Stay and Pray

The Joint Public Issues Team is a partnership between the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, and the United Reformed Church.

The purpose of JPIT is to help the Churches to work together for peace and justice through listening, learning, praying, speaking and acting on public policy issues.

The work of the team aims to:

• Share the message in words and action that political engagement is integral to Christian discipleship
• Understand what churches need in order to speak and act prophetically and prayerfully on key issues of justice and peace
• Equip, energise, affirm, support and resource our churches, at both local and denominational level, in their engagement with politics and public issues
• Enable our Churches to speak together with a distinctively Christian voice in promoting justice and campaigning on public issues
• Build deeper coalitions and partnerships to further these outcomes locally, regionally, in the nations, and internationally

Stay and Pray is a short digest from JPIT which can be used to frame personal or collective prayers. This week's prayers are:

• God of justice, around the anniversary of the Black Friday suffragette protests (18 November 1910), we give thanks for the courage and dedication of the women who protested as part of the suffrage movement. We thank you for the positive impact these women had on liberty, freedom and voting rights we now experience in the UK.
• Loving God, on World Toilet Day (19 November), we give thanks for progress towards sanitation for all. We recognise our privilege when we flush the chain or turn on the tap and thank you that we have clean water in our homes.
• God who delights in diversity, in Transgender Awareness Week, and around Transgender Day of Remembrance (20 November), we remember in sorrow those whose lives were taken because they were transgender. We reflect on the challenges that trans people often face in our society, and even in some faith groups. We yearn for the day when our communities are places of inclusion and love for all people.
• God of freedom, in Prisoners Week, Scotland, we pray for all those in prison, their families, friends, prison staff and victims of crime. We pray for comfort in isolation, reassurance in fear, and forgiveness in pain.
• Give our government wisdom and genuine compassion for all those in need. May our society continue to offer kindness and charity towards our neighbour, near or far. Help each of us to be generous with our time and talents, to demonstrate the love of God at every opportunity this week. May our voices never tire from proclaiming the good news that God in love offers to all – and to show that good news with our actions.

These things we pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen.