Tag: Christian Emphasis

IGNITE! Praying the Impact with the World YMCA!

Join us in November for a Week of Prayer!

‘IGNITE: Praying the Impact’ is a theme aligned with the long-term strategies of #YMCAVision2030 and #Goal2035 and the World YWCA. It is a call to act prayerfully, informed by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. To focus our prayers, we have selected the values of:
1️⃣ Wholeness
2️⃣ Hope
3️⃣ Responsibility
4️⃣ Dignity

You’re invited to pray with all of the Y’s around the world starting November 13-19!

We encourage you to join us each day in a solidarity of spirit, a kind of unity that builds bridges; to learn more click here or using the QR code below! There you can access all the Scripture Readings, Devotions, Discussion Questions, and Prayers.

Some ideas on how to use this resource in your Y:

  • Start with You: commit to personally set aside 15-20 minutes each day to enjoy the prayerful silence and solitude of being with God and lifting up your friends and colleagues up in gratitude and concern.
  • Find a friend you feel might be open to spending time with you in this week of prayer.
  • If you’re already part of a prayer group see if they’d be open to adopting this series for a week.
  • Share each day on social media and invite your followers and friends to join you through what you post.
  • I’m sure there are more ideas!

Below you can find the Key Verse for each day, Reflection Points, and a Prayer of Blessing. You can use these on your own or with friends. Feel free to share!


MATTHEW 5:13-16 (NRSVUE)
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot. You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

JEREMIAH 29:4-7 (NRSVUE)
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

DAY ONE REFLECTION POINTS

• Where are you called to serve in the community you are placed?

• What are the needs in your community?

• Is something hindering you from being rooted deeply in the life of your community?

• Where is the one person you can bring light to this day?

• Where are you longing that the light of Jesus will shine into your life?

DAY ONE PRAYER OF BLESSING

Dear Lord Jesus, Thank you for being the light in our life. Thank you for filling our hearts with your love. Thank you for being our peace and our strength. We see communities around us that long for change, that long for new possibilities. May you lead us to places where we can ignite change for people and for communities. May your spirit guide us and fill us with hope, inspiration, and strength. Amen.


JOHN 5:1-9 (NRSVUE)
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many ill, blind, lame, and paralyzed people. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The ill man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am making my way someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

DAY TWO REFLECTION POINTS

• If you could change one thing in your life to take a step toward whole-person wellness, what would it be?

• What barriers have gotten in the way of you making this change?

• How would you respond if Christ personally asked you, “Do you want to be made well?”

• If your YWCA/YMCA could take one step toward impacting wholeness in your community, what would it be?

• What barriers need to be removed in your community so this can happen?

DAY TWO PRAYER OF BLESSING

As you come to pray, consider these words:
“It is good to make an end of movement, to come to a point of rest, a place of pause.
There is some strange magic in activity, in keeping at it, in continuing to be involved in many things that excite the mind and keep the hours swiftly passing.
But it is a deadly magic; one is not wise to trust it with too much confidence.
The moment of pause, the point of rest, has its own magic…
There is an inner insistence toward wholeness and it is this that the moment, the experience of quiet, announces.
It is a fearful announcement: “BRING IN YOUR SCATTERED PARTS, BE PRESENT AT ALL THE LEVELS OF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS. THIS IS THE TIME OF TOGETHERNESS. ONLY THE ONE WHO HAS COME TO A POINT OF HOLY FOCUS, MAY BE BLESSED WITH THE VISION OF GOD.”
And without the vision of God, there can at last be no significance in living.”

Now, be still. Focus on God. Be still. Pray: May God who gives living water, refresh my whole being and renew my vision. Amen.

(In the Moment of Pause, the Vision of God, by Howard Thurman)

JEREMIAH 29:11-13 (NRSVUE)
“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”

MATTHEW 20:1-10,16 (NRSVUE)
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius.
So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

DAY THREE REFLECTION POINTS

• Do we choose to see our world through the lens of cynicism or through the lens of hope?

• How are we allowing hope to move us in a way that produces integrity in the way we work?

• What do we need to do to ensure that we remain sources of hope?

• What may be hindering us from impacting hope today?

