Praying for Socially Divisive Challenges Every Week in our Sunday Gatherings
The USA is polarized politically along party lines and this polarization has affected and infected our local churches. One way I try to combat the false dichotomy that only one party or political group has all the righteous burdens on their team, I lead the church to pray every week for two issues that tend to be on opposite poles.
So I take up these 6 challenges most regularly:
Abortion
Ethnocentric oppression
Gender, sexual, and marital confusion
Loving the poor as we love ourselves
Loving the elderly as we love ourselves
Loving all immigrants as we love ourselves
Typically (though not exclusively) I take up these 6 issues in 9 different combinations and rotate through them each time I lead our church in our Sunday morning prayer of petition. Here are the combinations:
Against abortion and marginalizing the poor
Against ethnocentrism and gender/sexual/marital confusion
Against the neglect of the elderly in need of constant medical care AND against neglect of immigrants
Against abortion and ethnocentrism
Against gender/sexual/marital confusion and neglecting and neglect of immigrants
Against the elderly in need of constant medical care and marginalizing the poor
Against abortion AND neglect of immigrants
Against ethnocentrism and neglect of the elderly in constant need of medical care
Against marginalizing the poor and gender/sexual/marital confusion
May the Lord help us pray and care and love and shape each other faithfully through our communion with Christ and one another in our local churches in this polarized season in our society.