An Invitation to Pray / Let’s Rise to the Challenge and Pray A New Blog by Neil Mancor
/10 Days of Prayer For the Renewal of the Diocese
An Invitation to Pray / Let’s Rise to the Challenge and Pray
A New Blog by Neil Mancor (April 26, 2021)
It has become something of a tradition in the Anglican Communion to commit the days between Ascension Day and Pentecost to prayer. This initiative, begun by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York has now spread around the world. This year, we thought it would be a good time to commit these days to praying for the renewal of our Diocese.
I don’t need to tell you that the past year has been challenging for us all. Many of us were already concerned about the future of our communities of faith before COVID-19 struck us. In so many ways, life will never be quite the same again. We know that the Church will not be able to go back to the way it was. But what of the future?
What will we do now?
We will pray. Because we serve an awesome God who continues to have plans and purposes for the healing of our world. Because Jesus Christ is alive and reigns in Heaven and the Holy Spirit has been given. Because we believe that God isn’t finished with us and has more work for us to do.
But to grasp that, we do need to press into our God in prayer. And there is no better place to go, than to our God in prayer. Of course we can, each one of us, pray at any time. God is always there waiting for us. But these times we find ourselves in call us together as the People of God to come before our God and seek direction, inspiration and above all: renewal.
What a word that is: renewal. Spiritual renewal? Financial? In ministry? Do we want our Churches to revive and fill with people again? I think true revival means grasping not the past but the moment of God’s grace. It calls us into the now of God’s blessing. To pray for renewal is not to re-inflate the Church. It is to place ourselves before the Throne of God’s grace, and all God to be God over us. Because it is God who called the Church into being. And if is God who sustains the Church. It is God who will renew the Church and guide us into a new chapter of our lives. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 85: Will You not Yourself revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?
Let that be our earnest desire and for a time draw near and seek our God. So join us for ten days of prayer for the renewal of our diocese. Let us see what our God will do.