DAY THREE PRAYER OF BLESSING

Dear God, you are our hope, and we choose to hold on to you. May we be continually aware of your unfailing love for us every day. We pray for encouragement and confidence even in these perilous and uncertain times, knowing fully well that you have the power to calm the raging seas in our lives. Let our homes, communities, and YMCAs/YWCAs find comfort, rest, and strength in your unfailing promises. May we be channels of hope always. We pray for all this and more in the name of Jesus Christ, our source of eternal hope. Amen.


GENESIS 1:26, 28 (NRSVUE)
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

MATTHEW 6:9-10 (NRSVUE)
“Pray, then, in this way: Our Father in heaven, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

DAY FOUR REFLECTION POINTS

• Examine your daily habit and lifestyle and reflect upon your complicity with stewardship models based on ideas of dominion (kabash) or subduing(radah)?

• Does the stewardship framework of oikonomos-oikodomos make sense to you? Why? Why not?

• What can you, as an individual, and as an institution (YMCA / YWCA), do to become a responsible and proactive steward?

DAY FOUR PRAYER OF BLESSING

Oh God of justice and righteousness, thank you for creating planet Earth. Thank you for reminding us to take your creation seriously. Forgive us for our vicious negligence and complicity in destroying the Earth. Bless our efforts to change our ways and commit to becoming responsible and proactive stewards. May we truly become agents of restoration and healing of the Earth to make your Kin-dom come into our midst. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.


MICAH 6:8 (NRSVUE)
He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?

LUKE 18:1-8 (NRSVUE)
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ”And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

DAY FIVE REFLECTION POINTS

• Do we still regard prayer as a critical component in the work that we do as the YMCA and the YWCA?

• Are we still Christ-centered and God-fearing, or have we succumbed to the powers that be in the world?

• Where do we place advocacy for human dignity in the work that we do in the 21st century?

• What is our ecumenical and interfaith profile today? Are we content working in silos as the YMCA and the YWCA?

• When called to task, how do we, as the YMCA and the YWCA prioritize equity and equality issues in the globe, our vision, and work?

DAY FIVE PRAYER OF BLESSING

Our heavenly parent, we come to you in humility, asking for your forgiveness where we have failed to do what is good. Forgive us, God, for not treating our neighbor with love, kindness, and justice. Help us to do your will and follow the direction of your word. Bless all those who continue to serve your mission and purpose on Earth against the principalities of darkness. Mold and make our global movements to serve your missional task of promoting and protecting human dignity in partnership with everyone regardless of their creed, gender, age, caste, race, class, religion and political affiliations.


2 CHRONICLES 30:1-6, 10-13 (NRSVUE)
Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel. For the king and his officials and all the assembly in Jerusalem had taken counsel to keep the Passover in the second month (for they could not keep it at its proper time because the priests had not sanctified themselves in sufficient number, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem). The plan seemed right to the king and all the assembly. So they decreed to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, that the people should come and keep the Passover to the Lord the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it in great numbers as prescribed. So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his officials, as the king had commanded, saying, “O people of Israel, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that he may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. So the couriers went from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. Only a few from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem. The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the officials commanded by the word of the Lord. Many people came together in Jerusalem to keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread in the second month, a very large assembly.

JOHN 17:18-23 (NRSVUE)
As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

DAY SIX REFLECTION POINTS

• Is there anything in today’s topic that I have found challenging to read? How does this affect my view of others?

• Do I look for ‘Good’ in my co-workers, or do I look for ‘Bad’?

• What aspect of my character can I pray for the Holy Spirit to transform and impact those I serve in a better manner?

• What practical steps can I take to nurture the unifying presence of God within my YWCA / YMCA?

• Are there any relationships I need to repair? To say sorry? To ask for forgiveness for how I have spoken or acted?

DAY SIX PRAYER OF BLESSING

God, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is offence, let me bring pardon. Where there is discord, let me bring union. Where there is error, let me bring truth. Where there is doubt, let me bring faith. Where there is despair, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, let me bring your light. Where there is sadness, let me bring joy. Loving God, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that one receives, it is in self-forgetting that one finds, it is in pardoning that one is pardoned, it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life Amen (Adapted from The Prayer of St Francis)

What Kind Of YMCA Do You Dream Of? [Pope Francis & the Field Hospital : via William Cavanaugh]

What would it look like for a local YMCA to be like a field hospital for those wounded in spirit-mind-body throughout our community? What if the Y was a movement of healing and strengthening, of building up friendships, renewing your purpose, of volunteering to serve? What if the work of the Y extended beyond our walls?

