Image: Illustration by Christianity Today / Source Images: Unsplash / Photo of Keller by Nathan Troester / Courtesy of Redeemer City to City
CT interviewed church planters in Barcelona, Beirut, Chennai, Hanoi, Melbourne, Quezon City, Recife, and Vienna about their respective city’s distinctive charms and challenges and how they are contextualizing the gospel there, all with this question in mind: To what extent has Keller’s approach to church planting influenced their ministry?
Marwan Aboul-Zelof in Beirut, Lebanon
Pastor of City Bible Church
The Reformed-Baptist church has a 70-strong congregation and holds services in English.
Sixty percent are locals and the rest of the congregation includes people from every continent.
Beirut is a beautiful and cosmopolitan city with an incredibly rich history. It’s much smaller than New York City, but has twice the population density. Tim Keller never visited the Middle East, although we had hoped that he would come. But he had a great impact on us through his writings, sermons, and social media posts.
Beirut, and our church, has gone through significant challenges in the past few years: revolution; the pandemic; economic and government collapse; and the 2020 explosion. Yet, the Lord remains faithful and gracious to us.
I remember being on a call with Tim, who talked about historical moves of God and how there was often a major crisis that served as a catalyst for those moments. He told me that Lebanon’s multiple major crises may develop greater openness to the gospel, acknowledged the difficulties I face as a church planter here, and encouraged me to remain faithful.
This article was originally published by Christianity Today on May 24, 2023. I contributed additional reporting. Please click here to read the full text.
Two Middle East nations share a city named Tripoli.
They share little else, apart from a Phoenician heritage and mutually near-unintelligible dialects of Arabic. One of their starkest contrasts concerns freedom of religion.
Libya sentenced six Christians to death earlier this month for converting from Islam. Lebanon, despite its sectarianism enshrined in politics, allows free movement between religions.
Libya’s Tripoli was commemorated in the official hymn of the US Marines in homage to American intervention on the shores of North Africa. Lebanon’s was an outpost of an eastern Mediterranean–focused American missionary movement that transformed society through gender-inclusive education.
The Italians colonized Libya; the French, Lebanon. Elsewhere, the Middle East is marked by British influence, Ottoman traditions, petrodollar economies, democratic structures, multicultural kingdoms, autocratic republics, and everything in between.
What unites them all is the preponderance of Islam.
But among the followers of Muhammad there is also difference. Some nations are secular; others enforce sharia. Some protect Christian minorities; others discriminate against them. It is difficult to offer a sweeping synopsis—or uniform lessons learned by local Christians.
Yet CT asked four Arab Christian leaders with deep roots in the region to make an attempt. Two currently live abroad; two live in their nation of origin. Yet each represents a space on the spectrum of strategies on how to best live as a Christian in a Muslim society.
One articulation of the spectrum, crafted by theologian Martin Accad, arranges common Christian responses into five categories: syncretistic (the blurring of faiths), existential (the dialogue of diversity), kerygmatic (the preaching of the apostles), apologetic (the defense of the gospel), and polemical (the interrogation of Islam).
The leaders engaged below were not asked to sort themselves accordingly, nor does this landscape article seek to label them. But each was asked the following question:
Whether in a context of oppression or embrace, how should believers in Jesus witness to their faith, keep social peace, and maintain unity with fellow Christians?
Martin Accad / Najib Awad / Harun Ibrahim / Barshar Warda
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on May 17, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.
Scheduled to switch for daylight savings on March 26, the nation’s Sunni and Shiite political heads postponed it until the end of Ramadan to ease Muslim fasting.
Christian politicians ignored it and carried on with the international standard. Airlines stuck to the government decision, throwing schedules into confusion. Some schools adjusted, others refused, and parents juggled clocks to show up at work on time.
Not that there is much work these days. The government eventually relented.
But these decisions were taken while Lebanon has no president, no prime minister, and a fractured parliament. The economy is in free fall, emigration is soaring, and justice still escapes the victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion.
