by Melissa Ramirez Cooper, ELCA News Service
Members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will
pray for peace Sept. 21, 2008, as part of the International Day
of Prayer for Peace. The day is an opportunity for churches
worldwide "to pray and act together to nurture lasting peace in
the hearts of people, their families, communities and societies,"
according to the World Council of Churches (WCC) based in Geneva.
The ELCA Task Force for a Decade for a Culture of Peace and
Nonviolence encourages Lutherans to participate and offers
worship resources in addition to prayer and liturgical resources
of the WCC. The ELCA is a member of the WCC.
"When we pray for peace it may seem at first to be a futile pious
wish in the face of the bewildering, frightening and sometimes
overwhelming reality of violence and hostility in the world.
What good, after all, could it possibly do to pray for peace? Or,
it seems that we must pray for peace because we feel powerless to
do anything about the conflicts in our lives, our communities and
the world around us. What else, therefore, can we do but pray?
We can pray in the confidence that God is actually in the midst
of war and community conflict -- not standing far off above it --
and so is well-placed to bring peace," said the Rev. Ronald W.
Duty, assistant director for studies, ELCA Church in Society.
"What we usually don't realize is that often, when God brings the
blessing of peace, God gives that blessing through us. So when
we pray for peace, we are actually praying, often unknowingly,
that God will prepare and send us to be God's ambassadors of
peace and to be God's peacemakers in our settings, just as Jesus
called 12 ill-prepared but gifted disciples and prepared and sent
them to spread the gospel to the world."
The idea for the day of prayer was proposed in a 2004 meeting
between the Rev. Samuel Kobia, WCC general secretary, and Kofi A.
Annan, former United Nations secretary-general. The day is an
initiative of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence and coincides
with the UN's International Day of Peace.
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
For information contact:
Candice Hill Buchbinder
Public Relations Manager
Candice.HillBuchbinder@ELCA.org
