Develop a Discipleship System
Praying for Change: Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism
By Derek Weber
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.
December 27, 2024
Padre nuestro, our Father, thank you for calling each of us to you together to be the family of God. Now on earth and in heaven, Lord, may we be one. Through your glory, may we be one with God and one with each other, even as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father. Bring us to complete unity so that the world may see, know, and believe. Lord, as we work to live this prayer, this vision, lead us; transform our hearts, our minds, our very eyes to see, love, and live as you have taught us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
From “Our Father in Heaven” (Matthew 6:9a) Justice and Reconciliation Devotion, Rev. Dr. Andrea Godwin-Stremler, https://www.faithward.org/our-father-in-heaven-matthew-69a-justice-and-reconciliation-devotion/.
December 26, 2024
Gracious God,
Giver of life,
Thanks be to you for your many blessings,
And for the beauty of the bountiful Earth.
Kwanzaa!
Forgive us for taking our many blessings for granted.
Pardon us for abusing and exploiting your creation.
We are not responsible stewards; our consumerism and materialism hinder us.
Merciful God, your creation groans for liberation.
Let us be "the first fruits" of your Spirit for a hurting world.
Help us to transform our bombs into bread, our bullets into books.
And count our blessings and name them one by one.
Kwanzaa!
“A Prayer for Kwanzaa,” Discipleship Ministries, https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/prayer-for-kwanzaa.
December 25, 2024
Christmas Day
“Bless all the dear children / In Your tender care /
And fit us for heaven / To live with You there”
Away in a Manger
United Methodist Hymnal, 217
Words: Anon, Music: James A Murray
Bless us, this Christmas Day, God of light and life. Bless us with care and with presence. Bless us with peace and with rest on this sabbath of all sabbaths. Bless us with the unity we need even when we forget to seek it. Bless us with hospitality that includes and invites and encourages. In short, bless us in a way that makes us fit for the heaven you have in store. Fit us for heaven by showing us how to live today as though we were one in Christ and the barriers we erect were torn down to give you access to us, all of us. Fit us for the heaven of beloved community. In the name of the Christ child and redeemer of all the earth. Amen.
Derek C Weber, December 2024
December 24, 2024
Christmas Eve
“The world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.”
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
The United Methodist Hymnal, 218
Text: Edmund H. Sears, 1810-1876,
Music: Richard Storrs Willis, 1819-1900
I doubt there will be much stillness tonight, let alone a solemn one, God who comes to dwell with us. Yet you come into our busyness, in our loudness. You come and invite us all into the center, to the humblest place you can find. And as we draw closer to you, we can’t help but notice that we draw closer to one another. Suddenly, that which divides us, that which seems different between us, doesn’t matter nearly as much as we sometimes think. When we kneel together at the place where God meets us, then we see our common humanity. We know our common longing to be seen and to be known for who and what we are. We are bound together in our devotion, in our worship of you, God of all our hopes. This Christmas Eve, Emmanuel – God with us, help us learn to be the us you would be with. In the name of the child and the savior. Amen.
Derek C Weber, December 2024
December 23, 2024
Let us not rush to the language of healing before understanding the fullness of the injury and the depth of the wound.
Let us not rush to offer a Band-Aid when the gaping wound requires surgery and complete reconstruction.
Let us not offer false equivalencies, thereby diminishing the particular pain being felt in a particular circumstance in a particular historical moment.
Let us not speak of reconciliation without speaking of reparations and restoration or how we can repair the breach and how we can restore the loss.
Let us not rush past the loss of this mother’s child, this father’s child…someone’s beloved son.
Let us not value property over people; let us not protect material objects while human lives hang in the balance.
Let us not value a false peace over a righteous justice.
Let us not be afraid to sit with the ugliness, the messiness, and the pain that is life in community together.
Let us not offer clichés to the grieving, those whose hearts are being torn asunder.
Instead…
Let us mourn Black and brown men and women, those killed extrajudicially every 28 hours.
Let us lament the loss of a teenager, dead at the hands of a police officer who described him as a demon.
Let us weep at a criminal justice system, which is neither blind nor just.
Let us call for the mourning men and the wailing women, those willing to rend their garments of privilege and ease and sit in the ashes of this nation’s original sin.
Let us be silent when we don’t know what to say.
Let us be humble and listen to the pain, rage, and grief pouring from the lips of our neighbors and friends.
Let us decrease, so that our brothers and sisters who live on the underside of history may increase.
Let us pray with our eyes open and our feet firmly planted on the ground
Let us listen to the shattering glass and let us smell the purifying fires, for it is the language of the unheard.
God, in your mercy…
Show me my own complicity in injustice.
Convict me for my indifference.
Forgive me when I have remained silent.
Equip me with a zeal for righteousness.
Never let me grow accustomed or acclimated to unrighteousness.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Yolanda Pierce “A Prayer for Racial Justice,” (January 12, 2021), St. Ignatus Catholic Community, the Jesuit Church of Baltimore. https://st-ignatius.net/a-prayer-for-racial-justice/.
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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