Month: June 2021

Wednesday Inspiration & Friday Prayer Link

Thank you all for your commitment to pray for others, for specific needs, for situations in their lives, and that God would continue His work in and through us all as we grow in Him.

Our focus in these upcoming Friday prayer times will be on prayers from scripture.

However, first let me share a prayer from Voices Together. May this become your heart’s cry.

O Risen Christ, you breathe your Holy Spirit on us and you tell us: “Peace be yours.”

Opening ourselves to your peace – letting it soften the harsh and rocky ground of our hearts – means preparing ourselves to be bearers of reconciliation, wherever you may place us.

But you know at times we are at a loss.

So come lead us to wait in silence, to let a ray of hope shine forth in our world.

Amen

This Friday we will again focus our time on a prayer of the apostle Paul, written to the church at Colosse. In this prayer, Paul again indicates that “since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you….”

As you spend time meditating on and reading this prayer, I invite you to substitute for the “you”, the names of people that you wish to lift up to God. You may possibly name a family member, a child, a friend or co-worker, the list could go on. Pray with intent and invite the Holy Spirit to bring the names of people to your mind.

And then give Thanks to God for what He will do in that individual’s life.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,[a] 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you[b] to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

May God encourage you as you pray, and fill you with His joy!

Holy God

I have so few ways to pray,

   but you have so many ways to answer.

Keep me alert to your unpredictable answers,

   to your unexplainable surprises,

and by your grace.

make me one of those surprises,

for the sake of the One

  who taught us the surprises

    of moving mountains,

       healing touches,

          wondrous stories,

              great banquets,

                 first suppers,

                   broken bread,

                      crosses,

                         and resurrections.

   (Voices Together – #1008)

We praise you Father for the ministry of Your Church, the Body of Christ around the world.

May you move with power and might in and through the church, bringing many to a

saving knowledge of Jesus through the faithful witness of believers.

Where there is suffering and persecution, bring hope, healing, and perseverance.

Today we continue to grieve the pain, suffering and loss in our world, whether through war, terrorism, neglect, or choices made. We pray that love would overcome hate; we pray for healing and cleansing of hearts and minds; we pray that peace and justice would reign in our hearts and lives, and in our world.

We pray for our households of faith.  May each rejoice in Your presence and work in their lives. Guide, strengthen and encourage them as individuals, and as a family. Pour our Your love in their lives.

We pray for Pastor Kara as she walks through these early days of her sabbatical. Lord, grant her deep rest and renewal. Speak peace into her heart and mind and continue to use her as an instrument of Your grace.

We pray for those who have spent time in hospital this week, for those waiting appointments, surgery, or test results. Grant patience and may Your will be done in each individuals life.

We pray for caregivers, for those who today are grieving the loss of relationship as a result of death or distance. We praise you that you are a God of Comfort.

Fathers Day Prayer:

Father God, Abba Father, on this day we as your children come before you with thanks and praise. We praise you because we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Thank you for our earthly fathers – those who gave us physical life.

Thank you for Dads who loved, played with, cared for, and lifted us – for those fathers who were, and still are integral parts of our lives. God, we pray for your blessing on their lives; may they experience your joy today.

Where absence, death, choices, or tragedy has taken a father from a child, God, may you be their Father.

Where there is hurt, pain or brokenness between father and child, bring forgiveness and healing.

Father God, bless the fathers of our congregation today; fill them with wisdom, with patience and with courage.

And above all, fill them with deep love for their children, especially in these days of Covid, these days of increased stress.

For those with elderly fathers – where the role of caregiver has reversed; God give wisdom, grace, and an abundance of love.

We give thanks for those men who have no children but cherish the next generation as if they were their own.

Thank you for their mentoring, teaching and love of others.

We also praise you for those men in our lives who have mentored us, whether in the past or yet today. May you fill them with joy.

Father, we celebrate and give you Thanks this day for our fathers.

Amen

Oh God, hear our prayers. We rejoice and give thanks that You are a God who hears and knows all our needs.

In the Name of Jesus, we pray.

