5 Things to Pray for Your City - Prayers that Change Things for Your Church, Community and Culture - Paperback

Your City Is Full of People, Full of Need, and Full of Gospel Opportunity. Are You Praying?

By 2030, the United Nations estimates that 60% of the world’s population will live in cities. Urban centres are where people gather, where culture is shaped, where poverty and prosperity collide, and where the gospel has some of its greatest opportunities. Churches in cities, towns, and growing urban areas have the world on their doorstep.

But if we want to see God work in our cities — in their streets, their institutions, their families, their lostness, and their diversity — we need to pray.

5 Things to Pray for Your City is designed to do exactly that: enlarge your vision for your city and equip you to pray passionately, powerfully, and biblically for its salvation and renewal. Helen Thorne and Pete Nicholas have created a warm, practical, and Scripture-grounded prayer guide that takes readers through the full range of city life — from neighbourhoods and local churches to city leadership and urban poverty — suggesting five specific, biblically rooted prayers for each area.

Because when we pray in line with God’s priorities as found in his Word, our prayers are powerful and effective (James 5:16). And praying for your city with that kind of biblical confidence is, as the authors put it, a truly thrilling prospect.

What This Book Covers

Helen Thorne and Pete Nicholas work through the full breadth of city life, equipping readers to pray for each area with biblical specificity and genuine faith:

• The people of the city — Prayers for the diversity of people who make up urban communities — their lostness, their longings, and their need for the gospel
• City churches and gospel witness — How to intercede for the churches in your city and their collective witness to the people around them
• City leadership and governance — Prayers for mayors, councillors, institutions, and those who shape the policies and culture of urban life
• Urban poverty and injustice — How to pray for the poor, the marginalised, and those caught in cycles of deprivation and inequality
• Neighbourhoods and communities — Prayers for the specific streets, estates, and communities that make up the texture of city life
• City-wide gospel movements — How to pray for and participate in city-wide prayer movements that seek God’s transformation of whole urban areas
• Scripture as the foundation — Each chapter draws from a specific passage of God’s Word to anchor every prayer in his own priorities and promises

What Readers Will Learn

• Why cities matter to God — and why praying for them is one of the most significant things a Christian can do
• How to pray specifically and biblically for the full range of needs and opportunities in urban life
• What God’s Word says about cities, justice, the poor, and the gospel — and how to pray those priorities back to him
• How to intercede for city churches, city leaders, and city communities with genuine faith and biblical precision
• Why prayers grounded in Scripture are more powerful and effective than prayers based merely on our own concerns or observations
• How to use this book in personal quiet times, church prayer meetings, and city-wide prayer initiatives
• How to develop an enlarged, gospel-centred vision for your city — and the prayer life to match it

How to Use This Book

5 Things to Pray for Your City is flexible, practical, and immediately usable:

• Personal quiet times — Work through it as part of your daily or weekly prayer time, taking one chapter per session
• Church prayer meetings — Use it to guide corporate intercession for specific areas of city life with biblical depth and fresh focus
• Public intercessions — Help those preparing prayers for Sunday services to intercede for the city with clarity, Scripture, and genuine depth
• Small group prayer — A natural resource for groups wanting to pray together for the city they live in and serve
• City-wide prayer movements — Use it to initiate or fuel prayer gatherings that bring Christians together across a city to seek God’s transformation
• Equipping church members — Give it to members who want to pray more meaningfully for their city and the gospel opportunities around them

Who Should Read This Book

This book is for you if you are:

• An urban Christian who lives in a city and wants to pray for it with greater biblical depth, passion, and expectation
• A church leader or pastor in an urban context looking for a practical, Scripture-grounded resource to fuel your congregation’s prayers for the city
• A prayer meeting leader wanting fresh, biblically rooted material to guide corporate intercession for specific areas of city life
• A Christian involved in urban mission who wants prayer to be the foundation and engine of their work in the city
• Anyone involved in or wanting to initiate a city-wide prayer movement seeking God’s transformation of an urban area
• Anyone who lives in a city and has ever thought: There is so much need around me — how do I even begin to pray?

About the Authors

Helen Thorne is the Director of Training and Resources at Biblical Counselling UK and a member of Dundonald Church in London. She is the author of several books and is known for her warm, biblically grounded, and practically accessible writing. Helen brings to this book both a deep love for Scripture and a genuine passion for seeing God’s people pray boldly and faithfully for the cities they inhabit.

Pete Nicholas is a pastor and church leader with extensive experience in urban ministry and mission. He writes with a pastor’s heart for the city and a conviction that prayer is the indispensable foundation of any gospel work in urban contexts. Together, Thorne and Nicholas bring complementary perspectives — counselling, pastoral, and missional — to a book that is both practically useful and genuinely vision-enlarging for any Christian who wants to pray for their city.

Also in the 5 Things to Pray Range

• 5 Things to Pray for Your World by Rachel Jones
• 5 Things to Pray for Your Church by Rachel Jones