It is the last place one would look for lessons on leadership.
While laughing at the absurdity of the four days, Mike Bassous believes differently. Author of Leadership … in Crisis, published last July, he says Lebanon is uniquely situated to assist an entire region regularly subject to chaos. Surrounded by dictatorships, there are not many traditional examples to choose from.
“For books on leadership, the Arabic library of the Middle East is empty,” Bassous said. “But Lebanon can absorb the best of Western principles and contextualize them for the East.”
Such is the goal of his book, combining personal experience, the professional corpus, and Christian reflection. And as general secretary of the Lebanon Bible Society, he is offering his insight to Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox friends around the region—starting in his home country.
Last year, 44 Lebanese leaders gathered in Cyprus for a retreat from the crisis in their country.
“We need this in our churches—from A to Z, we need it all,” said Linda Macktaby, principal of Blessed, a school in Beirut for special-needs children. “We teach the youth the Bible, but not how to lead.”
One of Bassous’ key principles is confrontation.
Serving at Blessed since 2010, Macktaby resolved to address the Arab assumptions about leadership head on. Contrary to the “typical manipulators” who avoid conflict, promising solutions while buying time amid acolytes reluctant to make any decisions, she instead empowers her staff. Each is given a “kingdom,” she called it, with authority to carry out assigned responsibilities.
And if she interferes, her staff is instructed to…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today on April 3, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.
Radio first brought Nolla Azar fame. Then it brought her Jesus.
Today she uses it to bring others to him, via a new ministry.
“I know how to get women’s attention,” said the host of Listening to You, an afternoon talk show on Lebanon’s BeLight FM. “I use the same methods here, but for a higher purpose.”
Once working with Dubai-based MBC, one of the largest media companies in the Middle East, Azar returned to Lebanon in 2009 after desiring the warmth of home. Frustrated by the lack of opportunities she found in the local industry, she turned instead to social media and became a celebrated influencer.
Doing a podcast for women, she accumulated 275,000 followers on TikTok, boasting 17 million views. Still, she felt empty, complaining often to her mother about dissatisfaction with her finances, career, and love life.
In 2021, COVID-19 isolation sparked a spiritual search. Maronite Catholic by background, she read books about God, watched religious TV, stumbled upon a new and unheralded radio station, and gave her life to Christ.
Today, she is one of its top-rated hosts.
“When I first came [to BeLight], it was hard to balance between entertaining people and being ‘Christian,’” said Azar. “But it is God who brought me here, and when lifting people’s spirits, I redirect them to Jesus.”
She has contributed to the increasing professionalism among a motley crew that is quickly growing in popularity. BeLight began on Thanksgiving Day 2020 as an initiative of Arabs determined to launch a Protestant-led FM station in Lebanon. Many had backgrounds in TV production, but none in radio.
It began with 90-percent worship music, culled from English-language favorites and the mostly Egyptian-composed praise songs popular in Arab evangelical churches. Over time, BeLight increased its spoken content to almost 50 percent, at first through sermon recordings of Lebanese pastors and eventually developing its own unique programming.
And it has won itself an audience. According to an Ipsos advertising survey from last April, it now reaches 300,000 Lebanese, reeling from economic crisis and political turmoil. Its 7.5 percent market share trails the top-ranked pop music stations (which average 11 percent each), but puts it ahead of longstanding Catholic and Muslim offerings.
“We are trying our best,” said Mireille Eid, host of BeLight’s first talk show, Thought for Tomorrow, broadcasting five mornings per week. “People are happy listening to a message of hope, not just all bad news.”
She has grown with the job. With a sonorous voice but no radio training, Eid’s background was in theater and interior design. But her infectious style and transparent nature invites many to call in—requesting prayer or sharing their stories.
Lebanon boasts 18 official religious sects, with BeLight listeners hailing from many. “Good morning, you beautiful hearts who live in the hope that everything will be more beautiful,” said Sarah, from the Lebanese…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on February 8, 2023. Please click here to read the full text.
