Prayers of the People

Loving God,

This is the day that You have made. We pray for strength, for joy, for energy, and for vision that we might rejoice in this day that you have created. Help us to look beyond routines and have energy to live beyond a mere attempt at going through the motions. Help us to become fully alive - that whatever we carry today: joy, anxiety, peace, confusion, conviction, longing, or questions or grief - may be lived with the firm and certain knowledge that You accompany us in all our experiences and that You grace us with a call to accompany one another. This is the day that You have made. Help us rejoice by truly living together.

Today people are suffering. Some are in this room. In the gift that is now, help us become aware of the needs around us. Help us to be with those who are grappling with sickness - those who question failing health, those preparing for surgery, those who long to bounce back after illness or injury. Help us to be with one another as some grieve losses - some from a year ago, some from decades ago, some losses on the horizon - so near and so threatening that we're not sure how to keep moving.

Some have lost jobs. Some have been looking for work for a long time. And some fear that their jobs aren't secure. Help us to be attuned to this holy moment, to receive Your presence in these anxieties and to participate in the ministry of solidarity with and for one another.

Some people in this room have great vision, hope, and promise. Some of us have witnessed new life - new opportunities; new, precious human beings who are just beginning life; new chances, just when we thought more chances were impossible. We thank You for these new possibilities. Help us to bring our dreamings here and now in the open with one another, that we might see Your Spirit alive, working in and through us, that we might be the church You have called us to be, that we might be present to the world in ways You have called us to act, that we might be people alive, serving all the those we encounter - on this day that You have made, and in all the days You will call into existence.

May our experience of being present "here" help us to be present to all the "theres" beyond these walls - may our multicultural ministry be a witness to people and nation-states that struggle to welcome people who are diverse, and may those stories and harsh realities be reminders and catalysts to us strengthening our own ministry together; in Scripture and Sermon and Song experienced here, may we be challenged to give in places where the economy -and perhaps society itself - seem like they are falling apart; places like Greece, Somalia, Syria, Mexico, North Korea, and other places; places close to home, in our nation, where people struggle to put food on their tables, where people are currently protesting in cities all over the U.S. Help us be present to these needs, in part, because we've been present to the needs of one another.

Help us to go forth into this day you have created - rejoicing and serving. And as we begin anew, strengthen us to remember that prayer is powerful, that it changes us. Let us begin by praying the very prayer that Jesus taught us, 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 but deliver us from evil.

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

Amen.