Prayer Update 587
KEY PUBLIC ISSUES FORUMS
At the moment (15-17 February) three national forums are being held on Secularism and the Public Square; Marriage and the Public Good; and Sacred Life/Abortion. These are three key public issues which affect both our nation and churches. These issues were identified as a result of feedback from surveys of Christian leaders in New Zealand, which took place between March 2009 and August 2010. The forums (by invitation only) are being organised by NZ Christian Network. Below are the details of these three forums – please read the following and pray concerning the issues mentioned, and as the Lord leads you to pray concerning these issues and how the Church should respond to them. Please also pray for the outcomes from the forums.
Forum 1 – Secularism and the Public Square (Wednesday 15th February)
Religious leaders all round the world are highlighting secularisation as perhaps one of the biggest issues we are facing. The Church is called to be “salt and light”, to be “in the world but not of the world”. Yet it is a constant challenge to avoid compromise with the dominant culture. The number of people who come to faith through evangelism is outweighed by the number who drop away for various reasons. Problems such as poverty, family break-up, and crime, are related to the increasing loss of faith. How then should we live?
Forum 2 – Marriage and the Public Good (Thursday 16th February)
The institution of marriage has become less significant to society since the 1960s. But the consequences of casual relationships, including casual marriage, are profoundly negative – especially for children. At a time when the best solution the state can come up with to address domestic violence, child poverty and spiralling welfare costs, is more state intervention, the Church has a proven message of hope and faith, which is nurtured and expressed in part through marriage.
Forum 3 – Sacred Life/Abortion (Friday 17th February)
The Christian idea of sacredness of life encompasses topics from bioethical issues to social justice. Because we are made in the image of God and life is sacred, we not only seek to protect life but also to ensure that life has dignity. This includes helping people to access the material means necessary to live reasonably in our society. Because the issue is so broad, this forum addresses one part of the topic (abortion) with the expectation that as the concept of sacred life is promoted, there will be a flow-over effect into other aspects of the topic.
Please pray for NZ Christian Network and the valuable work it does for the Church, the Kingdom of God and our nation. Please also pray for its National Director, Glyn Carpenter. See www.vision.org.nz for further details.
“THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE – I’M GOING TO LET IT SHINE ... ”
Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before people that they will see your good works and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 5:16). One of the answers to the three forum issues mentioned above is for every Christian to make sure that their Christian life shines as a light in the midst of darkness, no matter how dark our surroundings might be. Tragically, many Christians live like the rest of the world around them and appear no different from unbelievers. Pray that all Christians will be a light to their families, to their neighbourhoods, amongst friends and workmates, and so on. Pray for increased boldness to share with unbelievers what Jesus Christ and the Christian faith means to us. As well as this, we need to see a much greater demonstration of the power and wonders of God’s Holy Spirit manifest in the Church and in the lives of individual Christians. In the book of Acts (and in the ministry of Jesus on earth) we see the miraculous power of God at work, awakening people to the reality of God and His power to heal the sick, deliver the demon-possessed, work miracles, transform lives, and so on. Pray earnestly for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon God’s people so that the Lord is glorified and people are drawn to Him, to find Him as Lord and Saviour, Healer and Deliverer – in other words, so that the Lord is glorified in and through the lives and witness of believers. Luke, after recording the life and ministry of Jesus in his Gospel, then went on to write the book of Acts: “In the first book (Luke’s Gospel) ... I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when He was taken up into Heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles (messengers) whom He had chosen” (Acts 1:1-2). Two of these instructions were to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to the nations, and to wait until they were endued with power from on High (Luke 24:45-49). May we do likewise! Pray for this to happen!