Twenty miles south of Beirut is a sandy beach called Jiyeh. It’s a rare interlude in Lebanon’s rocky coastline, and if you were out in the Mediterranean, crying for deliverance as currents swirled about you, waves and breakers sweeping over you, this is where you’d want God to command a fish to vomit you onto dry land.
And this is, in fact, the spot where ancient legend says that the Hebrew prophet Jonah was delivered safely to shore.
Jonah has long been honored here. Mosaics found in the ruins of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine church show the prophet who tried to run away from his mission to Nineveh getting turned around by a large fish. And today there is a Muslim mosque on the site with a shrine to Jonah.
The Hebrew story of the reluctant prophet is beloved not only by Christians but also by those who hold the Qur’an to be the final revelation of God. And chiseled on the shrine is the verse that he prayed from the belly of the fish, which Muhammad urged Muslims to recite when in trouble.
“The most common prayer of Muslims during times of crisis is the prayer of Jonah,” Emad Botros, professor of Old Testament at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, told CT. “We share a heritage with Muslims. And what is better to share than stories?”
Botros is one of a few scholars turning to Jonah as a site of common interest connecting Christians and Muslims. He has written a book, Jonah: Bible Commentaries from Muslim Contexts, the second volume in a series on reading the Bible in the context of Islam. He thinks the story of the prophet—along with other shared stories—can help start a conversation across the faiths.
“The prophets of old were the heroes of Muhammad,” Botros said. “Knowing his reflections helps us communicate our biblical stories more effectively.” The Qur’an’s account of Jonah—which Muslims believe was divinely revealed through the archangel Gabriel—is different from the version in the Hebrew Bible. In the Muslim version, the city he’s going to is…
This article was originally published in the December print edition of Christianity Today. Please click here to read the full text.
And then there are three presidents, each with a share of a weakening state,
Taking on the behemoth.
But there is a fourth, God. Very well armed.
A factor in the equation.
We pray for resolution.
But not just finality – justice, and fair.
Preserve us our rights. But what are they?
Who says this angle? No, two degrees more. Stretch the line out for a thousand.
Bend it here for this field, then split it at that.
Can we speak of the moral in mathematics?
Power.
If your word is true, we are mighty.
Because we are weak. And in that, our strength.
Unpredictable. Wild. Unyielding.
We are masters in exploiting system.
There are few rules in power.
But there are morals.
They don’t keep them—but do we?
For your word to be true we must meet it.
Our weakness is strength, but is it of you?
Is it just? Is it fair? Is it righteous?
Is it humble?
We pray for resolution.
Not one that seeks a mealy peace—
Trades principle for interest.
We need the gas. So does the world.
In double want find outcome.
God, we desire real strength.
Unity. Consensus.
But to find them we must each bend low—
A power, made perfect, in weakness.
Bless it, God. We need the gas.
We need a resolution.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
Will stability help? Or stability drain? Does it depend on which kind?
The speaker of parliament wants four more years,
After thirty. His leadership known.
Could he be like the lira, stable two decades plus? Before its vociferous fall.
Up. Down. Intervening. Dollars disappear,
Like value. My bank account same.
And also, my wallet—as all prices rise. Inflation: It eats more than me.
Reviving a council to keep cost control,
Will president unleash the black?
His allies: Strong for sixteen years. Their weapons: Held for forty.
Postpone this discussion for only two more,
They say. For the nation needs rescue.
Your love, God, is stable. But so is our sin. Our lives between boring, chaotic.
Transformation. Disruption. Or comfort and peace?
My answer? Desire? Confusion.
And Lebanon, God, is a riddle alike. We need an uprising, but also
A school year consistent. A pharmacy stocked.
If torn down, will build up be certain?
Sometimes, holy God, you search out the lost. Sometimes: Silent and hidden.
I alternate aching with indifferent cold,
Wanting. Contented. Unstable.
Fix us afresh, God. My nation entire. We beg of you: Guide in this crisis.
