Local
We give thanks for all the work our schools have put into teaching and supporting students over th last year. We pray that, as their teaching year comes to an end they find time to refresh before a new year begins with new challenges and new students.
We pray for all who are travelling over the Christmas season, for safe roads, safe airways, safe waterways, safe cycle tracks and safe hiking tracks. Be with all who are travelling.
We pray for the churches in Gungahlin, for their ministry agents and leaders.
Regional
We join with the Canberra Region Presbytery of the UCA as we pray for our Emergency Services and Disaster Recovery Chaplains
- We pray for all those workers who continue offer protection, healing, hope and service when disasters happen across country.
- We give thanks for the SES volunteers, firefighters, police officers, nurses, paramedics, rescue services, and others who regularly put their own wellbeing on the line for the sake of others.
- We pray for disaster recovery chaplains, hospital and military chaplains who care for the professionals and communities affected by all sorts of disasters and emergencies every day.
- We remember in our prayers those currently impacted by flood waters, still displaced by bushfire, still waiting for restoration after damaging hail, and all of us deeply impacted by the pandemic.
- We pray for healing and restoration, care and compassion, rest, and recovery after a particularly disaster-heavy few years.
- As we approach advent, we pray that the reality of God with Us in Jesus may continue to spread peace and goodwill – even (and especially) in times when these things seem far away.
National
We join with the National Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia as we pray for
- Those impacted by the latest outbreaks of COVID-19 in the community, including those who are ill, health workers and others caring for them, and those who will need to isolate over the Christmas period.
- Vaccine equity across the world and for more ambitious investment in programs to deliver vaccines in low income countries.
- Our church partners across the Pacific, Africa and Asia who are working to break the cycle of poverty, create gender equity, enact climate justice and respond to disasters.
World
This week we join with the World Council of Churches as we pray for China, Hong Kong, Macau.
We give thanks for:
- the long and complex history of China, with its many artefacts, cultures and traditions that have developed over millennia
- those who established missions and churches in the past, and the determination of Chinese Christians to contextualize the church here and now
- those who boldly live out their faith, challenging injustices even when they fear persecution
- the economic growth and development that have lifted many out of poverty
- the steps China is taking to counter huge environmental challenges.
We pray for:
- those left behind and further marginalized by rising economic growth, especially women and peasants in rural areas
- the political and social tensions between the mainland of China and Hong Kong and the rest of the world
- a growth in prophetic witness of the Chinese church in society
- spiritual meaning and freedom from captivity to economic growth and consumerism.
We continue to pray with the WCC and the wider church by joining with their prayer cycle in praying the prayers on their website