Tag: Good News

Prayers for Peace on the National Day of Prayer :: the YMCA, the Church, the City

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” – to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

For the 2022 National Day of Prayer, the emphasis was drawn from the encouragement of St. Paul to the church in the city of Colosse (Colossians 2:6-7).

Here is the cotext of what we wrote to the young Christian men and women who associated there in homes and the marketplace:

“My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

Colossians‬ ‭2:2-7‬ ‭NIV

Prayers for our country and community are essential, praying for our leaders and families, our churches and YMCA’s matter.

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

As you pray today, and everyday, may these words above of Saint Paul, and this prayer below of Saint Francis guide you in spirit, mind and body, for all whom Christ brings into your life:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us bear your love.
Where there is offence, pardon us as we pardon others.
Where there is discord, bring union through us.
Where there is error, may truth arise.
Where there is doubt, grant us faith.
Where there is despair, be our hope.
Where there is darkness, shine your light through us.
Where there is sadness, inspire us with joy.


O Master, let us not seek
to be consoled but rather 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 forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying in Christ that one is raised to eternal life.

Adapted from the prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi

The following prayers and prompts are from Central Branch YMCA in downtown Fort Wayne.

Discover & Read the First Nations Version :: an Indigenous Translation of the New Testament

Join the Morning Watch – an enduring YMCA invitation to start reading a fresh and inspired First Nations translation of the Bible in a way that will build up a healthy spirit and reinvigorate your faith, hope and love.

Been awhile since you read the Bible?

Sensing a call to renew your spirit?

Not sure what to do different with fueling your faith?

You are invited to start reading a fresh and inspired translation of the New Testament in a way that will build up a healthy spirit and reinvigorate your faith, hope and love.

In the YMCA we call it The Morning Watch, a call to disciplined action for Christians to start their day early and in God’s Word.

The First Nations Version Translation (FNVT) Council has given the world a refreshing and illuminating experience with the New Testament, written in a culturally relevant way, in the traditional heart language of over 6 million English speaking First Nations people of North America.

Click here to learn more about FNVT!

Consider this invitation: to hear the call of the Great Spirit and pledge to keep The Morning Watch for at least one month – two if you’re open to it.

  • Use the first 30 minutes of your day in the FNVT of the NT.
  • Begin and end that time with silence, gratitude, confession and repentance, forgiveness and commitment.
  • Have a plan for how much you will read each morning and what you will doing with it – journal your reflections or mark up the text or create artwork or memorize verses etc.
  • Trust that the 30 minutes will fly by!
  • Believe that these are the best 30 minutes of your day – and the most essential – for connecting with the Great Creator of the Heavens and the Earth – the Source of Courageous Faith amidst insurmountable challenges, of Enduring Hope amidst pervasive despair, and Reconciling Love amidst a broken-hearted world marred by evil but hand-crafted for Good.

Why is the FNVT compelling to me?

Though born in Indiana, and a resident now as an adult since 1992, I grew up as a child in Ontario, next to Lake Huron, and attended school with Chippewa Indian classmates. While both Canada and the USA have disgusting and inexcusable and wicked legacies for their treatment of First Nation communities, Canada is ahead of the USA regarding the core values of honesty and responsibility, respect and caring – and it’s noticeable – or lack of, here in Indiana.

The impulse and experience of the FNVT for me regrounds me, but also displaces me – upends my familiarity with the text, and opens me up to a world and culture of a people oppressed in the name of God – the same God who originally died for them. Oh the irony. Oh the complexity of the story. Oh the faithfulness of the Great Spirit and the reconciliation by the Chosen One.

It’s a simple invitation: buy a copy of the First Nations Version and pledge to keep The Morning Watch. Your YMCA, your church, your family, your community will be grateful.

Click here to learn more about FNVT and how to purchase your copy.

Happy Easter & YMCA Ukraine

Today on this Easter Sunday, join me in praying for YMCA Ukraine, for their faithful and brave service to their neighbors as they strive to overcome evil with good.

Today April 24 is Easter Sunday for Orthodox Christians around the world – here in Fort Wayne and in Ukraine.

What’s it mean to celebrate Easter when your nation is being brutally terrorized and violently decimated by the machines of war from your next door neighbor?

When horrific deaths mar the landscape of blasted cities, where does the courage and hope come from, that faith, hope and love can endure?

Even just briefly reflecting on how my pleasant Protestant Easter Sunday went last week compared to my fellow Ukrainian Christian’s celebrating Easter today in Kiev or Mariupol… it is humbling, it is grief-full, it is maddening really that such evil exists and devours the innocent.

What can YMCA Christians do – we who are known as the resurrection people – in the face of such madness, darkness, and violence?

Our name – “little Christ’s” implies that we are marked as such because of our loyalty, imitation, and love of Jesus, in particular how he was present to the weak and vulnerable, the innocent and the guilty, those with power and those praying for deliverance.

The YMCA has within its history a record of brave women and men who responded to the call of Christ upon their life, to serve Him through the Y as peacemakers, as mentors, as friends, as advocates for the oppressed, as allied for justice.

If you haven’t done it yet, please donate to the YMCA work in Ukraine.

Donate Today!
YUSA & YMCA World Service Check In with YMCA Europe & YMCA Ukraine

If you are a Christian in the Y, consider the call that Jesus Christ is making on your life these days: what are you doing about evil in the world, what is your Y doing about despair and violence in the world, what is your Y doing about peace and truth and reconciliation in the world, what is your Y doing about war and oppression?

It’s easy to try and avoid conflict, to keep my head down, eyes averted…until trouble comes near and then we are unprepared in spirit, mind and body. It’s hard to keep caring about our neighbors and fellow YMCA’s around the world. It’s also hard to become cynical, jaded, and hard-hearted…

Today on this Easter Sunday, join me in praying for YMCA Ukraine, for their faithful and brave service to their neighbors as they strive to overcome evil with good.

Pray for the Christians of Ukraine, that as they celebrate Easter amidst rubble and refugees, amidst terror and tyrants, that the Risen One would strengthen their spirit, that their love would breathe new life into their nation.

And today, pray for your neighbors facing darkness in your own community- and be willing to say “yes” to the call Christ is making on you to be present to those in pain, to be ready to be the hands and heart of Jesus, for all who are walking in darkness yet yearn to see a great light.