Now perhaps more than ever, it is important to have an active prayer life, both to deepen one’s personal relationship with God and to pray for neighbors near and far facing infection, illness, loss, unemployment, or other hardship. Yet it can also be difficult to find words for prayer, especially during a crisis. We recognize that our resources for prayer, which are prepared months in advance, may not feel as relevant as usual during these particularly difficult days of pandemic. If you are struggling to find words to pray, either on your own or (virtually) in front of your congregation, here are some resources that may be useful.

Prayers of Intercession

The ELCA Worship Blog has been publishing weekly posts supporting worship in the home. These posts include the lectionary readings, hymn suggestions, and timely and relevant prayers of intercession written by Gail Ramshaw. These posts are published on Wednesdays, so that people may have them in preparation for worship on Sunday. Here is the post for Sunday, April 19, so that you can get a sense of the content.

Daily Prayer

The ELCA Worship Blog has also published a blog post compiling resources for daily prayer, as well as links to the daily lectionary and to publicly available hymns. The prayer PDFs in that blog post include Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer. There is also a PDF of Prayers and Blessings for Daily Use. Additionally, it is possible to sign up for daily Christ in Our Home devotions to be delivered daily to your email inbox from now until June 30.