An ambitious prayer campaign is counting 1 billion prayers to end extreme poverty.
The Billion Prayer March is collecting prayers, each of which will represent a person living in extreme poverty in the world, according to countingprayers.org. The Web site emphasizes that the world now has the means to end extreme poverty.
"It is generally accepted that since the late 1960s the world had finally acquired enough wealth and knowledge to eliminate abject poverty-so why don't we?" asks Jonathan Denn, founder of countingprayers.org. "As a world we simply lack the will."
The inaugural prayer for countingprayers.org was offered on Sept. 23, 2007, at St. Paul’s at Ground Zero in New York City. The counter on the Web site shows that more than 650,000 prayers have already been given from all over the world.
“We invite every person, and every congregation in every faith in every country to offer The Counting Prayer everyday and/or at every worship service until the Millennium Development Goals are met. Hundreds of thousands of prayers will turn into millions then billions, and as the prayers are answered the repetition of words will turn into advocacy then action, and finally a miracle," Denn said in a statement.
Participants of the Billion Prayer March do not need to do any physical marching, but only make a prayer pledge on the Web site as the counter continues its journey to one billion.
Congregations are encouraged to organize a Billion Prayer March event to invite congregants to join the campaign. Churches can then enter the special event totals on the site.
“Anyone can hold these events anytime in solidarity with other group's prayer meetings, at gatherings like the G8, or advocacy actions on behalf of the world's poor," Denn assured.
The Billion Prayer March has been endorsed by the United Religions Initiative, the One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and Millennium Congregation.
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I'm aware that there are many fine organizations that provide physical assistance. My comment is specifically for the site noted in the article.
texan, many Christians are doing just that as a matter of fact as we post there are over 200 Youth on Mission teens in our area working on repairing the homes of people who can't afford to do it themselves and two weeks ago many local Christians joined with the Remote Area Medical (RAM) Team to provide free dental, optical, and other medical services to uninsured and under insured people in our area. Each one of these events were bathed in much prayer, so prayer alone will not work if God's people aren't willing to step-up and join God in doing the work necessary to meet the needs of hurting people.
Actually, WiccaTexan we already do. The Catholic Church feeds more hungry, clothes and houses more people than any other group on the face of the earth.
Moreover, Catholics combined with non-Catholic Christian feed and clothe the majority of the world's population far and above any secular group including Governments.
We also do job training, child care, healthcare and we pray too.
A link to this article has been posted on the website GoodNewsNow.com.
How about instead of praying, each person shells out $10 for money to feed these people, and help meet their other needs (job training, child care, healthcare, etc)?