Day of Prayer & Fasting

Wednesday, January 31, 2024 is designated as a “day for prayer and fasting for life” by the Alaska Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. The 24-hour Prayer Guide is available at the bottom of this page. On-line entries will be posted hourly on the Alaska Conference Facebook page as prompts on Jan. 31. Consider using the guide during your personal prayer time, a church prayer gathering or on a prayer walk around your community. There is also a litany inside of the prayer guide that can be used as a responsive congregational prayer.

At our 2011 conference annual meeting, a resolution to establish an annual day of prayer and fasting was put forth and affirmed. We pray for deliverance from the peril of suicide in our communities and for healing from the pain of those we have lost already.  In addition, the resolution also calls us to put to death those things that belong to our earthly nature. Below are two important sections from the resolution:

  • We in the Evangelical Covenant Church of Alaska further RESOLVE to come into the bond of unity and fervently commit to a day of fasting and prayer annually for our children and our families that we may be delivered from the peril of suicide in our communities and be healed from the pain that we endure from those whom we have lost already.
  • We further RESOLVE to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. We RESOLVE to rid ourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from our lips. (Col 3:5 & 8)

Would you respond to the call for your wholehearted participation? Suicide has been described as an epidemic in Alaska. Much attention has been given to try to turn the tide. We are aware of one too many stories of loss – there is hardly a person who has not been touched by it in some way.  But we are ambassadors of the good news of Jesus Christ, who has defeated death. Our hope is that the prayers lifted up will spur us on in love and good deeds to shine the light of Christ in the face of the darkness of death, not just in January, but each day.

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