As Covid-19 threatens to overwhelm our health service and continues to inflict pain and loss, churches across England are encouraged to join together in a sustained commitment to pray for our National Health Service.
The Baptist Union of Great Britain, one of CTE’s 50 national Member Churches, has brought together five pointers to help churches and individuals as you pray. These have been written by a senior A&E nurse in a large teaching hospital:
- Pray for all the NHS staff for their own safety, energy and peace in dealing with each and every patient.
- Pray for those in hospital leadership, for wisdom and for good decisions to give the best outcomes for patients.
- Pray for patients; for healing, for peace and ultimately to fight this disease and get home and pray for their relatives who feel helpless.
- Pray for the vaccine, that it will and is working against this latest strain of Covid-19.
- Pray for a reprieve and an end to Covid-19.
Christians are also encouraged to get in touch with people they know personally who are working in the NHS, letting them know you are praying for them and asking them how you can pray specifically.
This invitation to join in a time of sustained prayer for our NHS has been extended to all churches across England.
Supporting this call to prayer, Rev Dr Paul Goodliff, General Secretary of Churches Together in England, writes:
“National Ecumenical Officers of CTE’s Member Churches and representatives of Churches in Britain and Ireland have been meeting regularly to monitor the Covid-19 situation. This morning’s meeting welcomed the new call of one of our national Member Churches, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, to sustained prayer for the NHS.
“We very much feel that this is a call not only to Baptists and to Baptist churches, but to the whole family of Christians in this country.
“We are very aware that all our Churches will have been praying for those who work in the NHS throughout this situation, and many have been providing resources for churches and individuals to do so. We are also aware of various different calls to prayer and of days of prayer which are being organised by different groups.
“However, there was a feeling this morning that this is a key period in which we are being called to pray in a sustained way. We are therefore commending to your attention the suggestion of the BUGB that we focus our prayer for the NHS on these five key areas.”
Churches across England are encouraged to circulate this call to prayer far and wide.
Find out more on the front page of the Baptist Union website, which features a video interview with an NHS nurse.
The North Western Baptist Association has done a video interview with one of their member’s – Alice – who is a nurse on the front line. They have also put together a prayer guide and this short prayer video ‘I cried’