Climate Intercessors leadership team is pleased to announce SPECIAL PRAYER MEETINGS during our regularly scheduled times on Tuesday, Sept 9, our regularly scheduled day. We will adjust our standard format so that I (Lowell) can address each group in the first twenty minutes. Let me introduce this in our familiar fashion—with reference to a biblical text.
Jesus prays. We know that he practiced prayer, as narrated in the pages of the Gospel, but we also know that he (present tense) prays. We are told this in Romans 8:34, where our crucified, risen, and ascended Lord “is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Or we read in Hebrews 7:25 that, unlike other high priests who die and whose sacrifices are ended and whose lips are silenced: “he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.”
Jesus (present tense) prays. I’ve used this reality occasionally in my lifetime. When I’ve been so stymied or anguished about a situation that I no longer know what or how to pray, I’ll utter, “Father God, your Son is at your right hand, whispering into your ear on my behalf. Listen to him. I trust him to ask for precisely what I need.” At this moment in the climate crisis, we can also use the reality of Jesus praying to re-enact what Jesus did for his twelve disciples in the early days of their ministries. Luke 11:1-2 says, “One day was Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John [the Baptizer] taught his disciples.”
The “Our Father” or “Lord’s Prayer” that Jesus then teaches them is repeated in Matthew 6:9-13, but there we don’t get the physical context; Jesus just inserts it into the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke 11, we witness the disciples witnessing Jesus who is praying. It sparks a desire in them. They wait politely until he is done before they make their request: “teach us to pray.” And they ask confidently because they know that it is their right to expect a rabbi to teach them; John taught his, after all. This is not the first time we have invoked Luke 11:1-2 in Climate Intercessors. We’ve been keenly aware that no Christian disciples in the history of our planet have ever been called upon to pray about anthropogenic climate change. “Lord, teach us to pray.” We’ve been on an open-hearted learning curve ever since our first meeting in November 2020, when COP26 was postponed because of the pandemic and climate action needed people to “stand in the gap.”
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been talking with groups of climate activists about “the betrayals of 2024” and “the threats of 2025.” I’ll share a version of the list next Tuesday when we meet and it includes such things as the failure of COP29 and the devastations to scientific research under Trump 2.0. It feels like a good time to stop and look—with eyes of faith—over at Jesus who is speaking something into his Father’s ear. Jesus hasn’t given up on praying for those he loves, those he has created. “Lord, teach us (anew) how to pray (about climate change).”
Since January, I have been on a sabbatical from Climate Intercessors. You may have noticed that I kept up with my writing of our monthly Bible studies (archived here). What I recused myself from was our leadership meetings where we design each month’s meetings. And I only attended the prayer meetings when our team was shorthanded in facilitating or running tech. Mostly, I watched my wonderful co-leaders (Samuel, Monica, Naomi, Juliana, Brian, Bryan, and Ben) serve you with wisdom and faithfulness. I am so grateful for them. I might wish that I had scheduled more reading, programming, experimentation and retreat into my sabbatical (as one is supposed to do) but like everyone else I spent a lot of energy in the Spring of 2025 just trying to keep my head above water emotionally. Nonetheless, I have had some good times of reflection. I met with my Spiritual Director last month and asked him to help me sort my “take aways.” I went on a half-day retreat to write them out in my journal. I showed them to the rest of the team. It will be from these fourteen take-aways that I will be sharing next Tuesday at each of our special prayer meetings. How can we pray in new ways? What are new ways of thinking about our intercession during the climate crisis?
Some of my reflections are simple, such as “Sometimes you simply need to take a break, including from prayer.” Some require historical reference, such as “There is value in adopting Harry Emerson Fosdick’s ‘spiritual athlete’ model of prayer, since perseverance is a priority.” Others we will find spiritually and psychologically challenging: “In our intercession, we need to abandon the outcomes, but not the longings for those outcomes.” In all things we need to give up on the notion that there is a “magic key” in intercession that will unlock the door that (a misrepresentation of a stingy and crafty) God has constructed. That is not prayer; that is manipulation.
I will let you judge any degree of accuracy or profundity in my “take aways.” In fact, after my initial twenty-minute presentation, we will divide into small break-out rooms where one of our Climate Intercessors leaders will facilitate a short discussion. This will be followed by our regular time in our break-out rooms to pray for local and personal concerns. Here is our schedule:
- Monday, Sept 8—In our “reminder e-mail,” we will include a link where you can read Lowell’s reflections ahead of time.
- Tuesday, Sept 9—We will meet in our regularly scheduled prayer meetings (see timings above) for a Special Climate Intercessors Prayer Meeting:
- Lowell’s presentation: Reflections on prayer from a 2025 sabbatical.
- Facilitated small group discussion.
- Prayer in small groups for local concerns.
- Tuesday, Oct 14 meetings—We release our “Strategic Prayers for COP30,” based on September’s interactions.
- Tuesday, Nov 11 meetings—Some of our leaders will join our meeting live from the first week of COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
We hope you can join us.
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
On behalf of the Climate Intercessors Leadership Team
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