ASK: Prayer + Action Ministry, Spiritual Activism

“Thoughts and prayers” have become the excuse far too many Christians use as justification for disengaging with an array of issues impacting us daily - whether it’s the climate crisis, gun violence, people experiencing homelessness, immigrant families separated at the border, gun violence, and attacks on multiple communities living within the margins.

And yet, coming to God in prayer doesn’t mean blinding ourselves to a world on fire. Our faith calls us to awaken, and BE WITH the unseen, forgotten, and excluded in LOVE.

And this means choosing to SEE the folks who are suffering around us: “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” Luke 14:13-14

You see prayer requires something of us: We must ACT after saying amen.

As St. Teresa of Avila once said: “Christ has no body now, but yours. No hands, no feet on earth, but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion into the world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world."

And LOVE must remain a foundational part of our efforts: “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” I Corinthians 13: 1-3

Prayer

Action

Love

it’s all connected…

My Dad Rudy (one of my favorite photos of him)

After my Dad, Rudy, went home to be with God last year (November 27, 2022), Mom, my brother Dave and I heard from person after person about how he prayed for them on the street corner, during work, in their hospital rooms. Dad believed in communing with God in the moment. I remembered some of these stories, but had not realized he started the ASK prayer ministry when I my brother and I were kids. It was rooted, Mom says, in one guiding scripture, Matthew 7:7 - “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

If ever we needed to SEEK God, invite the Spirit of the Most High to dwell within us
so we can affect change, it is NOW -

God is saying to us, continue on this path…your prayers and actions are the portal to profound shifts.
I am here. I am listening. I am waiting on you to ACT.

The ASK: Prayer + Action ministry is a space for all of us to come together, communally, at the intersections of our Christian faith and activism; here we commit to praying together (virtually on Zoom) around a specific issue each month - climate justice, anti-racism, mental health, police brutality, violence and harm against people living on the margins ( immigrants, communities of color, our LGBTQ+ siblings, etc.), and taking a concrete action in the work towards the change we wish to see realized in our world.

Join us for the first meeting on Sunday, April 30, 6pm on Zoom (register here) where we’ll pray for climate justice and focus on a concrete action step we can take to affect change on a specific area of this issue. We’ll share a more detailed post this month (before our first meeting) under this tab - ASK Ministry: Prayer + Action.

Before you go, friends, pray with us:

Holy One,

Move in and through us each day. Guide us towards embodying compassion and courage, seeing your face in all the faces surrounding us. May we not see strangers among us, but fellow friends who, too, need your Divine presence. Push us to challenge ourselves beyond words, and into the realm of spiritual warriors, calling for justice, cultivating space for mercy, and walking humbly with you…for we know you are the God who sees us, loves us, accepts us as we are without barriers. May we share your gifts with all we meet.

In your sacred name,

God, most Holy One, Amen.