Amen

Thank you for your willingness to pray and hold others to our God. Pastor Kara reflected last week on the recent tragic act of terrorism that took place in London as well as the horrific discovery of the remains of 215 young people in Kamloops. She invited us to share in a prayer of lament which I have again included below. I invite you to use this pray as your lament, but also pray for God’s healing grace to be poured out in both of these communities and that God would bring healing.Prayer of Lament

God, we lament the damage that our silence in the face of racial violence has done,
for the sins of racism that run through our lives like so many threads in a cloth.
Forgive us for the times we have given in to our discomfort, for the times
we have forgotten our own privilege and failed to stand with our black siblings, our Indigenous, and our Muslim neighbours.
Help those of us who experience white privilege every day remember that, with our privilege,
we are imbued with the responsibility to challenge and hold one another accountable.
Give us the courage to educate ourselves, to listen well,
and to use our voices when it is most needed. Amen    (adaptation of a prayer written by Clara Weybright)

And it was out of these tragedies that I was led to bring the message for this coming Sunday, “Hate vs Love….The Battle”

Therefore, I also invite you to spend some time praying the words of the apostle Paul from Ephesians 3: 14-21. Pray this for yourself and for others that you love in your sphere of influence. As you note, I have included both the NIV and The Message version. Invite God to speak deep into your heart as you pray.

^(NIV)14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[a] in heaven and on earth derives its name. ¹⁶ I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

^{(The Message) 14-19} My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

^20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

Holy God, who called creation into being,

Who calls us into Christ’s church;

We thank you for the church

For the mission of the church

For the ministry of the church.

Today, we thank you for the ministry of this church,

For pastors and people who have named your name and lived your life.

We thank you for cleansing us and making us alive through the waters of baptism. We give you thanks for new life you offer us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thank you also for the ministry of Mennonite Church Eastern Canada – our brothers and sisters in faith:

For steadfastness over time,

For faithful witness in the struggle

For justice and peace,

                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 or test results.

We pray for caregivers including those supporting loved ones in long term care including Aldaview residents.

We pray for all who are suffering due to covid pandemic: the lonely, the sick, the over-whelmed. We pray for the grieving. May your comfort and peace abound.

We also pray for our households of faith:

Christ of love, hear our deep lament, our deep sorrow

in response to the tragic discovery of 215 First Nation’s children’s bodies at a Residential School in Kamloops.

Hear our deep lament and sorrow due to act of terrorism and tragic loss of life of our Muslim neighbours in London.

Where hate resides may love overcome.

Where bitterness takes root, we pray for cleansing and deep healing.

Where oppression rages, we pray for peace, the blessed peace that comes from doing justice.  Lord, hear our prayer.. and show us how to respond as peacemakers…   

Spirit of guiding, continue to guide our congregation in our shared life of faith. We strive to be your faithful people.

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, move among us

Receive our prayers those spoken and those held deep within our hearts, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

In the past days we have bore witness to horrific violence, racism, and the devastating outcome of hatred due to one’s faith. What is our response?

Last year the birch tree on the church’s front lawn became a place where we could add our prayers in solidarity with our community and those who have suffered deeply. In light of the tragic act of terrorism in London, and in light of the discovery of 215 bodies on the grounds of a Kamloops Residential School, how are we being called to respond? Perhaps one place to begin is with lament.

Biblical lament shows us how to express deep sorrow, name suffering and cry out for God. “Laments tell the truth of the suffering that is smothering our worthiness, our dreams, our ability to work toward a better tomorrow,” writes womanist scholar Dr. Emilie M. Townes. “Naming these horrors in an unrestrained lament helps mold us into a people who respond with an emphatic ‘No!’ to the ways our nation and our communities of faith are turned into graven images of hatred and despair.”

