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Against a backdrop of falling church numbers, prayer appears to be alive and well in Northern Ireland. That’s the finding of our recent prayer survey.

We discovered that almost 2 out of 3 people in Northern Ireland pray – that’s over 1 million people, enough to fill the Odyssey arena 100 times over. And almost 50% of people believe that prayer changes what happens in their lives.

What are we praying for? Prayers for friends and family, thanking God and seeking guidance take the top three slots. But praying for the developing world comes a close fourth. It’s clear that those who do pray firmly believe that their prayers can make a difference and change lives.

As I’ve travelled round the developing world, I’ve been humbled, challenged and inspired by the prayers I’ve heard. The prayer of one young Malawian mother called Sophia, who didn’t have enough food for her children, resonates with me– ‘I pray about the food shortages - bless our village that we can have a good harvest. May you defeat the problems so that we can have food’. As a father of two young children I felt tears well as I heard someone pray their way through one of the worst situations I could imagine.

Over the next few weeks, Sophia’s prayer reverberated in my soul. For most of my life I’m in control – I can afford most things I want and my job means that I get to develop strategy, plans and new ideas. This sense of control shapes my prayer life – I see my faith worked out incarnationally in what I do and I ask God to bless that. This young mother’s prayer made me realise that prayer calls me to interact with God as an independent being, someone who operates well beyond my circle of influence. Somewhere along the way I - the independent 21st century Christian, the manager, the strategist – had lost that.

I also realised that I was part of the answer to this woman’s prayer. If I bought more Fairtrade clothes, then the local cotton farmers in her area would have a better wage, benefiting her community. If I gave a little more money, local churches could help her family develop agricultural programmes and micro loan schemes to help lift her out of poverty. Prayer should open me up to the possibility of change, that God may be calling me to action. Like Isaiah or Amos before me, my prayers should connect me with God’s heart for justice and how I am living that out in my daily life.

At a very deep emotional and spiritual level, I recognise my own need to connect with people like Sophia. Her story reminds me that even in the current financial situation I have so much. Her hope and faith reminds me of the fragility of my own.

This week, Tearfund is inviting Christians in the UK and Ireland to pray alongside people like Sophia, to join a global chain of prayer which seeks to unite Christians to bring help and hope to the communities around them.

Augustine said ‘Pray as if everything depends on God, act as if everything depends on you’. My challenge this week is to live that out.

www.tearfund.org/prayerweek

Tim Magowan (National Manager Tearfund, Northern Ireland)