Rescheduled: Ecumenical Community Prayer Service

Postponed in January, this event is now rescheduled.

Please Join Us April 18 at 7 p.m. central time

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2024

Theme: “You shall love the Lord your God … and your neighbor as yourself”

Hosted by the Liberty-Area Ministerial Alliance

Ecumenical Community Prayer Service (Open to the Public)

Thursday, April 18 | 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Liberty Christian Church
427 E Kansas St.,
Liberty, MO 64068

Reception follows in the church hall.

The evening will have two highlights:

• A video pilgrimage to A video pilgrimage to places of significance in the Liberty community.
• Music provided by a community choir made up of members of many congregations’ choirs.

These highlights help answer the question raised by the evening’s theme: Who is my neighbor?

We will reflect that the love of Christ that unites all Christians is stronger than their divisions and we commit ourselves to walking the path of love of God and love of neighbor. We are confident that God’s love will overcome the violence that currently afflicts our country.

Lack of mutual knowledge among churches can weaken commitment to the way of ecumenism. Rivalry between churches is counter to the prayer of Jesus. Like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christians often miss the opportunity to connect with brothers and sisters because of fear.

During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, we ask the Lord to come to our assistance, to end our wounds and so enable us to walk the way of ecumenism with confidence and hope. As one step, we visit each other’s churches and share in worship.

 Background

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an ecumenical Christian observance celebrated internationally; and since 1908 has been observed in the northern hemisphere between the feasts of St. Paul and St. Peter (January 18-25). The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches appointed An ecumenical team from Burkina Faso (west Africa) to develop the 2024 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity theme and materials.

The reflections explore how we find our common identity in the experience of God’s love. The specific context of Burkina Faso reflects the need to place love at the center of the quest for peace and reconciliation.

The introduction to the materials notes that this quest has often been undermined by the loss of values and of a shared sense of humanity and by a diminished concern for the common good, probity, integrity, and patriotism.

“The search for reconciliation has also been weakened by spiritual impoverishment and by the pursuit of easy gains,” reads the introduction. “Faced with these realities, the imperative to witness to the love of God is all the more pressing.”

Read more about it here: https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/resources-for-the-week-of-prayer-for-christian-unity-2024