A Moment with your Mission Centre President Team

4/20/2022

Written by Kat Goheen
Co-president, Canada West Mission Centre

Photo by Shannon McAdam

March 27 was a very special day: a celebration of the life of the Lethbridge congregation in their building on 11th Street. There were wonderful stories and testimonies told of the six decades our dear ones shared together in that building. One highlight of the service was the Prayer for Peace offered by Vickie MacArthur, so we share it with you today to continue celebrating Lethbridge and to offer ourselves again to the work of peace in our world. A church is more than a building. Peace is more than a word.

Prayer for Peace: Ukraine, and Russia, and the World
By John Bell

Loving God,
because you have the whole world
in your hands,
cradle gently those who are rocked by fear, shocked to a depth they have never known and frightened to face tomorrow.

On the people of Ukraine: their children, their old people, their vulnerable adults, their babies soon to be born,

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the people of Ukraine:
their defenders, their advocates,
those who care for the wounded, who sit with the despairing,
who witness and report on the savagery and destruction,
who bury the dead.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the people of Ukraine:
their leaders
that they may continue to inspire,
in word and by example,
and continue to receive help and solidarity from across the world.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the people of Russia,
that they might learn the truth kept from their hearing;
On the churches in Russia that they might find
the vocabulary and courage
to speak truth to power,

On the soldiers of Russia who do not believe
in the carnage they cause.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the Russian president,
and those who affirm his policies, we ask the judgement of heaven, a radical conversion
and an end to their lies, scheming and murder.

Lord hear us, Lord graciously hear us.

And for our own nation
we ask for commitment to match conviction so that the pain of the Ukrainian nation
be shared by us,
their weary people sheltered by us,
their peace assured by us.

Lord hear us, Lord graciously hear us. Amen.