wfn.org | Commentary: Let us pray for the children

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 27, 1999    News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-71BP{393}

EDITORS: A photograph of Bishop Kenneth L. Carder is available.

NOTE: The United Methodist Council of Bishops is sponsoring an initiative
addressing children and poverty. Bishop Kenneth L. Carder is active in that
effort.

A UMNS Commentary
By Bishop Kenneth L. Carder*

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.

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?

In the Memphis Conference, we have designated a Bishop's Day of Prayer for
Children. We call upon every church in the conference to pray for the
children in their congregations, the communities, and the world on that day.
But that 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!

# # # 

*Carder is bishop of the United Methodist Church's Nashville Area, which
includes the Tennessee and Memphis annual conferences. This commentary
appeared first as a column in the newspapers of those two conferences.

Commentaries provided by United Methodist News Service do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of UMNS or the United Methodist Church.

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