Thy kingdom come 2025

To mark the tenth anniversary of the global prayer movement Thy Kingdom Come, Rachel Tranter reflects on the Lord’s Prayer and shares information about the many prayer resources BRF Ministries has to offer to help you take part.

25 May 2025

Thy Kingdom Come (TKC) is a global ecumenical prayer movement that invites Christians around the world to pray, from Ascension to Pentecost, for more people to come to know Jesus. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the campaign, which runs from 29 May to 8 June.

From relatively small beginnings in May 2016, TKC now unites more than a million Christians in prayer, in nearly 90% of countries worldwide, across 85 different denominations and traditions. Every person, household and church is encouraged to pray during the 11 days in their own way, so that friends and family, neighbours and colleagues might come to faith in Jesus Christ.

To mark this year’s TKC, Rachel Tranter reflects on the Lord’s Prayer and the many prayer resources BRF Ministries has to offer to help you take part.

The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer is of course the most well-known biblical prayer of all time, even more so than the Jesus Prayer – ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’ – and the Aaronic blessing – ‘The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine on you…’ (see Numbers 6:24–26).  It is often these simple, short prayers that linger in the heart and mind.

And as the Lord’s Prayer is not only attributed to Jesus himself but also given specifically for our instruction in how to pray, it bears our special attention.

Many people have written many words unpacking the nuances, challenges and encouragement of the Lord’s Prayer. From my own studies, and from constant engagement with the text of the prayer through my commissioning and editorial work with BRF Ministries, I have my own thoughts and reflections to share and some top recommendations from our wide array of prayer resources.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name

The Lord’s Prayer is about relationship. That’s the amazing truth of God being our Father – God wants to be in relationship with us.

Just as there are many ways of relating to each other, there are many different ways of relating to God. Our relationship to him doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. God created our variety, so I believe he delights in our different ways of being in relationship with us.

It makes sense that the way we like to pray will be different too. Prayer is more than sitting in silence, thinking thoughts at God. If you want to explore some of these different ways of praying, you couldn’t be in better company than Lyndall Bywater in Prayer in the Making: Trying it, talking it, sustaining it. She explores twelve ways of praying, helping you find the ones which best suit you and your lifestyle.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven

The Lord’s Prayer is about God’s kingdom. Jesus constantly talks about the kingdom during his ministry, declaring that it has ‘come near’ and telling numerous parables about what the kingdom of God is like.

Praying the Way with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John by Terry Hinks takes inspiration from the gospels to help you to pray with the words of Jesus himself and to see prayer as a two-way conversation, listening to God as well as speaking.

Give us today our daily bread

The Lord’s Prayer is about God’s generosity. Bread is an important image throughout the Bible, from the ‘manna’ in the desert that fed God’s people to Jesus implementing the sacrament of communion at the last supper. God constantly promises to provide what his people need, so we shouldn’t feel ashamed, guilty or greedy for bringing our requests to him.

Joanna Collicutt explores the Lord’s Prayer in all its complexity in When You Pray: Daily Bible reflections on the Lord’s Prayer. She helps us to see that it is not just bread that we need, but daily bread – constantly coming to God with our needs.

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us

The Lord’s Prayer is about forgiveness. God’s forgiveness is boundless and generous, but we also have a part to play in this transaction: turning away from words and actions that grieve him, and striving to live a life that will please him. It’s also important to forgive others, not just accept God’s forgiveness for ourselves; it’s evidence of the upside-down kingdom that Jesus came to bring on earth.

In his book Living the Prayer: The everyday challenge of the Lord’s Prayer, Trystan Owain Hughes encourages us to think about what we’re really saying when we say the Lord’s Prayer. Forgiving does not mean forgetting, but rather bringing healing to the past and hope to the future. While God offers that to us at such a costly price, the death of Jesus, we must also not hold back in offering it to others as well.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

The Lord’s Prayer is about living changed lives. God desires good things for our lives, not evil, and while we know that Christians are not immune from suffering, we believe that God works for our good and cares about our well-being. What is good for us in one period of our life might not be good in another – and we can read the Bible and pray to help us discern where and how to make change. We can also rely on God for those changes we’re not able to make in our own strength.

Celtic Prayer – Caught Up in Love: Wisdom for living from a modern Celtic community, written by a group of authors from the Community of Aiden and Hilda, shows us a different way of encountering God through the Celtic tradition. It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, especially with prayer, and our wise guides show us 20 different ways of praying. Might God be calling you to a different expression of your faith? If so, this book could help you.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen

The Lord’s Prayer is about worship. How we worship can be just as diverse as how we pray, and of course the two overlap. But it’s important to remember that everything in our lives – from doing chores at home, to raising children, to working hard at our jobs, to interacting with our friends – can and should be worship.

Claire Daniel offers a wealth of ideas for getting creative with our prayer in 80 Creative Prayer Ideas: A resource for church and group use and 80 Reflective Prayer Ideas: A creative resource for church and group use. When was the last time you prayed creatively in a group? What might you discover if you do this more regularly?

Refresh your prayer life

The Lord’s Prayer is so simple, yet it contains so much wisdom in its short lines. Whether or not you are struggling in your prayer life, and whether or not you are participating in Thy Kingdom Come from 29 May, I really encourage you to pick up one of our prayer resources – most are available in both print and eBook format.

Finding new ways to pray, deepening and refreshing your prayer life, is a lifelong endeavour and our wise and experienced writers have so many new ideas to help you engage with our God, who is constantly looking for new ways to engage with us and to be in relationship with us.