Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
Since 1904, the World YMCA and the World YWCA have traditionally come together to deliver the World Week of Prayer and World Fellowship. Celebrated each year in the second week of November, the Week sees both organisations joining forces to produce a booklet with a theme, a set of Bible studies for each day, and an annual Bible reading plan so that communities around the world can unite in prayer for a specific cause linked to current realities.
You are invited to join Christians across the world to pray with the YMCA and YWCA.
Pray with us at noon (click here for the blogpost series) – or whenever works best with your schedule – and lift up our brothers and sisters across the globe to the Lord, that we might be light in the darkness and healers to the broken.
Click here to download the prayer guide or subscribe to this blog to get posts in your email inviting you to pray.
Join us for the 12 Day YMCA Devotion Series – LIVING STONES: LEAD, CARE AND SERVE LIKE JESUS
How can we be ‘like Living Stones’ used by God to strengthen the presence of Christ where we lead?
Recently, 24 YMCA leaders with the OnPrinciple program visited 12 places throughout the Holy Land where Jesus taught about how to live and lead in God’s kingdom.
From this experience comes 12 spiritual leadership principles – or Living Stones – (inspired by 1Peter 2:4-5) that Christ-followers can embody as we are being built up to lead, care and serve everyone, like Jesus.
by David Newman, Pastor of Antioch Church in Countryside YMCA
Deep within the human heart is the strong desire to feel “Respected” and to give “Respect”.
This word has become a core principle of the YMCA as we seek to build a culture where all can experience a sense of dignity and where “disrespect” is left at the door.
Perhaps, the greatest path to respect can be discovered within the foundational Bible verse of the YMCA, John 17:21
Those familiar with the history of the YMCA will know that this verse is carved in stone logos, printed on camp t-shirts, and painted on YMCA banners all over the world.
It is the prayer request of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Recently I was able to sit and pray in that garden where there is still an olive tree believed to have been planted around the time that Jesus was there.
Being in that garden, I reflected on the tender and tearful moment Jesus prayed for all of His future followers, “That they may all be one.”
Jesus prayed for unity, and it is within the soil of it that a harvest of Respect can grow.
Unity, however, is something that is often desired yet difficult to attain.
So how do we shape a culture where a diverse group of people experiences the type of unity that grows living stones of Respect?
Jesus’ prayer reveals part of the answer – a deep connection with Him as the source of this unity.
A.W. Tozier illustrates this through the example of how to tune the instruments of an orchestra: if each instrument tunes itself to one another, they will never be in tune.
However, when the conductor strikes one standard tuning fork, all the musicians will tune the instruments to that standard, and then all of the instruments will be in tune with each other.
If we learn to love, serve and care, with Jesus as our standard, there will be a profound unity that occurs.
As we grow in our connection with Jesus, He becomes the source and the model of our unity, and out of this soil of unity can grow a mighty harvest of Respect!
“My prayer is not for them alone.
I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you 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.”
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane [Gospel according to John, 17.20-21 NIV]
This YMCA devotion series brought to you by onPrinciple – click here to learn more about it – a new leadership development program to strengthen the presence of Christ in the YMCA
Click here for the entire devotion series as a downloadable PDF booklet
How can we be ‘like Living Stones’ used by God to strengthen the presence of Christ where we lead?
Recently, 24 YMCA leaders with the onPrinciple program visited 12 places throughout the Holy Land where Jesus taught about how to live and lead in God’s kingdom.
From this experience comes 12 spiritual leadership principles – or Living Stones – (inspired by 1Peter 2:4-5) that Christ-followers can embody as we are being built up to lead, care and serve everyone, like Jesus.
You are welcome to join me for this 12 day spiritual journey – click here for the whole series!
If you’ve been looking for a new kind of devotion, or needing to get restarted in spiritual reflection, you’ll enjoy these short and encouraging meditations on being in the Holy Land, standing and walking where Jesus lived, and how that shapes our lives today, here.
You can subscribe to these devotions and receive them as an email by going to to timhallman.org and enter your email address into the subscribe box.
At timhallman.org you can also find a link to access the devotions through YouVersion or a downloadable PDF booklet; it was originally published on Pentecost Sunday 2021.
The YMCA devotion series is inspired by the writings of Saint Peter, and his urging Christians to imitate Christ as we are built up into a holy and sacrificial calling to love, care and serve those God puts in our life where you lead at work, home and in the community.
“As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like Living Stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
1Peter 2:4-5
