Neil Paynter - 50 New Prayers. From the Iona Community

Fifty new prayers from young and old and from folk around the globe from Glasgow to Cincinnati, from Malawi to Alaska, including well-known Iona Community writers like John Harvey, Ian M. Fraser, Peter Millar, Yvonne Morland, Chris Polhill, Thom Shuman, Brian Woodcock, the Wild Goose Resource Group and many others A pocketbook of prayers that might be used in a daily discipline, many on the concerns of the Iona Community poverty and eco-nomic justice, welcome and hospitality, interfaith dialogue, church renewal, peacemaking A prayer book to use in church worship, and to carry in your coat or handbag out into the world: to connect with the still small voice in the midst of the busyness and babble; to root yourself firmly in the Word. There are prayers here for the renewal of global and local com-munity, and for recharging the battery of your mobile phone: Either He is the Lord of everything or He is Lord of nothing, wrote George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community. Also includes a helpful scrapbook of thoughts on prayer from many sources. www.ionabooks.com Prayers the individual contributors
Compilation 2012 Neil Paynter
First published 2012 by
Wild Goose Publications, Fourth Floor, Savoy House,
140 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3DH, UK,
the publishing division of the Iona Community. Scottish Charity No.

SC003794.
Limited Company Reg. No. SC096243. www.ionabooks.com PDF: 978-1-84952-224-3
Mobipocket: 978-1-84952-225-0
ePub: 978-1-84952-226-7 The publishers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Drummond Trust, 3 Pitt Terrace, Stirling FK8 2EY in producing this book. All rights reserved. Apart from reasonable personal use on the purchasers own system and related devices, no part of this document or file(s) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Non-commercial use: The material in this document may be used non-commercially for worship and group work without written permission from the publisher.

Please make full acknowledgement of the source and report usage to the CCLI or other copyright organisation. Commercial use:
For any commercial use of this material, permission in writing must be obtained in advance from Wild Goose Publications at the above address. Neil Paynter has asserted his right in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this compilation and the individual contributors have asserted their right to be identified as authors of their contributions.

This book includes prayers from folk of all ages from 93-year-old Ian Fraser, a former Executive Secretary of the World Council of Churches, who has spent much of his Spirit-led life travelling the world visiting basic Christian communities, to a prayer from a young woman, Fiona Barker, a member of the Iona Communitys Resident Group on Iona, who (compared to Ian) is more at the beginning of her life journey. It also includes prayers from people around the globe from Glasgow to Cincinnati, from Malawi to Alaska Former Leader of the Iona Community Kathy Galloway has written: The Community is both a worldwide movement with members and groups everywhere from Malawi to Michigan, from Cumbria to Cuba and from Perth, Scotland to Perth, Australia and a movement rooted in local realities. I always feel inspired and energised when I think about this: Folk doing what they are called to do in their own community every-thing from collecting door to door for Christian Aid to protesting non-violently at Faslane nuclear submarine base. We all have our gifts, wrote Saint Paul.

We are all members of the Body. We are all sparks of the Light, I think. And so I think of some of the members, associates and friends of the Community in this little book: Israel Nelson, a retired substance abuse counsellor in Alaska, campaigning for decent, humane housing for a vulnerable friend and his family; June Walker working at the grassroots, promoting permaculture in Malawi; John Harvey hosting meetings and helping to enable those participating in the Poverty Truth Commission; Katy Owen volunteering at a foot clinic for the homeless in Glasgow; Reinhild Traitler working at the European Project for Interreligious Learning, EPIL, in Zurich; Chris Polhill welcoming pilgrims to her and her husbands beautiful and challenging Reflection Gardens in Cannock Wood; Ian Fraser still hammering out theology at white heat in the fire of experience, and digging his vegetable garden at his but-and-ben in Fife; politician Ewan Aitken working for peace and justice in the City of Edinburgh; scholar Rosemary Power leading prayer walks in County Clare I think too of the sister communities in this book, like the Open Door Community in America, welcoming the homeless of Atlanta into 910 Ponce De Leon Avenue; visiting sisters and brothers in prison. I think of the work of this community of wonderful, committed people (and others) all of them in their own particular, passionate, dogged way helping to build Christs Kingdom; work sustained by a daily discipline of prayer. 50 New Prayers offers prayers that might be used in a daily discipline, many on the concerns of the Iona Community poverty and economic justice, interfaith dialogue, welcome and hospitality, church renewal, peacemaking They are new prayers, in that they havent appeared in Wild Goose books before and are not published in books elsewhere that I know of, and there are some newer voices. This is not in any way a definitive collection of new prayers from the Community.

I simply chose the prayers from a collection of seeds I reached down into and have scattered. Ive avoided dividing up these prayers into sections or themes or days. Theres a flow. If youre looking for a prayer for a service it shouldnt be hard to find one. I hope that these prayers find their way into your church and I hope that you carry this wee book with you out into the world. I know Ill carry it with me, on the train or bus to work: to connect with the still small voice in the midst of the busyness and babble.

On demos and marches: to root myself firmly in the Word. And I think of it as counter-cultural: carrying a pocketbook of prayers around with you in your coat or handbag or rucksack at a time in the West when there is an attack, by the Conservative Party and others, on the poor, on asylum seekers and immigrants on Christ in the stranger and in intellectual circles, on God. There are prayers here for the renewal of global and local community, and for recharging the battery of your mobile phone: Either He is the Lord of everything or He is Lord of nothing, wrote George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community. Thanks to Yvonne Morland who helped to collect the prayers in this book, and thanks to her for her own sensitive, poetic writing. May this little book help to bring and to kindle light. Neil Paynter, Lent 2012,Biggar, ScotlandMay prayer feed your actionsand may your actionsfeed the world A SIMPLE PRAYER God, I have a simple prayer for the Church.

I pray that one day soon I will be part of a church that when we pray for the poor, we will pray for us and not them. I pray for a Church that will not only have the courage to work for the poor, to struggle with the poor but will also be of the poor. And I pray that one day there will be no poor people in the Church because there will be no poverty. And I pray to you, the God of miracles, the God of the rich, the God of the poor. Amen

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