I’d like to share a prayer that attendees—from across our city and from all walks of life—lifted up at our recent Fourth Annual Peacemaker Breakfast.
What a vitally important time in our city… our country… our world… to pray and act for peace. I invite you to join the spirit of this prayer in your own loving way.
[Leader]
Loving God, you have set us in families and clans, in cities and neighborhoods.
[Response]
Our common life began in a garden, but our destiny lies in the city.
You have placed us in Denver. This is our home.
Your creativity is on display here through the work of human hearts and hands.
We pray for the Peace of Denver today—for the East Side; West Side; North and South.
For Cole, Sun Valley, Green Valley, and all 26 miles of Colfax.
We pray for peacemakers—bridging divides, restoring justice and love.
For Denver Basic Income Project, Agape Christian Church, New Charity House Apartments, Community Outreach Service Center, Joshua Station, Clara Brown Commons, Abundant Ground, Mile High Ministries, and countless people of goodwill in every corner of our city.
We pray for our poorest neighbors, and for powerful people in offices downtown.
We pray for people from the ’hood and the barrio, and for the new urbanites.
We pray for Denver’s sisters: Aurora, Arvada, Cherry Hills, Lakewood, Thornton, Highlands Ranch, and others.
And for Albuquerque and Cheyenne, Jerusalem and Nairobi, Kunming and Cuernavaca—and a thousand other cities connected to our own.
In all our neighborhoods this day there will be crime and callous moneymaking; there will be powerful people unable or unwilling to see the vulnerable who are their neighbors.
There will also be beautiful acts of compassion and creativity in all these places—forgiveness and generosity; neighbors working together for a more just community.
Help us see this place as something other than a battleground between us and them, where our imaginations are limited by win/lose propositions and endless rivalry.
Show us a deeper reality, God: show us your playground, and invite us to play in delight and peace.
Like the city of your dreams, make this a city where those who were once poor enjoy the fruit of their labor;
A place where children are no longer doomed to misfortune, but play safely in the streets under the watchful eye of healthy old men and women;
A place where former rivals and natural enemies work and play together in peace;
And where all people enjoy communion with you. We pray in the name of the one who wept over the city. Amen.
Peace in Christ,
Jeff Johnsen
Executive Director