We have new politicians along with the old.
We have me. Pitiful. Yet, your image.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
I scroll past, skim through. Whisper generic good for all.
Maybe some are more righteous than me.
How do you keep track of eight billion?
But I can pray for trends:
Bless those who come with noble aims, for whom ‘kulun yani’ kul shi.*
Now among 128. Do they join in or holdout with nose up?
God, guide them well, for change must come. New blood renews the languid.
But guide them wise, their number weak, no matter how much rising.
Bless those who come with single mind, that weapons rig the system.
Their number up, the platform theirs. Discussion, tabled, threatening.
But is it time? And can they win? What consequences suffered?
To themselves? Or to the south? Or to nation collapsing?
Bless those who lost the upper hand, who still promote their project.
Calls for reform, resistance true, with forces piled against them.
But humbled, may they humble still. Others strong. All servants?
Bless those of old, the way things were. And likely still are, maybe.
They care for own, protect their flock. Distribute jobs and money.
Should it all be swept aside? Can they sustain the model?
With ever shrinking slice of pie, help them to help all others.
Renew, or rig?
Reform, or rile?
Among each group – dishonest.
We asked before: Remove such men.
But wheat and chaff still present.
Bless them also. Change their ways. And bind manipulation.
But now we have them. So change me too.
For each one, make us thankful.
They came from you. They came from us. They now are the solution.
Help me to pray—by name—for some.
The rest, God, shepherd. Lead them.
Amen.
*The popular chant of the 2019 uprising was: All of them means all of them. Here, the phrase is adjusted to: ‘All of them means’ everything.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
On the eve of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections last weekend, Resurrection Church of Beirut (RCB) called for a prayer meeting. The short meditation focused on Psalm 147: heal the brokenhearted and sustain the humble—but cast the wicked to the ground.
Mired in economic crisis, many Lebanese blame a corrupt political class.
Three years ago, a massive popular uprising shouted “all of them means all of them” against the traditional sectarian parties. But within a few months, protests fizzled as COVID-19, the Beirut port explosion, and a World Bank-labeled “deliberate” financial depression drove many to despair.
“Confuse many in the election booths, and encourage others,” prayed the RCB pastor. “Cause them to vote for those you desire.”
One of Lebanon’s largest evangelical churches, only 35 members from the main Baabda campus prayed along with him. The turnout mirrored that of the nation, which initially reported that participation dropped to 4 in 10 eligible voters. Very few expected significant movement in the political map.
“For three years we have cried out to God, reflecting his love as we ministered to everyone regardless of religion,” said Nabil Costa, executive director of the Lebanese Society for Educational and Social Development, also known as the Baptist Society. “And then at the fourth watch of the night, when everyone was losing hope, God said, ‘I am still here.’” Most evangelicals, he said, supported…
This article was originally published at Christianity Today, on May 19, 2022. Please click here to read the full text.
Remove the planks from our eyes. Try me and know my inmost thoughts.
David preferred your wrath to the nations’. Job repented, mute.
Your discipline comes with purpose.
Your mercy mixed with tears.
May we shed them also.
And spare us the blood.
It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
So we humble ourselves, instead.
We fall on our knees.
We trust your hands to shake us.
We trust your hands to heal.
No matter the meaning, we all want a change.
And so we pray the principles:
Put your candidates in office. Hold accountable the frauds.
Expose manipulation. The common interest, first.
Take these prayers, from all of us. Will my plea cancel his?
No, each prayer folded over, pressed together, overflows.
The measure we pray – measure it true.
To us and to Lebanon.
For elections, for life.
Your will to be done. Your kingdom to come.
My vote makes a difference.
Your justice, how odd.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
When all is bad, we still fear worse. But hope holds on that change will come.
Every billboard says so.
But what is the substance? What is the plan? This face or that one? My list, not his?
Beyond the names, what parties?
The red we know. The yellow-green. Who else is campaigning? The logos retreat.
One week remaining.
