We need your prayers!
The 2024/2025 Methodist Prayer Handbook title and theme is: Praise and Protest.
Please use the following to craft and submit a prayer:
In her song of praise, the ‘Magnificat’ (Luke 1:46-55), Mary thanks God for the child Jesus, who will announce God’s kingdom which “brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.”
To engage in God’s mission and be part of that transformation, we believe the Methodist Church is called to become an increasingly evangelistic, inclusive and justice-seeking Church.
Following the prophet Isaiah’s call, echoing through the ages to us and reflected in Mary’s prayer, the 2024/2025 Prayer Handbook will focus on how the Church can “learn to do right; seek justice and defend the oppressed” (Isaiah 1:17a, NIV).
We invite you to offer prayers using Isaiah’s three key actions for becoming the justice-seeking Church we are called to be, in response to God’s love in Christ:
- Learn
We invite prayers that we might be attentive to God’s ways, and discern how we go about learning to live justly in our local communities and churches.
- Seek
Please offer prayers that seek God and God’s ways, and invite us to love God and to love our neighbours. Prayers could relate to looking actively for what God is showing us as the Body of Christ corporately, or more personally, to become people who recognise injustice and take action.
- Defend
Finally, we welcome prayers for the Church to become more aware of the voices of the people we are called to defend – those who are marginalised and silenced. We welcome prayers that support others in their protest and prayers for how we get involved.
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Guidelines for submitting prayers – deadline Monday 8 January 2024
Please email your prayer and any related photographs to: prayerhandbook@methodistchurch.org.uk
Prayers may be posted to: Prayer Handbook Editor, Methodist Church House, 25 Tavistock Place London WC1H 9SF
- Prayers must not exceed 120 words.
- Please submit no more than two prayers.
- All prayer content must be appropriate for use from September 2024 to August 2025.
- Specific prayers. To help users pray relevantly, please include specific information on:
- named countries, regions, communities
- needs or projects, eg praying for people with specific needs, care for the environment, or rural concerns, etc.
- Creative prayers. Feel free to move beyond lists of information to form a more creative prayer. Visual prayers, such as drawings, may also be submitted (follow guidelines for photos below).
- The Methodist Church is committed to becoming an ‘Inclusive Church’. Please use inclusive language in your prayers. For example, refer to people for who they are, not by their experience, ie ‘people experiencing poverty’ (not as ‘the poor’).
- All prayers must be your copyright. They may have been used or published elsewhere, but you must have permission to reproduce them. Unless you indicate otherwise, on submission your prayer will become the copyright of Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. Extracts from the Prayer Handbook are used for ‘Prayer for the Day‘ on the Methodist Church website and also in ‘Prayer Focus’, the prayer journal of the Methodist Church in Ireland.
- Please note that all published prayers will be edited, more or less, depending on how they fit on the page and relate to other prayers in the Handbook. The editorial process also ensures all prayers use inclusive language. By submitting a prayer, you agree that it may be edited as the editor sees fit.
- When submitting prayers, please give your postal address, your full name, and how you would like to be described (eg Jane Jones, local preacher, Townton).
- Please note that it is not possible to include all prayers submitted for the Prayer Handbook or related online content.
Guidelines for submitting photographs
- Photographs must support your prayer and help bring our theme to life. Photos most likely to be published will show people in action.
- Please provide a caption so that the editor knows what the photo is, and state where it was taken. NB: if your photograph is used it may be given a different caption in order to fit the theme and the prayers on the page.
- All photos must be sent as digital high-resolution files: JPEG, 300dpi. If your email gives you the option of sending a photo in a different size please choose ‘original size’ (or the biggest file size). If your email account will not allow you to send large files please use wetransfer.com to email to prayerhandbook@methodistchurch.org.uk
- Images are reproduced small, so make sure photos are bold and clear, ie no group shots.
- Make sure you have permission from the people shown in your photograph: and that they have given their consent for their image to be published. It is crucial that parents/guardians of children give written consent. When you email in your photo(s), please forward permissions and consents.
- Photographs must be your own copyright. If you take a photograph of a piece of artwork (eg a painting or sculpture) and that work is in copyright you must also send the artist’s written permission for their artwork to be used in the Prayer Handbook.
- Unless you indicate otherwise, your photo will become the copyright of Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes.
Schools, children’s groups and young people
The deadline for submission of prayers and photos from schools, and children/young people is Friday 26 January 2024.
If you have any queries, please contact the editor prayerhandbook@methodistchurch.org.uk