We are an ecumenical healing organisation established in 1905 with the aim of resourcing Christians and churches to carry out the healing ministry, to enter into conversation with science and medicine and to present the healing ministry as one that helps all people to flourish and live well.
Throughout our history, we have always responded to what is going on in the world and the needs of Christians. The global pandemic is a generational event that called us to act to bring prayers for healing into the lives of all people as quickly and efficiently as possible, not only for the sake of the ill, dying, traumatised and isolated, but as a platform for Christians to pray for these situations. Christians are called to serve the sick and suffering, and so NoonDay prayer was launched as a platform for Christians to bring healing and hope through an online prayer service; a global community of people receiving prayer requests and meeting to offer them to God.
Christianity has always been good in a crisis
The church has historically been important in times of pandemic and plague. Indeed, some scholars have argued that it was precisely because of its response to plague during the early centuries that it did so well in terms of growth. Christianity has always been good in a crisis
Care of the sick was a unusual part of early Christian mission work because, within the theology and practice of the early christians, there was a desire to imitate Christ, named ‘the great physician’ by Origen of Alexandria, a very early theologian. This meant practicing charity, going to the ill and serving the outcast, often by crossing social boundaries. This was in contrast to the pagan practises which associated sickness with fear. Indeed, Polycarp of Smyrna, an early Bishop, wrote that the care of the sick was the primary task of Christian leaders. Many holy men and the early monasteries offered a place of respite and healing through their knowledge of plants and their healing properties. Indeed, our health service today finds its origins in the early Christian practices and to the monastic traditions of knowledge and care.
Today, NoonDay prayer continues weekly with a growing number of prayer requests and people joining us live.
You can send in a prayer request anytime via <link to prayer page>, and you can join live <link to YouTube channel>
Recently, a doctor joined us live to ask us to pray for him as he went into surgery, a group in Barbados have been sending pray requests for the ill of their community, we have been giving thanks when people recover, and daily for those who are entering the final hours of their earthly life asking God to to send comfort and peace.
St. Paul wrote:
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8: 38-39
Join us every Friday at 12noon