DAVID ADAMS reports…
Christians around the country are being called to join in prayer for Australia’s leaders, the nation and the world in a series of worship and prayer vigils kicking off in Sydney Saturday night.
The prayer vigils have been organised by Christian poverty and justice advocacy Micah Australia in the lead-up to Australia’s federal election on 2nd July. While the organisation has long encouraged Christians to prayer for Australia’s politicians and the nation, it is the first time they’ve organised prayer events prior to an election.
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Image: Micah Australia “We think it’s time for Christians to speak and pray in support of more just and generous policies.”– Ben Thurley, national coordinator of Micah Australia |
Ben Thurley, coordinator of Micah Australia, says the prayer vigils were aimed at encouraging Christians to gather together in “express our faith in God…that He can look after our nation and encourage our leaders to more just and generous policies”.
“But I think, as well, we are at a bit of a crossroads as a nation where, despite being wealthier than we’ve ever been and (having) more opportunity to contribute to the global fight against poverty, we’ve decided to do less and less and to turn our backs on those opportunities,” he says.
“We think it’s time for Christians to speak and pray in support of more just and generous policies.”
Australia’s foreign aid budget has suffered a series of successive cuts in recent years under which it will drop to 0.21 per cent of gross national income in 2019-20 – the lowest level on record.
Already this election campaign, the Australian Labor Party announced they would reverse the latest $224 million of cuts to the foreign aid budget if elected in July while the Australian Greens unveiled a policy this week under which the overseas aid budget would be lifted to 0.7 per cent.
While prayer vigils have already been organised for cities including Sydney, Canberra, Alice Springs, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane over the next two weeks, Micah Australia has produced a resource kit for church groups not in those locations to run their own prayer vigil in the election lead-up.
“As we know, prayer is a form of advocacy – it’s Christians praying out of the desires of their hearts to God and asking for change and we just wanted to give some support and resources to Christians who understand that the world isn’t the way God wants it to be and to give them some words and resources to help them articulate that in prayer.”
The resources, like the prayer vigils, are non-denominational in their approach. They include suggested Bible readings, resources for reflection and images.
Mr Thurley says he would like to see more debate over issues like foreign aid during the election campaign.
“I think our place in the region and the world is something really important and we don’t consider (it) enough as the public and our leaders don’t encourage an open, frank discussion, particularly since we live in the part of the world where most of the world’s poor live and we live in the part of the world most vulnerable to natural disasters,” he says.
“We have a really vested interest and a really important stake in thinking about how we contribute to building resilience and strengthening communities in their fight against poverty in our neighbourhood, so I think, yeah, I would really encourage leaders to be more upfront in engaging voters on the issues. I know it’s not hip-pocket, local electorate kind of stuff, but it’s so important for us to understand and for us to think about our place in the world.”
Details of the Micah Australia services and vigils can be found at www.micahaustralia.org/vigils.
