Editor’s Note: The following appears in the November/December issue of Nurturing Faith Journal. In 2025, the publication will receive a new look and name – Good Faith Magazine, which will be free for all Good Faith Advocates.
When a church member has cancer, the congregation commits to pray for her for as long as she undergoes treatment. When a couple is on the mission field, their sending church will pray for their work as long as they are there.
However, there are some circumstances where knowing when to stop praying is more complicated. It is impossible to pray for everyone and everything every day, even every Sunday.
So, for those who want to be “faithful in prayer,” how long should we pray?
Like many churches, the congregation I pastor has a weekly prayer sheet inserted into our Sunday bulletin. It is divided into four sections that extend beyond our church members to the world: Congregation, Relatives/Friends, Mission Partners, and the Community/World.
Under the Community/World section, “Ukraine” has been listed since Russia attacked almost three years ago.
When any person or concern is on the prayer sheets, the question often becomes how long we should keep them on the list. This question requires knowledge, nuance, and compassion. Two weeks might be appropriate when a congregant is recovering from the flu, but it would be inappropriate after the death of a spouse.
The same question arises when considering when to remove a global event, especially those with no discernible end in sight.
For example, “Nurses and doctors caring for Covid patients” was removed from our prayer sheet well into 2022. The Department of Health and Human Services declared on May 11, 2023, that COVID-19 was no longer a Public Health Emergency. This was, however, long after most individuals resumed a sense of normalcy with work and life. Yet, hospitals still suffer from the pandemic’s effects on healthcare workers.
Though the tensions between Russia and Ukraine had been broiling since 2014, the war made its way back into the regular news cycle with the February 2022 Russian attack. Though it has remained in the news cycle, it is no longer front-page news. The election and war between Israel and Gaza have taken its place.
However, the conflict is still real for those living in Ukraine, those fighting for independence from a totalitarian state. Americans should understand the struggle for democratic independence, a fight central to our own national heritage.
Some might argue Christians in one context need not spend so much energy concerned with people in another. They would say we have enough issues in our own churches and neighborhoods to address. They would suggest that our concern for others in the world is simply “virtue signaling” and that it accomplishes nothing.
This belief, however, neglects both the essential connection of human beings and, even more so, the global church. Fellow people are suffering in Ukraine; some are our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
This begs two questions. First, if we keep Ukraine on the prayer sheet, should we not add every suffering group we know about? Second, shouldn’t we do our best to learn about all the suffering in the world?
Regarding the second question, I say “yes.” It is a faithful task, as much as we can, to be informed about suffering people in the world for whom we could pray and potentially aid. However, this task must be done as much as each person can. The reality is that some people can consume global events more than others because of unique time and emotional constraints.
To close our eyes and ears to the world may only make us more insular and less compassionate.
The first question, though, might be the wrong one to ask. The goal is not a mass amount of knowledge, but prayer. The goal is to be in persistent prayer for those suffering and pray that we might do whatever is in our power to ease suffering and work toward freedom.
It is impossible to know about every group and solve every problem, but some problems are so significant and convict us so much that we cannot help but pray, “Come quick, save, Lord!” (Psalm 38:22).
The people of Ukraine have been suffering since long before the beginning of the war. Men and women are dying in battle, and families are fleeing for safer land. Children have been forcibly taken to Russia, where they have been indoctrinated with Russian propaganda. Ukrainians are fighting to be Ukrainians.
It may no longer be at the top of the headlines, but they still need our prayers.
Pastor, Meadow Oaks Baptist Church, Temple, Texas.
