Bishop to launch Church of England prayer site for Lent outside Bolton Townhall

Date published: 22 February 2012

Today Wednesday 22nd Feb

Bishop of Bolton to launch Church of England prayer site for Lent outside Bolton Townhall.

The Bishop of Bolton is to launch Pray One for Me, a Church of England Facebook prayer site, outside Bolton Town Hall, at 12.30pm on Ash Wednesday, 22nd Feb.

When live, The Pray One for Me Facebook page will be found at www.facebook.com/prayoneforme and offers people the opportunity to post prayer requests online. Churches across the UK will be praying prayers posted on the page.

Earlier prayer projects run by the Church of England show that many of the prayer requests will be for family and friends, for healing and worldwide problems, and thanking God. However, the page will also encourage themed prayers to focus prayer on some of the life’s big events such as Christian Aid week, the Queen’s Jubilee, the Olympics, and to respond to events in the news.

Given recent events concerning the saying of prayers at Council meetings, the initiative is a reminder of the importance for many of prayer. 

The Bishop of Bolton, the Rt Revd Chris Edmondson, said: “For many people, there is a great desire to seek spiritual engagement away from what we might recognise as the traditional faiths. Research suggests that 20 million adults in the country pray – that’s 42% of the  population and a recent internet search for the word “Spirituality” returned 29 million UKweb pages. It is these facts that have helped inspire Pray One for Me. Many of these people are those that Church finds hard to reach. So we are hoping they will join in.”

The Facebook page www.facebook.com/prayoneforme and the website www.prayoneforme.org will go live on Ash Wednesday 22ndFebruary.