What of the rumors? Elections postponed? It seemed all in favor though no one would say.
Is a crisis coming?
God, spare us from violence. But spare us from doubt. A vote is a privilege that many don’t have.
The Arab world is arid.
Help us be faithful even if depressed. The barriers many: Cross-country, to drive.
Elite entrenchment.
But also infighting of everyone else. Media partisan. Confusing law. Regional meddling.
My ballot, to speak.
I cast it in hope that the message is heard. With enough of my comrades perhaps we can win.
Or voided, vote blank.
It too will say something, rejecting the whole. Fulfillment of duty, wash hands of results.
God, you know.
And God, you care. But towards what end? That this corrupt fall or to set back that sect?
You choose the king.
But so do I. Align my will. Dedicate me to the cause. Through me help bring the best of us.
And then, to rest.
Your favor does not come with prince, but faithfulness to prince of peace. Change itself
Can never change.
So while we work in vigilance, we ask you also change the heart. Bring repentance to our soul.
Love of neighbor. Also—them.
One week away, we ask your grace. Bring this nation toward the good; politicians, honest, pure.
But first, change me.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
The vote is free. The people, too, or is there occupation?
Politics manipulates. Licit or illegal?
From north to south, and in Beirut, campaigning is disrupted.
But so are lives. The poster size offends the sinking lira.
Politicians show their plans—or at least their faces.
But some denied in neighborhoods where rivals show displeasure.
Provocation? Threatened quit. Rumors of postponement.
Who will win when many hate each color, list, and slogan?
Yet even those who herald change have failed to stay united.
They scratch and claw for every vote. One seat—or two—a triumph.
Division, God, is not of you. But nor is it unrighteous.
People differ, weigh their choice. And power is a blessing.
Used instead to silence voice, or raise a fear of ‘other,’
It weaponizes stewardship. It bludgeons trust and service.
Helpless, God, we but can pray? And vote in resignation?
Or will through prayer a miracle give mandate to my favored?
A miracle is needed, God.
But is it in elections?
Change the system. Change the heart.
Change the expectations.
But until then, let vote be free. The people, too, in conscience.
Their ballot cast by principle. On time, while safe and honest.
The king, you say, is in your hand—wicked, just, or tepid.
Guide voters, then, with virtue sure—conviction, courage, honor.
Many lack these marks of strength, the leading class deficient.
But all fall short of your demand to imitate our master.
Humble us, God.
Rebuild us right.
Let Lebanon freely prosper.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
I cannot say I know the cause, and many more are like me too.
But it does not look good.
Bankers reject the government plan.
Protestors rally where lawmakers meet.
But is business aligned with the people?
How to pray, except for good, when most of the small print escapes us?
And what of the pharmacist, killed in her store?
Or expat electors pulled in tug-of-war?
Better known yet is the poverty push
That dares some to risk life and limb to escape.
Some have drowned.
Some drown in blame.
Some—more than me—know the issues quite well.
Some are complicit in many a crime,
While some seek out facts keen to educate.
Give them ears, God. Too many are not listening.
We know why, and it is fair:
The hand has been nailed immobile.
So like your own, it sags inert,
Waiting for one to unpin it.
You rose from the dead by the power of God,
But came down from the cross with assistance.
Where now is Joseph, from Arimathea?
His humble act, far from the crowd—
But brave in approaching authority—
It set the stage for miracle,
Though he himself did little.
God, find these men, and amplify.
Bolster their spirits, in number.
And then, when few are watching, where only women linger:
Show yourself.
Birth new life.
Let Lebanon once again prosper.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
“Tear down these silos, and in three days I will build them up again.”
Some cheered. Some mourned.
Most went about their day.
The world moves on, and so must life.
That which is dead just crumbles.
“Keep it alive!” “Prop it up!” “We must preserve the memory!”
“At least, till justice comes.”
But where is justice, God?
Memory exchanged for glitz, throughout the civil war city.
Bullet holes here, a statue there.
Seventeen thousand still missing.
