Churches from all over the world have come together in prayer this week.
They are reflectingon the Gospel of John 4:7 - "Jesus said to her: 'Give me to drink'" as part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The theme and resources are proposed by a different country each year and this year, Christians from Brazil challenged the different churches worldwide to respect different religions and cultural diversities.
The National Council of Christian Churches of Brazil proposed that for the week of prayer, churches take inspiration from the biblical gesture of sharing water with whomever arrives as a welcome.
The week of prayer is traditionally observed from January 18 to 25. This year, Brazilian Christians are considering the current ecclesial and religious situation in their country and issues that will be common for churches in many different national contexts around the world.
"Brazil is living through a time of growing intolerance made manifest in high levels of violence, especially against minorities and the vulnerable: black people, the young, homosexual people, people practicing Afro-Brazilian religion, women and indigenous people," they said in their prayer resources.
They further add that "overcoming intolerance in its various forms should be dealt with in a positive way: respecting legitimate diversity and promoting dialogue as a permanent path of reconciliation and peace in fidelity to the gospel."
As part of the week of prayer, they also invited the National Council of Churches in India to hold a dialogue on water. The theme this year is "water is right - water is life" and the Brazilian churches expressed the need for communities to save water and be concerned for the environment.
Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI) have also stressed the need to overcome diversity. It said that "competition and violent discrimination lie beneath the surface of our lives."
Christians of different traditions will be coming together this week in the spirit of unity. The Chemin Neuf community has launched a video prayer project for the week that includes videos from young Christians offering prayers for different churches. The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby last year invited members of Chemin Neuf, a Roman Catholic movement, to live at Lambeth Palace as an act of friendship and to serve as an opportunity for the two Churches to witness each other's daily life of prayer.
World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said that the week of prayer is "unity in the water of baptism, renewed at every well where we share life and the grace of God."
"The unity in life means sharing our needs and the resources given by God," he added.
