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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
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Nov./Dec. 2004 |
Let us pray for the children
By Bishop Kenneth L. Carder
A UMNS Commentary
A recent conversation reminded me of the importance of praying for children.
A man about my age shared that when his mother died a few years ago, it dawned on him that now he had no one who was praying daily for him by name.
Since his childhood he had been aware that every day his name was being lifted before God by his mother. That awareness was a major influence on his life.
Since that conversation, I have been intentional in praying every day for our daughters, their husbands, and granddaughters by name. How God uses those prayers is left to God, but I know that naming them before God intensifies my own awareness of and sensitivity toward them.
What if every child in every local church and every child in every community had someone who prays for them by name every day? One way God would use such a commitment to prayer for children would be to intensify our awareness of and sensitivity toward them.
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When children become the center of our praying, the plight of children will change. |
Every two hours a child is killed by gunfire in the United States. A child is reported abused or neglected every 11 seconds. Daily, children in our communities experience neglect, abuse, and violence.
Why don't we work diligently to replace the daily and persistent violence with daily and persistent prayer for children? Yet this is only the beginning of an effort to persistently lift children before God as a means of offering ourselves in ministry with children.
I know one church that matches every child in the congregation with an adult prayer partner. Extraordinary bonds have developed between the adults and the children.
The prayer circle, however, needs to be extended beyond the church to the children beyond the church's walls. Every local church can think of ways to identify the children in the community who especially need a bond formed in prayer.
When children become the center of our praying, the plight of children will change. God will use our prayers to forge new bonds of love and service. We and the children will be changed. Let us pray for the children
Kenneth Carder, a retired bishop of The United Methodist Church, serves as a professor at the Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C.
Last updated on 25 Apr 2008