Prayers of the People

God of love,

You have breathed us into being. Even now You sustain and nurture this world with Your care and attention. Help us to open our eyes to Your Presence. Help us to remember that we have received Your grace, that we are invited to share love with all those we encounter because we have been invited to be participants in Your redeeming and reconciling work.

We pray for the needs of this world - for nations that are wartorn, for places where the people are in political turmoil, often with violent results while feeling forgotten, left outside of the news cycle, more importantly, left outside of advocacy and action. We pray for places where protests meet weapons and for places where human rights are so often swept under the rug, not just in the many "theres" of this world but also in the "here" in the "now," in the "in our midst." We pray for women, men, and children who are sold into slavery - for those across the world, for those right here in our nation, and in the Greater Los Angeles area.

We pray for nations that are buckling under debt - for Greece, for Portugal, for Italy, for many African nations. We pray for the leaders of our country as they are challenged to meet economic challenges here.

And we pray for our city in its challenges and in its joys. We pray for many homeless people who struggle to know where their next meal will come from, right here in Los Angeles County. We pray for people who will receive assistance today through the God Loves You Food Ministry. We pray for people - old and young - who have never stepped into a House of Worship but who are longing for a spiritual connection and community where they can be comforted and challenged.

And we pray for our church. We pray for all those who have special needs today, those listed in our bulletin, those whom we know in our hearts. We give You thanks for the opportunity to be a multicultural church. for the joy and challenge that we can learn from each other and invite others to join that conversation and this family of faith. In our many languages - English, Korean, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, Arabic, French, Thai, and other languages - Your praises and Your words of challenge can be spoken, even here. We give You thanks for our members who traveled on the recent mission trip. We give You thanks for every person who will step into this sanctuary to hear sacred music in the coming days. We give you thanks that we - human and beloved -- are invited to be participants in Your redeeming and reconciling work.

And as Your children, with bold confidence, we remember that redemption and reconciliation so often begin with prayer. So we pray the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, saying:

Our Father who art in heaven,

Hallowed be Thy Name,

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever.

Amen.