7th July, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

“Look in mercy on your people, and hear our prayer for those whose lives and possessions are threatened by drought. In your mercy restore your creation and heal our land. So guide and bless your people, that we may enjoy the fruits of the earth and give you thanks with grateful hearts, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Part of an Anglican Church prayer for use in time of drought, the words carry a message that it is hoped Australian Christians from all denominations will take up and bring before God in prayer for 40 days starting later this month.

In what is being seen as something of a first, the Australian Prayer Network has joined with the National Council of Churches and the Australian Evangelical Alliance in calling for Christians across the nation to set aside “40 days of prayer in the face of drought”.

Kicking off on 24th July, they are asking Christians across Australia to spend time praying about the issues raised by the nation's current drought.

While many of Australia’s drought-stricken regions have seen rain in the past few weeks (in some cases, much more than they would want), many areas remain drought-affected.

The concept of holding 40 days of prayer for drought was initiated by the Australian Prayer Network.

Brian Pickering, coordinator of the network, says that while the idea for the 40 days of prayer is focused on the drought, it wasn’t just about praying for rain.

“What we believe will break the drought will be when we turn back to God as a people,” he says.

“We believe that there is a direct correlation between what happens in the spiritual and what happens in the natural and so as we turn back to God we believe that there will be both a blessing in the spiritual and a blessing in the natural which...we hope will be a return of normal rain patterns to Australia.”

“Our hope is that people will take the time to reflect on their personal and on our corporate relationship with God as both the church and as a nation, and seek to just reassess where we are with Him and get back into a proper relationship with Him while at the same time always keeping in the back of our mind that we are asking for Him to bless us with a breaking of the drought.”

As well as providing a focus on the drought and highlighting our continued vulnerability to the weather, organisers say the 40 days will also be about praying for those rural communities who bear the brunt of environmental extremes and for the millions of people living in other parts of the world who go without clean drinking water every day.

“Alongside prayer for the breaking of the drought will no doubt be prayers of repentance for our wasteful use of limited resources, and prayer for greater responsibility and wisdom in the way we use and manage our water resources as a nation, and address issues such as global warming,” they said in a joint statement.

As well as among the country's farming communities, the issue of water use has been growing in importance in many of Australia’s urban areas in recent times with many towns and cities now under restrictions.

Reverend John Henderson, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia, says the 40 days of prayer is not about “dancing around and pushing God’s buttons to get what we want”.

“This will be about out squandering of resources as well as our need and our dependence on God in the natural environment,” he says.

“For me, it will be about the fact that although we think we’re very sophisticated and we’ve got all these wonderful supply networks, we’re as dependent on the next fall of rain as were our ancestors. We can stretch the equation a bit further because we have capacity to store things now but...we’re still vulnerable, we’re still dependent on the grace and the goodness of God everyday.”

Rev Henderson says drought in Australia is a very strong reminder of that fundamental relationship.

“Personally, I think that within Australia’s society there is this deep-lying fear and almost alienation from our environment...so this prayer, for me, can fit well into that context. It’s always a good reminder.”

Rev Henderson believes the 40 days will be observed in different ways.

“It will be very different in each community,” he says. “I mean the way that the traditional churches pray is very different to the way the APN prays and so what will happen is that people will be offered resources within the context of their own environment.”

While churches have held days of prayer in times of drought in Australia before - most recently on 12th June after the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference called for a special day of prayer for rain - Rev Henderson says this initiative is the first time the NCCA - whose 15 member churches include the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Uniting churches - has joined with the Australian Prayer Network and the Australian Evangelical Alliance in such a way.

“This is the first time we’ve had such a broad approach among Australia’s Christians - and that’s partly what excites me about it. I mean if you roll up the Australian Prayer Network, the Australian Evangelical Alliance and the NCCA, you capture a pretty wide spectrum of both the newer and the older forms of Christianity in this country and that’s quite exciting to us.”

Pickering says the APN is encouraging individuals to pray for each of the 40 days and for churches to see the 24th July as a national day of prayer as well as providing a continuing focus on drought in their services and small group meetings over the period.

He says it had been decided to hold the event over 40 days to give people time to properly reflect on the issues involved.

“We just don’t feel that it does justice to such a significant and major thing that’s happening in our nation to just have a day of prayer,” Pickering says.

“(Forty days) gives people time to reflect and to spend time thinking about these things.”

Resources will be available online later this month on all three of the organisations’ websites.

For further information, visit:

National Council of Churches in Australia
www.ncca.org.au

Australian Prayer Network
www.ausprayernet.org.au

Australian Evangelical Alliance
www.ea.org.au