The ecumenical prayer cycle, developed by the World Council of Churches, provides a way for your congregation, your small group, or yourself in your own daily devotions to pray for every nation on earth during the course of a calendar year.
The ecumenical prayer cycle website lists the prayer focus for each week, with a link to specific prayer resources appropriate to the situations of those countries. For example, this article was written during the week of November 3, 2024. The prayer focus is the countries of Oceania. The website provides this page of information and prayer resources developed by a pastor who serves on one of the island nations of Oceania.The main website for the ecumenical prayer cycle includes the prayer focus for the present week and the upcoming week, links to resources for the following eight weeks, and the whole prayer calendar as a downloadable PDF file. It also provides a formatted image that includes the names of the countries and an image from those countries you may screenshot and paste into your bulletin, newsletter, or website each week. Here is the image for the week when this article was published:
Consider how you might make praying for the all the world a part of the practice of your congregation, small group, or devotional life. The ecumenical cycle of prayer provides one way for you to do so in concert with millions of Christians around the world who have already taken up this practice.
This content was produced by Ask The UMC, a ministry of United Methodist Communications.