This week is O-Week, so I have been on campus almost all week.

As I have spoken to students, lined up for free snow cones, pancakes & sausages, had free condoms thrust into my hands by the queer society, dominated the horizontal bungee and invited people of all backgrounds to check out Jesus with us at Unichurch, I have been reminded that as a church we need to praying for our city!

As I was reminded of this I remembered a prayer I read yesterday on the Gospel Coalition blog.  I would like to invite you to model your prayer for our city on this one with me.  Note: this prayer was prayed at Fuller Seminary School of World Missions.  Hence, the reference to morning classes.

photo credit: pj_in_oz!

Almighty and everlasting God this morning we bow before You in prayer for the great cities of earth – London and Hong Kong and Tokyo and Berlin and Delhi and Rome and Kinshasa and Havana and Moscow and Lima and Sao Paulo and Chicago and Mexico City and hundreds of others. Good Lord, in such great measure, these are dark and evil places where crime and prostitution and injustice flourish, where demonic powers stalk the streets and Your sons and daughters become dehumanized. And yet, Lord, in such great measure these are also good places full of education and invention and manufacture and books and great hospitals and universities and seminaries and churches and tremendous interchange of ideas and inspiration. Empower Your churches, O God, to see the cities as the decisive battlefields of our day and to discern the real enemies and to fight manfully on, heeding neither weariness nor wounds, ’til You have built in these cities the New Jerusalem. And empower us, Your servants, to regard these morning classes not as academic exercises heading toward paper degrees, but as Your assemblies, Your assemblies, good Lord, in which we open ourselves to Your presence and tune our ears to Your commands and identify ourselves with our brothers and sisters perishing in the contemporary famine of Your word. This we ask in Jesus’ blessed name. Amen. (Collection 178, T52 – February 21, 1979)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Pastors thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.