The Counting Prayer or "The Little Prayer That Could"

A prayer pledge vigil for individuals and congregations: "The world now has the means to end extreme poverty, we pray we will have the will."

Since the inaugural prayer was offered at one of the world's chapels, St. Paul's at Ground Zero in New York City on 9/23/07, already 20,000 prayers have been tallied on the http://www.countingprayers.org counter - a vigilant and virtual witness to the rising will to end extreme poverty. After the first prayer was offered at St. Paul's Chapel, countingprayers.org invited every individual, and every congregation in every faith in every country, to sign the pledge to offer The Counting Prayer every day, and/or at every worship service, until the Millennium Development Goals are met.

"With the repetition of prayers, hearts will open, souls will listen, and the world will change," says Jon Denn, the founder of countingprayers.org, a congregational and web-based movement. The MDGs were established in 2000 when 188 nations (including the United States) agreed that the eight humanitarian goals would be halfway accomplished by 2015, addressing issues such as hunger, education, gender equality, child mortality, women's health, diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria, and environmental sustainability. Since then only five countries are keeping their Millennium Promise: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Everyday 30,000 people die from causes relating to extreme poverty. "So, it is especially important to bear witness to our government's broken millennium promises. If we persons of faith have the will to end extreme poverty, we can convince our leaders to be good to their word," says Denn.

"There are a multitude of ways to get involved both through your faith tradition, and through advocacy groups and nonprofit/NGOs that have established distribution channels to distribute aid. You can ask your clergy to offer The Counting Prayer, write a letter to your elected officials, get on a legislative alert system through ONE.org and Bread.org, buy a bednet through MillenniumPromise.org, sponsor a child through The Plan, Save the Children, or World Vision, and don't forget to ask your friends to do the same," says Denn. "This is our time to lead, this is our generation's greatest challenge: How can we not respond with prayer, advocacy, and action?" For more information you can contact Jon Denn, Co-Director at the Trinity Conference Center in West Cornwall, CT, at (860) 672-1000 or info@countingprayers.org.

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