From 15 to 21 March, you can buy my book Intercessions for a Hurting World at a discount, using the code HURTINGWORLD10 when ordering the title from the Kevin Mayhew website. With the book normally retailing at £12.99, that’s a saving of £1.30. Just type the code into the relevant box at the online checkout between the dates given. Should you have any problems, do let me know.
Below, I reproduce the list of Contents and the Introduction from the book, to give you a flavour of its contents.
Contents
- Abuse, victims of 10
- After a major accident 12
- Aid agencies 14
- Alcoholics 16
- Ambulance staff and paramedics 18
- Animal welfare 20
- The anxious 22
- The armed forces 24
- Arthritis 26
- The bereaved 28
- Barriers in society, those working to break down 30
- Broken relationships, those experiencing 32
- The bruised and broken 34
- Business leaders 36
- Cancer, sufferers from 38
- Carers 40
- Casualty departments 42
- Charities 44
- Chemotherapy and cancer treatment, those undergoing 46
- Children leaving home 48
- Confidence in themselves, those lacking 50
- Conservation 52
- Crime, victims of 54
- The deaf and aurally impaired 56
- Dementia 58
- The depressed 60
- Deprivation 62
- Diagnosis, those awaiting or receiving 64
- The disillusioned 66
- Drought 68
- Drug addicts 70
- The elderly 72
- The environment 74
- The exploited and abused 76
- Extremism 78
- Factories and industry 80
- Failure, those who feel they are 82
- Farmers 84
- Firefighters 86
- Fishermen and sailors 88
- Floods, those overwhelmed by 90
- Governments and world leaders 92
- GPs 94
- Health and healing 96
- The homeless 98
- Homophobia 100
- Hospices and the terminally ill 102
- Hospitals 104
- The hungry 106
- Hurting, those who are 108
- An industrial dispute 110
- Injustice 112
- Interfaith dialogue 114
- Justice and the judicial system 116
- Leprosy sufferers 118
- Lifeboat and air-sea rescue crews 120
- The lonely 122
- Marriage 124
- Mental illness, those wrestling with 126
- The Middle East 128
- Migrants 130
- Natural disaster, those overwhelmed by 132
- The news media 134
- The National Health Service 136
- Nurses 138
- Nursing/residential care homes 140
- Paralysis 142
- Parents 144
- Peacemakers 146
- The persecuted 148
- The physically disabled 150
- The police 152
- The poor and needy 154
- Poorly paid workers 156
- Pornography 158
- Pregnancy and infertility 160
- Prisons 162
- Racism 164
- Refugees 166
- Scientists and researchers 168
- Sexism 170
- The sick and suffering 172
- Social justice 174
- Social workers 176
- Surgeons 178
- Teachers 180
- Terrorism 182
- Trouble, those facing times of (1) 184
- Trouble, those facing times of (2) 186
- The underpaid 188
- The unemployed 190
- Veterinary surgeons 192
- The visually impaired 194
- War and peace 196
- War, people and places broken by 198
- World, seeking real and lasting change in 200
- World leaders 202
- World peace 204
- The worried 206
- Young people 208
Introduction
Does intercession ‘work’? Honestly, I don’t know. Can it possibly make any difference? Again, I don’t know. I’ve wrestled with precisely such questions through much of my life, and wrestle with them still. But if I don’t have all the answers, I’m convinced nonetheless that interceding for others is vital. It’s about caring, expressing our concern for others, and surely that should be a central concern of people of all faiths and none. If responding to the needs of our world doesn’t matter to us then what on earth are we about?
Intercession is not about changing God’s mind, as though God can somehow be persuaded of the merits of a case if only we berate him long enough or ensure sufficient people are praying for the
same thing at the same time. It’s not about reminding God about a particular person or situation, as though their needs may somehow have slipped the divine memory. Such a God would be a whimsical monster, undeserving of praise or worship. No, intercession is as much for our benefit as for God’s. It reminds us of matters we sometimes ignore or forget. It brings home the reality of human need. And it prompts us into action. Those facets alone offer a more than sufficient validation of intercession.
So how do we go about it? Too often, intercessory prayers are vague and wishy-washy – ‘Oh Lord, we pray for the wider world and all its needs’ – as though that covers everything. Or, in worship and prayer meetings, we are subjected to rambling and tedious prayers that never seem to end, as though every situation imaginable must be included in case God has somehow overlooked them. For me, such approaches take us back to false ideas of what intercession is all about. God knows the needs of the world whether we articulate them or otherwise, but intercessory prayer helps us to tune into them, to identify ourselves with such needs, and to start answering our prayer by sharing in God’s transforming work – caring, sharing, giving, helping; offering ourselves as his hands and feet.
In this book, I provide a hundred all-new prayers on specific themes – situations of human need that, sadly, all too frequently rear their head or that are simply part of daily life for many. My aim is to provide a resource for whoever is entrusted with leading intercessions in public worship, so that they may pray meaningfully, thoughtfully and confidently.
A second aim in these prayers has been to avoid religious language throughout. That may sound strange for a book of prayers, but I believe it’s important, for too often in prayer we can slip into jargon, far more frequently than we may realise. We use terms like ‘grace’, ‘blessing’, ‘repentance’, ‘sanctification’ and a host of others – words that may mean something to regular worshippers but probably mean nothing at all to those approaching God for the first time. We do so innocently enough, but if we’re not careful these become empty words – religious padding to disguise a lack of genuine meaning in the prayers we offer.
Prayer shouldn’t be like that. While there’s certainly a place on occasions for the language of the Book of Common Prayer – I love that as much as any – we need to pray also in the modern-day vernacular and, as far as possible, in words that speak to nonbelievers as much as believers. We need to include rather than exclude, to welcome in rather than shut out. That’s what I’ve attempted to do in this book, avoiding jargon as much as possible and using language that, hopefully, can speak to all.
Our hurting world needs praying for as much as ever, perhaps more so. It is our privilege and responsibility to intercede for it and act on our intercessions. My hope is that something in these pages will play a part in making that possible.