Creator of life, we give thanks for this spring season of cultivating and planting, growing and greening, blooming and blossoming.
We thank you for the mystery of seeds so small, dry, seemingly lifeless and yet within, holding the promise of new life.
We thank you for seeds of faith that have been sown and nurtured, through family, mentors, teachers, friends.
We thank you for diverse journeys of faith for healthy roots that hold us steady We are grateful for questions that unsettle us and invite us to go deep We are grateful that we can be dissatisfied with easy answers.
Creator of life, grow something new within us.
Christ of love,
For your parables and teachings that challenge us
For keeping company with the marginalized which has modelled a way of life For your healing touch, words of wisdom, and engaging conversations, For your self-sacrificing love that saves us and does not condemn, we offer our praise.
Redeemer of all, grow something new within us.
Christ of love, hear our prayers for those in need of healing, hope, and wholeness, and those whose needs we carry deep in our hearts.
We pray for all awaiting appointments, medical treatments, and those awaiting test results.
We pray for caregivers including those supporting loved ones in long term care.
We pray for all who are suffering due to covid pandemic: the lonely, the sick, the over-whelmed.
We also pray for our households of faith:
Christ of love, hear our deep lament, our deep sorrow
In light of the discovery of 215 Nation’s children’s bodies in Kamloops B.C.
God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.
Open our hearts to hear the agonized cry of traumatized people
Their call for justice
Their pain, their inconsolable grief.
May we be honest about institutional sin
And work honestly and humbly
toward reconciliation and the healing of relationships.
Spirit of guiding,
We thank you for your accompanying presence,
windy, moving, uncontained,
unbounded, all-embracing,
comforting, disrupting, transforming.
Spirit of guiding, guide our congregation on our discerning path.
We strive to be your faithful people.
Guide the Elders in their leadership.
Guide us to listen deeply and love one another generously.
Guide us with clarity as we take next steps
Guide us as we live within the tension of holding multiple understandings,
bind us together as one body, your body, bearing witness to your love
always.
Spirit of guiding, grow something new in us.
Triune God,
Creator of life
Christ of love
Spirit of guiding
You come to us in diverse ways.
Open our hearts to your presence
Open our hands to serve
Ignite within us a fire of love
Thank you for hearing our prayers which we offer
In the name of the Triune God.
Amen.