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Dear Church Family, 

Thank you for joining our 2022 Week of Prayer.  

This prayer and devotional guide is a resource for our church family to use during these unusual and challenging days. COVID-19 may be restricting our normal activities, but it has heightened our opportunities to pray. Several of the staff have written devotionals that you can use each day during this Week of Prayer.  

I am calling my church family to join me in concerted prayer that we might see God move in powerful ways in our church, our city and country. 

I know that as believers we all pray on a regular basis. But I am asking that we make prayer our top priority for this Week of Prayer. It is time to devote ourselves to prayer. This prayer guide is a tool to inspire you to pray. It will guide you in some of the requests that are uppermost in our thinking, but I am sure that the Spirit will also lead you in prayer for other things and people that this guide does not mention. The important thing is that we set aside the time needed for ourselves and families to pray. Plan 20-60 minutes each day to reflect on God’s Word and pray. COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on people’s physical and mental health. Even if we have not been ill with this virus, there is no doubt that we have felt its adverse effects in many ways. 

Whatever our personal views on this crisis, we are all in agreement that we need God’s intervention. That’s why we pray!  

To start your Week of Prayer I invite you to pray a prayer that I’ve included on the next page. It’s a powerful prayer for peace. I pray that it will prepare your heart for prayer as much as it does mine. It’s taken from the book, “Prayer, Peace and the Presence of God: A 30-Day Journey to Experience the Shalom of Jesus,” by David Butts.

Deric Bartlett

Pastor