The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus

by Rich Villodas

The Sunday following the terrible event, we prayed this together at our worship services: Lord Jesus, your kingdom is good news for a world caught in racial hostility. We ask that you give us grace for the deep challenges our country faces. We confess our anger, our deep sadness, and our collective sense of weakness to see this world healed through our own strength. We honestly confess that our country has a long history of racial oppression; that racism has been a strategy of evil powers and principalities infected by structural sin. We confess that the gospel is good news for the oppressed and the oppressor. Both are raised up; both are liberated but in different ways. The oppressed are raised up from the harsh burden of inferiority, the oppressor from the destructive illusion of superiority. We confess that the gospel is your power to form a new people not identified by dominance and superiority but by unity in the Spirit. We ask that you help us name our part in this country’s story of racial oppression and hostility. Whether we have sinned against others by seeing them as inferior or have been silent in the face of evil, forgive us of our sin. We pray for our enemies—for those who have allowed satanic powers to work through them. Grant them deliverance through your mighty power. We ask that you form us to be peacemakers. May we be people who speak the truth in love as we work for a reconciled world. Lord, we commit our lives to you, believing that you are working in t...