With erasure comes grievance, and grievance comes grudge.
The world moves on, and so must life.
But it does not.
Wounds run deep. Statues nurture.
The choice: Ignore, or sect.
There is nobility in both, God. But little of you.
In the silos you suffered.
Grain spoiled, poured out – for none.
The bread of life was wasted.
And now the poor go hungry.
Yet for some there is cake. Cookies abound.
Cast lots: Who has your favor?
One day they will be built again.
The world moves on, and so must life.
But will you be in it?
The new port? The next Beirut? Lebanon—if it continues?
Three days, God. We are waiting.
Millennia. We are waiting.
Come. You do not come.
But yes, you have. To me.
A day is as a thousand years, for world unperceiving.
My day is rich like a million.
My memory of sin is purged. The scars remain, but healed.
The silos—full—inside my heart.
Bread: Broken, eaten, grateful.
It is enough, God.
But it is not enough.
Too few have bread. Too few have life.
And silos: Ruined, standing.
Until they fall, or are brought down.
Erased. And justice with them.
We wait, God.
We work as we can.
Your life in us, for others.
Bless this nation. Raise afresh.
Three days.
The dawn emerges.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
We thank you for agreement, though many say its false.
And naught but shame can come upon the architects of loss.
It is not wise to borrow. Worse: Surrender on a debt.
Rely on outside help to fix a problem of one’s own.
The terms of reference, strident. Reforms, we surely need.
But will these straighten Lebanon for finance or the poor?
At least there is consensus, for now, on what to do.
Conditional on follow-up; will implementing fail?
And what then of elections? Will mandate carry through?
And how long will it take until a government is formed?
Could help—now—come from elsewhere? A bailout before loan?
Will friends—again—from Saudi prove their friendship at the bank?
At least they have returned, God. An empty embassy
Is more than just a symbol of relations gone awry.
But this week things are better, and all across the board.
A glimpse of hope, ephemeral? Or first look at the roots?
Distrust appears endemic. Manipulation, fierce.
The sins of men run deep within the soil of ancient land.
God grant them all discernment, and courage to address
Corruption and entitlement distributed by sect.
Some must fall entire. Others to redeem.
Promote the honest faithful; may their influence expand.
No more ad hoc solutions, as each blame someone else.
Let justice paint with broadest brush. But mercy, beautify.
The landscape is angelic. Your praise, each day, it sings.
Draw people to the chorus from cacophony of angst.
From president to doorman, from cleric to the cook,
All are equal in your sight and each with vital role.
Perhaps a loan is coming. Renewed support from Gulf.
Be warned: No trust in princes. Wealth: Moth and rust destroy.
You, oh God, are holy. Yet you love us. You forgive.
Reveal it now in Lebanon. Humbled, prayerful—heal.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
More than three years later, there is an almost-law.
Cabinet to parliament, likely to approve?
The IMF is visiting, they need to see it real.
But is there full agreement on the bailout to come?
Election cries uniting: Depositors protect.
Confront corrupt officials, root out in every sect.
But which ones? Few will specify.
Vote here: Our resolved list.
A law is surely needed, with money trapped in banks,
Exchange rate fluctuations, and the lira in collapse.
The answer: A committee, with power to decide.
Composed of adept figures chosen later. But by whom?
God, is this a solution? The first step in a plan?
Or simple obfuscation and delay until no end?
Or worse—is that the plan?
And of some, or of all?
Are they united, though separate in list?
Some say.
Three years ago, the people, in thousands, with their feet,
Descended on the central squares with a resounding ‘yes’.
Those days have passed: Corona. Depression. Winter rain.
All of these conspired and deflated common cause.
There are lists independent. A vote to throw away?
Or embers of intensity that could—and must—revive?
God, you know.
Sift wheat from chaff.
Give light to eyes.
Discernment, come.
Give people back their money. But so much more beside.
Free them from enslavement to consumeristic trends.
The lust of eyes, seductive. The pride of life, a snare.
