An invitation to pray and act

3 MIN READ

On Oct. 20 or another Sunday this fall, you are invited to join churches across the country for prayer and action on Bread for the World Sunday. Bread for the World Sunday is an opportunity for your church or community of faith to commit or recommit with others into living out God’s vision of a world without hunger.

Worship services will offer special prayers for an end to hunger. Your sermons, education forums, and other activities inspire and support our mutual missional efforts that help people move out of poverty and feed their families.

In this year of commemorating the Quad-Centennial of the transatlantic voyage of enslaved African peoples from Angola to the United States, we especially remember that the season of enslavement contributed to the root causes of disproportionate numbers of African peoples affected by hunger and poverty today.

Numerous Pan African resources written by Pan African church leaders are available: a biblical reflection on Matthew 25:32-40 and Luke 9:10-17 by Bishop Frank Madison Reid III, the presiding prelate of the Third Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Also, a litany written by Dr. Kimberly Lymore, director of the Tolton Scholars Program at Catholic Theological Union and a prayer written by Evram Dawd, youth ministry coordinator at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church in Cedar Grove, NJ.

Other materials available include a Bread for the World Sunday Resource GuideBread for the World Sunday Bulletin Insert, and Hunger and the Gospel of Luke—A Lectionary Resource.

As part of your Bread for the World Sunday prayers and advocacy actions, you may want to conduct an Offering of Letters—taking time to write brief letters to members of Congress, urging them to continue our nation’s investments in programs that provide hope and opportunity for people living with hunger.

Your letters can be written to urge Congress to accelerate progress on global nutrition, to address the root causes of migration or to reform our criminal justice system—all critical to ending hunger and poverty in the United States and abroad.

The strength of Bread for the World is found in our shared commitment to address the root cause of hunger: poverty, discrimination based on race and gender, unemployment, immigration, mass incarceration, and economic inequality.

On Bread for the World Sunday, we recognize and give thanks for the work churches, community groups, and denominations like yours are doing to remove the obstacles that keep people from sharing in God’s abundance.

We celebrate the diversity of faith traditions across race, ethnicity, and culture that are working together to end hunger. Moved by God’s love in Jesus Christ, we reach out in love to our neighbors—and we help create a better future for all.

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