Let us pray,

God, we lament the damage that our silence in the face of racial violence has done,
for the sins of racism that run through our lives like so many threads in a cloth.
Forgive us for the times we have given in to our discomfort, for the times
we have forgotten our own privilege and failed to stand with our black siblings, our Indigenous, and our Muslim neighbours.
Help those of us who experience white privilege every day remember that, with our privilege,
we are imbued with the responsibility to challenge and hold one another accountable.
Give us the courage to educate ourselves, to listen well,
and to use our voices when it is most needed. Amen    (adaptation of a prayer written by Clara Weybright)

My summer reading list includes the highly recommended book: “White Fragility: why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.” May we commit to continuing the discussion, to feel the raw edges of our discomfort, name our privilege in the world, and work for justice, in the name of Christ our Lord.

Ever living and ever loving God,

We praise you for your loving presence with us.

Come, Holy Spirit,

take and transform our communities and neighbourhoods—

that broken people find healing;

that lonely people find love;

that oppressed people find justice;

that bitter people find peace;

that fearful people find hope.

Come, Holy Spirit,

take our world’s leaders and governments and bring renewal—

that communication can be open;

that relationships between hostile people and hostile nations be reconciled;

that a hunger for justice address the hunger for food felt by so many.

Come, Holy Spirit

Pour out your compassion, healing, and grace upon all who stand in need

of physical, emotional, or relational healing.

Hear our prayer for all who grieve, the lonely, and those struggling with mental wellness.

We pray for all caregivers including Aldaview Staff.

In response to a community request, we hold in prayer a medically fragile baby boy who is fighting a non-covid pneumonia and is currently on a ventilator. God may your breath of life fill him, restore him, renew him. Hold his family in peace we pray as they hold to hope.  

We pray for our Households of Faith.

Come, Holy Spirit,

Bless your church—

that our worship will be pleasing to You;

that prayers might change our hearts, our minds, and our lives

    instead of trying to get you to change Yours;

We pray that that our lives will make a real difference

to real people in the real world.

Open our hands that we might live generously

Open our hearts to be encouragers, always ready to build up

Rather than tear down

Strengthen us to serve in your name and act with love

Come, Holy Spirit,

fill our lives with your presence—

so that more and more every day,

all that we do and say and hope

will be an act of worship to you and an expression of love to others,

to the glory of your name.  Amen.

 This week we continue to join in prayer in response to the discovery of 215 First Nation’s children’s bodies in Kamloops.Here are resources provided by MCEC to add to the list of resources that were sent on Wednesday of this week.We pray, God have mercy. https://mcec.ca/article/13275-responding-to-the-loss-of-215-indigenous-children

peace be yours,Kara

Our hearts ache in response to reports of the discovery of a mass grave holding the remains of 215 Indigenous children on the grounds of a First Nations Residential School in Kamloops.How will we respond? Inshallah, a choir I have sung with recently recorded the song: Senzenina. “What have we done?”https://youtu.be/yHjpeRyZaWA
May this be our prayer… and may our lament and song move us to action.Perhaps you have hung an orange shirt in front of your home as I have.Perhaps you will add your voice to those calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Government of Canada to recognize a national day of mourning. ..Perhaps you will consider a donation to support Residential School survivors and their families or a local Indigenous Centre such as the Seven Generation or Anishinaabe Outreach Centre. Here are several links with information

• Indian Residential School Survivors Society
• Legacy of Hope Foundation
• Woodland Cultural Centre’s Save the Evidence campaign
• National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation
• First Nations Child & Family Caring Society
• Reconciliation Canada
• Indspire
• Native Women’s Association of Canada
• Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund

Perhaps you will want to learn more. Here are some educational resources on residential schools: 

• Settlers Take Action resources compiled by the On Canada Project 
• Read about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and its 94 Calls to Action.
• Yellowhead Institute – Calls to Action Accountability: A 2020 Status Update on Reconciliation
• Sign up for Indigenous Canada, a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada.

Following in the footsteps of Jesus involves responding to injustices. Congregationally, we adopted a Land Acknowledgement Statement, engaged in a “Blanket Exercise” led by MCC and Kairos. We have read Indigenous authors….  What next steps is the Spirit of God inviting us to take. May we listen deeply for the Spirit and pray for courage and grace to respond with healing and hope.