Prayers of Adoration

Almighty God, there is none like you.
When we consider the enormity and complexity of human life,
The majesty of this planet and the bright moon above us,
We can’t help but be awestruck and filled with wonder.
We know that you are more powerful than all earth’s rulers.
We have heard of how you give power to the powerless,
Like you released the Israelites from slavery in Egypt,

Passionate Christ, there is none like you.
When we consider the way you overturned the plans of the powerful,
Challenging our assumptions about what we think is important,
We can’t help but be inspired by your example.
We know that you healed all who came to you with sickness and frailty,
We have heard of how when even you were exhausted,
You did not turn away from the task set before you,
And gave even your own life to the salvation of others.

Everpresent Spirit, there is none like you.
When we consider the way you moved above the waters of creation,
Bringing all life into being, in the magnificent act of creation
We know that you bring strength to those who are weak,
We have heard of how you still move and create change among us
Just as you did from the very beginning.

Almighty God, Passionate Christ, Everpresent Spirit,
There is none like you.
We know this.
We have been told this.
And yet, we struggle to be strong in faith.
We see the way that earthly power leads to corruption,
We see the way our society devalues humanity,
Making prisoners of the powerless,
and stripping the weak of what little strength they have,
We forget your plan for a new world, and fall into despair.

Forgive us.
Renew us.
Fill us with your spirit, your passion, your strength.

Sisters and Brothers, hear the good news of Christ.
God’s mercy and forgiveness is everlasting, and is freely given to all.
By grace, God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
Through Christ, our sin is forgiven.
Thanks be to God!

Natalie Sims, offered for worship 4/2/18

Prayers of the People

Loving God, mind of creation,
You who thought us into life and will not let us go until the day your will is done,
Hear our prayers.

We give thanks for this gift of life:
For the joy of now and our dreams of what might be;
For dappled light and spider’s webs that frame our morning window;
For songs that uplift and stories that charm;
For echoes through canyons and coffee at ten;
For kisses, cats and kindness,
For the wonders of whales, of infinite stars –
and the glorious gift of a southerly breeze after sweltering heat,
God of all of this, we rejoice in the goodness of your hand –
we rejoice in being alive.

We give thanks for the signs of your coming Kingdom in our world,
for the ‘blind who see’ and the ‘lame that walk’ of our time:
medical miracles that transform and save;
global poverty and child mortality that continue to drop away, decade by decade;
the rising embrace of LGBTI communities in countries everywhere;
significant rises in the number of indigenous kids completing Year 12;
longer lives, fewer wars,
women who will no longer be silenced.
For these shoots, these signs, this taste of what is to come, we give thanks.

But even more, we bring before you those who continue to suffer, those on the edges:
the persecuted and the shut out, the troubled and the broken,
those who run from gangs, queue for bread or huddle in makeshift shelters,
the many who weep in the wake of gunfire and bombs.
And those who live and move in the streets that surround us here in this place:
the lonely and the different, the smiling shuffler, the restless drifter,
the angry and the old, each one looking for a reason to go on.
May your Spirit shine an unexpected light upon them
and move within us as we act to make your love visible.

We are your church and into the dance we are called,
the dance of joy and connection one with another.
As the year stretches before us, we pray for your hand upon us,
your Spirit within us, your hope ahead of us.
Bless the stirrers and the peacemakers,
the blessed saints of laughter and the giant-slayers of conviction and action.
Explode our tidy packages of certainty, loving Spirit,
and remind us that, really, we know little.
Take us by surprise, and sweep our feet from under us,
so that we might rise up again, renewed
and into the arc that bends towards your justice and your peace,

Amen

Peter McKinnon, offered for worship 4/2/18