What is the YMCA to you? 

Why is there a Y in your community? 

How does a local YMCA fit in with the ministry of churches and Christians in a city? 

Maybe you’re just dreaming of a cleaner Y with lower membership rates and one that’s not so busy at your preferred hour. 

The “C” in the YMCA, however, is central to its origins and compelling global endurance over 175 years. 

Click here to learn more about the YMCA out in the battlefield among the wounded soldiers of the Great War

There is no Young Men’s Christian Association without collaboration of local Christian churches in their community.

Both the Y and churches are participants in the kingdom of God as proclaimed and embodied by Jesus the great healer.

So in the violence of our modern culture, of the past few years, decades and centuries- what is the role of the church and the Y in a community now?

What is Christ our Savior still doing – still calling us to join him in doing? Especially in these days and beyond?

These adapted words of Pope Francis are compelling to me – as conveyed by William Cavanaugh in answering the question, “What kind of church do you dream of?”

What kind of YMCA do you dream of?

I see clearly that the church [and the YMCA] need most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.

I see the church [and the Y] as a field hospital after battle.

It is useless to ask a serious injured person if he has high cholesterol and about his blood sugars!

You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.

And you have to start from the ground up.

quotes from Pope Francis, A Big Heart Open to God quoted by William Cavanaugh, Field Hospital: the church’s engagement with a wounded world

In the Y we talk about ways that we are not a church, but sometimes are like a church. 

The discussion usually gets caught up in details around programs and practices – we have prayer gatherings but not doctrinally dogmatic – we serve the community but not with a gospel presentation, etc. 

As relevant as this kind of conversation and distinction may be for YMCA and church partnerships, it misses a more fundamental reality:

Are we healers or wounders? 

Does the community see us as instigators of the battlefield or trusted enough to bind up the wounds of those afflicted? 

Is our posture one of nearness and proximity to the injured in our neighborhoods or with those wrecking havoc with their power and privilege?

At the Y our mission puts an emphasis on “building healthy spirit, mind and body.” 

That implies a hop and an effort towards bringing healing to the wounded in our midst, particularly in spirit.

When Christians in the YMCA live out their calling through the mission of the Y, they can center their motivation on this truth as stated by Pope Francis: “The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.”

We believe this by putting it into practice through programs that build healthy spirit, mind and body – for all. 

What adaptation would happen if Y’s became more intentional in being a field hospital for all the wounded we can see?

The world wounds; who will be the healers willing to see the reality around them?

What can a Y do to become a healing field hospital in the community

One: Answer the question: do you want that for your YMCA and the community?

Two: If yes, pay attention to the culture you are building – nourish the parts that fuel healing, address the parts of your culture that wound.

Three: Look for the wounded in your community, and for the healers, and for ways to bind them together – you find what you are looking for.

Four: Be proximate to the wounded; get healing for your own wounds.

Five: Warm your heart with nearness to the presence of Christ, strive for faithfulness in your spirit, mind and body. 

Six: Focus on healing and flourishing for all.

Seven: Let the wounded and the healed tell their stories, let them be part of the culture, the programs, the future of your Y.

What would it look like for this dream to become true in your community YMCA

Prayer In The Y.M.C.A. Paradoxes: Both/And/More Than?

Who are we these days and how to live up to our name in these complicated times? How can our Y movement fulfill our mission amidst the contentious complexities in our culture? Can we? Who believes it anymore? Who is praying for it still? Is there a way forward “that they all may be one”? Yes!

One of the contributions to the longevity and vitality of the Y is its ongoing embrace of Both/And/More Than.

In 1844 George Williams (age 22) and his 11 friends founded the Young Men’s Christian Association, a prayer movement for the conversion of souls, dignity in labor, and industry reform. (like Jesus & Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10)

It didn’t take long for these founders and leaders to innovate and adapt along the Both/And/More Than reality.

Eventually both young and old were welcomed into the movement, (George was active until his death…) both men and women, both Christian and non-Christian, both individuals who wanted to associate widely and narrowly.

Sir George Williams

And obviously it has always had some sense of More Than: it’s more than just young and old adults, but all of those in-between; nowadays it includes adults indentifying themselves with categories more than just men and women; for over a hundred years we’ve been including more than just Christians, but also Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Secularist; and how people participate is more than just through wide or narrow associations, with many creative collaborations and participation opportunities.