Blessed are the poor trumps all, when poor is all we have.
Blessed are the poor, in spirit: Help this to remain.
Let sect embody service. Politics—ideas.
God, bless all of Lebanon.
Free it for your cause.
Make of her a beacon.
A message. Beauty. Love.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
In Lebanese, in private, convict each precious soul.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
What would you to have us think about emerging crisis?
God it all was bad before
Is now a worse still coming?
Corrupt? Perhaps. Some, all, or few?
But they control our access.
And politicians linked between,
They promise us our money.
At least a portion, more or less,
But what done since it started?
Some shield this one, call for calm.
Indeed, the catastrophic
Could come if all comes tumbling down.
A house of cards, unshuffled?
A deck to stack against the poor,
Who now grow ever larger?
Your justice, God, will build, create—
But judgment first, reversal.
So let us do so on our own:
We first, the last becoming.
We who can lead, let us serve.
Lest ‘woe to rich now’ happens.
For bankers, God, is it too late?
They had their chance and failed?
But who among us knows their heart,
Their charity, their efforts
To make the world a better place,
To help the country prosper?
If only so, God.
If politics,
If agenda seeks to ruin them,
Protect each righteous,
Kill not wealth,
A trial, yes—and blessing.
But if it is God as you say:
This harder than the camel,
Then by your grace, God, squeeze us through
The ever-shrinking needle.
Us and them. Unrighteous all.
And also judge crusading.
Honor each who does the right,
By law, with pure intentions.
Blind, impartial. Can we hope
Such status for our nation?
However good, it is not best.
You are our judge—and father.
How terrible to face your wrath,
Without your love and welcome.
The first is coming, maybe here, if not three years preceding.
The latter? Ever present for the humble supplicating.
Bankers.
Judges.
Me and you.
Show Lebanon your mercy.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
At militia that shields the accused from the court.
While some ready ammo to root out corrupt,
Each legal case levied, this banker or that.
God, what to do with all the above?
Compared to Ukraniya, all petty and trite.
But people are suffering here in our land,
Let alone the same dying and missiles that fail
To elicit the outrage, outpouring of heart
That the region has needed for decades on end.
God, each life is precious. Of course, we care more
For the life that is near us and impacts direct,
For the one who is like me, aligns with my world.
Forgive our dismissal, our hearts are not pure.
But also our impasse—resigned and inert.
True: Lebanon bound by the powers that be.
False: Lebanon stuck; no agency left.
God, help us to work toward your will where we can.
Is that what is happening with all the above?
Or within the mire each seeks for his own?
Reveal to us, God, all the honest and good.
Lift up their cause and cause others to fail.
Silence the weapons of iron and word.
Make plowshares and poems—
And Lebanon thrive.
Amen.
To receive Lebanon Prayer by WhatsApp, please click this link to join the closed comments group.
Lebanon Prayer places before God the major events of the previous week, asking his favor for the nation living through them.
It seeks for values common to all, however differently some might apply them. It honors all who strive on her behalf, however suspect some may find them.
It offers no solutions, but desires peace, justice, and reconciliation. It favors no party, but seeks transparency, consensus, and national sovereignty.
How God sorts these out is his business. Consider joining in prayer that God will bless the people and establish his principles, from which all our approximations derive.
Sometimes prayer can generate more prayer. While mine is for general principles, you may have very specific hopes for Lebanon. You are welcome to post these here as comments, that others might pray with you as you place your desires before God.
If you wish to share your own prayer, please adhere to the following guidelines:
1) The sincerest prayers are before God alone. Please consult with God before posting anything.
2) If a prayer of hope, strive to express a collective encouragement.
3) If a prayer of lament, strive to express a collective grief.
4) If a prayer of anger, refrain from criticizing specific people, parties, sects, or nations. While it may be appropriate, save these for your prayers alone before God.
5) In every prayer, do your best to include a blessing.
I will do my best to moderate accordingly. Thank you for praying for Lebanon and her people.
Jayson Casper 