Friday: Week of Fasting & Prayer

Let’s pray for OUR LOCAL COMMUNITY…

“Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
- Jeremiah 29:7

• Pray for the various Kerith ministries that seek to serve the local community, particularly those in need. This includes our Foodbank, debt counselling, job club, life skills courses, reading and writing courses, recovery groups and all our other justice ministries. Thank God for the army of volunteers who make all of this possible.

• Pray for our various partner organisations and friends of Kerith who serve the local area including:

  TLG coaches who go into primary schools to work alongside children in danger of being excluded from school.

  CAP who seek to help people released from a life sentence of debt, poverty and its causes.

  Home For Good - Thank God for all the children being fostered and adopted in our community, and for our partnership with Home for Good which is helping fuel this work. Pray for more families and individuals to be inspired to foster or adopt children.

• Pray for our team going into local prisons to run Alpha Courses and lead Sunday services. Pray for local prisoners.

• Pray for our work supporting families who have children with additional needs and our group for adults with additional needs.

• Pray for our work with the homeless, including the night shelters that take place in partnership with various churches.

• Pray for those who work in various organisations and groups who serve the local community. Pray for wisdom, strength and love as they lead, in order that they might do the best they can to glorify God in all they do.

Pray for the local area including:

• Education – that local schools would prosper, and that the children would become world-changers in various ways across the world.

• Healthcare – pray for the doctors, nurses and various professionals who serve us. Pray for wisdom for those in charge to steward budgets, staff and resources well.

• Emergency Services – pray for the police, fire brigade, ambulance service and all those who work in varying crises to protect, keep the peace and rescue the public.

• Local Businesses – pray that local business owners will thrive in their sectors. That businesses will grow and be prosperous. That Christian business owners will shine as they set the example in leading organisations with Godly values.

• Public Sector – pray for those who work in local council and local initiatives to serve the community.

For children…

RESOURCE NEEDED – paper, magazines/material for collage, pens, crayons, cardboard box

Think about what ‘local community’ means to your child. It may be their toddler group, their school, clubs they belong to. Pray thanks for those groups and for the children to be a light in their community. Why not turn off the lights at home and light a candle, to show the children how they can shine like a light for Jesus in the areas they are part of.

Help to open their eyes to others around them by talking about the local services in the area – police, firefighters, hospitals and doctors surgeries. Your children will no doubt have noticed rough sleepers, may have seen the food bank donations in supermarkets and at church. You could use a cardboard box to show them how people with nothing have to sleep outside – use it to draw or write prayers on.

Pray for all these people and that Jesus will meet all of their needs.

Your child could make a collage or draw a picture of the groups and people mentioned and be prompted to pray for them each day.