Catherine Ripley belongs to the Spiritual Development Committee, which encourages people to grow ever deeper in relationship with God and to pray. As people across the Diocese pray, the ministries of the church will flourish! Amen.
How can I best pray for the people of my faith community? Periodically in the early morning quiet (or on a walk in the woods) I bring the faithful to mind one by one. Most people sit in the same place each Sunday, and so I imagine the faithful in their spots and lift them up to God. It is harder for me to pray for those on our congregational list who rarely or never come to church — or for those who God is bringing into our faith community and have yet to arrive — as I cannot “see” them clearly, but I do my best.
Praying in this way suits me. And a year ago, I discovered that it also suits the primary way I live out my faith. But does it suit those I am praying for? This question arose for me when Kimberley Shared Ministry studied The Theological Banquet, a five-week video/study course created by The Reverend Dr. Janet Gear of the United Church. We wanted to more deeply understand “difference” in our shared ministry congregation as we continued to work at becoming “one in Christ,” and the course did exactly that. It helped a small group of us look at difference through the lens of how people actually live out their faith, not through denominational or doctrinal differences.
Dr. Gear suggests there are five main ways people live out or express their faith: 1) Through sharing Jesus (evangelical), 2) through building up the church from age to age (ecclesial), 3) through helping others (missional), 4) through working for justice and peace (ecumenical), and 5) through seeking the sacred in the world (spiritual). Of course, each of us lives out all of these expressions of Christianity to greater or lesser degrees, but Gear’s research shows we usually reflect one primary way of expressing our faith. Aha! Our study group exclaimed as we thought about ourselves, others, and even ourselves collectively as a congregation through these various perspectives.
And surprise, surprise, not everyone lives out their faith like me! This brings me back to my original question: how can I best pray for the people in my faith community? First, can I “see” how each person lives out his/her/their faith as I lift them up to the Holy One? And second, if so, is God asking me to stretch my preferred way of praying to honour the differences God has placed in them? Do I need to bring my prayers out of the early morning quiet or the woods, out from the Prayers of the People on a Sunday morning, to see prayer in a broader way? For example, could prayer for someone who is primarily missional be helping in delivering groceries to someone in need? And/or could prayer be the writing of a letter on a justice issue as requested by a person who is advocating for justice? And so on.
How can I best pray for others?
How do you pray for others?
For further information on The Theological Banquet course:
https://leadershiftuccan.org/the-theological-banquet
Also read “Undivided Love” by Janet Gear.
A Prayer
Creator God, thank you for the rich variety of people You call into our communities of faith.
Thank you for…
- The messengers — who love to spread the Word and share Jesus with all.
- The servants — who volunteer, care for and build up your church.
- The neighbours — who care for those around them.
- The partners — who join with You to bring peace, justice,
reconciliation to the world - The pilgrims — who seek the sacred in the ordinary.
Bless us all however we live out our faith. Give us grace to understand that we are all valued and needed and beloved by You. Grant us wisdom to encourage each other and learn from our differences. In Your gift of multi-faceted diversity may we become one in Your love. In Jesus’s name, we pray. Amen.
