; women and men; young and old, whom you have quickened into life by your loving breath.

Breath of hope, empower us to re-create our world with your light, love, and life.

Compassionate and Gracious Creator Spirit, breathe in us, now and for life.

Amen.

A Prayer for Racial Justice, Sister Anne Arabome, SSS, associate director of Faber Center for Ignatian Spirituality, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, https://www.marquette.edu/faith/a-prayer-for-racial-justice.php.

February 6, 2025

Gracious God:

We come before You as a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquities.

We repent, O God, for the 500-hundred-year oppression of people of color.

We repent of the smug self-satisfaction with our material prosperity—prosperity rooted in exploitation.

We repent of our church, steeped in the cultural values of consumerism, comfort, and White supremacy.

We repent of tithing mint and dill and cumin while neglecting justice and mercy and faith. We have, indeed, strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel.

We repent of our deliberate ignorance about race and racism, the practiced innocence and convenient naiveté that protect us from acknowledging the truth.

We repent of the myths we tell; the lies we defend; the unearned, undeserved privileges we like to call blessings.

We repent of the institutions we have built, the systems and structures, the policies and practices that created and perpetuate White supremacy.

We repent of blaming the oppressed for their oppression, masking our hate with pity and contempt.

We repent of our self-serving complacency, our pretense that time equals progress, our insistence that we are one of the good guys.

Father, forgive us, for we know exactly what we do.

Lord, hear our prayer . . .

Charles Green, “Prayer of Repentance for White Supremacy” (June 8, 2020), Hope
College Blog Network,
https://blogs.hope.edu/getting-race-right/uncategorized/prayer-of-repentance-for-white-supremacy/.

February 5, 2025

God of all mercy, we confess that we have sinned against you, opposing your will in our lives. We have denied your goodness in each other, in ourselves, and in the world you have created. We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.

Forgive, restore, and strengthen us through our Savior Jesus Christ, that we may abide in your love and serve only your will. Amen.

Prayer of Confession, Enriching Our Worship 1, Episcopal Church, Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, 19. https://www.churchpublishing.org/siteassets/pdf/enriching-our-worship-1/enrichingourworship1.pdf.

February 4, 2025

God of Heaven and Earth, you created the one human family and endowed each person with great dignity. Aid us, we pray, in overcoming the sin of racism. Grant us your grace in eliminating this blight from our hearts, our communities, our social and civil institutions. Fill our hearts with love for you and our neighbor so that we may work with you in healing our land from racial injustice. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer for an End to the Sin of Racism in Our Land, Copyright © 2018, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. All Rights Reserved. https://www.archspm.org/a-prayer-for-an-end-to-the-sin-of-racism/.

February 3, 2025

God of all creatures great and small,

I’ve often wondered how you view our fascination with rodent-based prognostication. Yesterday was Groundhog Day in the US. We can debate how seriously most folks take this observance, but it occupies a lot of space in our public conversation. The more I ponder this reality, the more I suspect that you might be somewhat frustrated that we spend so much time on inconsequential things, distractions, rituals, habits and preferences, and manage to overlook injustice, inequity, and privilege. I can’t help but hear Jesus excoriate the Pharisees about tithing mint and dill and cumin but neglecting “the weightier matters of the law: mercy and justice and faith” (Matt 23:23 NRSV).

I suppose we might have different opinions about what matters. But maybe spending time discerning what you think is most important should be the focus of our energies. Surely caring for those on the margins, surely tearing down the walls of hostility that divide us, surely listening to voices from those who differ from us, surely all these and more are at the top of your list for us. Help us, God of light and shadow, listen and learn and act in ways that lean into a future that resembles the spring of the kin-dom. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.

Derek C Weber, January 2025

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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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