Prayer

Muslims believe Friday was chosen by God as a dedicated day of worship. In addition to the prayer itself, which is shorter than the usual midday prayers, Friday services include a sermon, usually given by a professional male Muslim clergy member in Muslim majority countries, but in the West, they are also given by a male lay community member.

On Ash Wednesday 2018, a group of elders met for a retreat together because of a national political crisis, which was also revealing a crisis of faith. At Pentecost, in overcrowded churches in downtown Washington, D.C., we launched a declaration that we called Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis. More than 5 million people have directly responded to the Reclaiming Jesus declaration thus far and many more have been reached by it and are addressing the declaration in their churches. A declaration is becoming a movement to re-claim Jesus; the message of Jesus needs reclaiming at a time like this.

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history reveals the brokenness of our systems, the danger of a strong man exploiting that brokenness instead of trying to fix it, and the suffering of countless people, always beginning with the most vulnerable. It also painfully shows Washington’s current habit of blaming instead of solving problems, which has left our politics both polarized and paralyzed.

I HAD HONED MY SKILLS as a leader in the backfield, first in the black power struggle and later as executive director of the influential body of African American congressional leaders that made up the Congressional Black Caucus. I also worked quietly as a bridge builder between leaders of diverse backgrounds.

But after my husband Tom Skinner’s passing, I was voted by the board of directors to become president of the Skinner Leadership Institute. As the number two person in the organization, I had relied more on external skills of leadership like executing the vision, establishing goals, strategic planning, and creating, as well as managing the budget.

I do not know how to measure the efficacy of prayer. And I know that prayer is not all that’s needed to respond to the concerns of the day. But I also know that my response to the moment we’re living in will be more substantial, more focused and certain, if I tune out the distracting din and choose to attend to the world in prayer instead. 

Courts have generally rejected challenges to “See You at the Pole” events, in which students who want to pray gather at their school’s flagpole outside of class time. And the Supreme Court has generally upheld student-led prayer as long as it is not compulsory or organized by school officials.

Kevin L. Ladd, a professor of psychology at Indiana University South Bend, said it makes sense that, as society grows less religious in the traditional sense, fewer people are turning to prayer.

Sometimes we don’t know what to pray,
or how to talk to you about fixing what’s broken.
We pray in generalities, that you’ll
“be with us, guide us, restore us”
but sometimes, that’s not the tangible need
we really want to name.

We pray for others far away

Who’ve seen destruction, too;

We look beyond ourselves, for they

Are also loved by you.