St James's Church

Pray Your Part

Published · Updated

PRAY . . . and take part

Just minutes after Rishi Sunak announced the General Election, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York released a statement inviting people to pray for the nation, and to “think about how we all can play our part both as voters and, more broadly, as citizens”. “It is a time for us all — people of all faiths and of none — to ask important questions about what kind of country we want to be,” they said. They urged us to ‘Pray our part’. 

We are facing epic challenges both in our country and our world: from questions of war and peace to those of poverty and injustice, and encompassing the very future of the Earth God has given us. Faced with such huge questions, our instinct as Christians is to turn to God in prayer – and so the archbishops wanted us to put prayer at the very heart of this campaign.

I, in turn, would urge us all to do just that – and more.

One way is to register for daily reflections: Pray Your Part is an invitation from the bishops of the Church of England to encourage prayer and participation in the life of our nation and communities, both as voters and as citizens. 

This 21-day journey of prayer and reflection is designed for use in the run-up to the General Election. Each day explores a different theme, with a short Bible reading, reflection and prayer for a different aspect of our common life.

You can access free digital versions of this reflection journey sent direct to you by email by registering at www.churchofengland.org/PrayYourPart

Another is simply (yet it’s not so simple, really) to talk to others in a way that is marked by respect for one another, by good grace, and by a commitment to truth and integrity. To look at one another, whatever our differing view, with ‘soft eyes’.

For if we are to play our part as citizens then everyone should make full use of our democratic freedoms and understand the debates and the decisions which are before us.

Let us, in Riding Mill, do so with soft eyes. And let us, at the last, be sure to use our vote.

Rev’d Diana