By 1855 the Y.M.C.A. was an international cross-cultural Christian movement that needed to define some core beliefs and practices which allowed them to articulate a vibrant identity through which they could also expand their associations.

The Paris Basis is a genius expression of how the Christian men of the Y envisioned their diverse traditions working together fruitfully and harmoniously for the Kingdom of God in a rapidly changing and increasingly contentious century.

original draft copy of The Y.M.C.A. Paris Basis, 1855

The Y has always eventually embraced paradox: it exists within multiple cultures and draws creative strength from diverse traditions of its global leaders and communities.

Ironically, the more concious and concentrated it is on its core in the Paris Basis, the more purposely inclusive the Y can be amidst diversity. When the core identity gets thinly diluted instead of thickly enriched, the weaker the associations become and less benefits the inclusion brings. (Ask the EJY about this in Palestine.)

The current paradoxes in our YMCA mission can be a creative surge of innovation in our movement to thickly enrich our core identity, or we can fuel antagonisms which erode our core and thin or weaken what holds us all together.

In our mission it sometimes seems that “Christian principles” and “for all” are pitted against each other, especially the dimensions of diversity like “faith” and “sexual orientation” or “gender identity”.

YMCA lobby in KY

It also seems there is a split between “healthy spirit” and “healthy mind-body” – do they go together or not?

These two sets of paradoxes are good for the YMCA; they keep us energized and alert to the ways we strive to live out our values and how we also fall short of our promises. To point out failures, though, with a condescending and condemning spirit with no plan of redemption and friendship is neither Christian nor sustainable for our movement.

A purist mentality is ironically toxic, while a pluralist society can actually embody harmony.

Why? One is focused on vigilantly excluding toxins, which is a negative-oriented approach to existence based on prejudices, assumptions, and glossing over truths – the other is focused on awkwardly including differences and slowly embracing change, clumsily thickening their identity while lovingly becoming more concious of their adapting legacy and innovating traditions as they pursue truth.

It’s maybe too dramatic to declare the Y is at a crossroads, but with the violent upheavals surging through our cultures and environments, we’d be wise to more quickly embrace our paradoxes.

Ironically, let’s celebrate our clashing! Let’s also humbly insist on learning from our “antagonists” and commit to telling the true story of a Y.M.C.A. that has imperfectly endured, has elicited affection and generational gratitude in communities across the globe, has too many examples of falling short, yet continually (not without struggle) commits itself to confession and repentance, redemption and conciliation.

For Christians in the Y today, out of all the paradoxes we struggle to embrace, understand, and put into the practice, the most severe and compelling one is Jesus and his prayer in John 17:21. Either it’s a core guiding vision for the Y.M.C.A. or it is not.

old Y logo, Fort Wayne IN

If it is, then we have before us a disturbing paradox which both inspires and dejects us, empowers us yet exhausts us. What do I mean?

Well, is Jesus going to answer his own prayer for unity or not?

Is Jesus answering his prayer in our generation or not?

Do I like how Jesus is getting along with it? Do I have some serious concerns about Jesus’ tactics and strategy? Am I disappointed and frustrated with Jesus and his complicated and lengthy approach to answering his prayer?

Don’t say that you’re fine with Jesus, it’s his people you have a problem with. Jesus is the Head of the Body of Christ, he is with his people in spirit, mind and body – holding all things together and with us to The End.

And yes, this painfully heightens the frustrating paradox of the prayer “that they may all be one” and our trust in God’s Son that it will be answered.

paradox of the crucifixion of God’s anointed one…

To participate in the Kingdom of God and the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus-prayer for unity is to exist within a divinely difficult to grasp paradox that births: remarkable Faith and doubt, persevering Hope amidst despair, and transformative Love through our suffering. (see St. Paul’s prayer to his friends, 2 Thessalonians 1:2-4, 11-12)

This is the Young Men’s Christian Association at its best- since June 6, 1844, both courageously and humbly seeking to live out its name through more than 18 decades, both globally thickening its legacy and embracing the paradoxes in love, while being more than just an authentic guide for our tumultuous times but also as gentle imitators of the suffering Christ Jesus, as patient and faithful participants in his own proleptic prayer “that they all may be one.”