Month: June 2022

Thank you to Jane Kuepfer for offering prayers today:

Gracious and Generous God – In your love we live and move and have our being – as individuals, and as a body in which your Spirit lives. We offer ourselves to your work and to your way when we give our offerings, when we give our time and energy, when we make commitments to be part of this family of faith. God, take what we offer and bless it, that your spirit would be known beyond these walls, and that your love would reach the places it is needed.

As a congregation that is committed to being a welcoming community, we pray these words offered for Pride month:

“God of love and light and life,

We come to you because we want to embody your love.

We come to you because we need you to light our way.

We come to you because we seek to live our lives in you.

Thank you for each LGBTQ+ sibling in faith, among us and around us.

Thank you for the rainbow gifts of queerness to your Church and to your world.

As we build diverse community together, in your image, we ask that you call each of us by name, so that we might follow.

Show us the kaleidoscope of your grace, colourful, beautiful, and always giving us new perspectives.

Lead us toward the horizon of your love, always just a little further, a little wider, a little beyond what we thought we knew.

Open our hands to the wind of your Spirit, felt but uncontrollable, trusted but undefinable, around us and within our very breath.”

We are thankful for Alissa Bender who wrote those words, and for all who are helping us to understand and love more fully.

God, we hold with you this morning those we know to be in the midst of hard circumstances – we extend our compassion to those among us and around us who are suffering: from illness or injury, from loss and grief, from anxiety and fear. We join our hearts with those who are frustrated, exhausted, sad, lonely.

We desire courage for those needing to move forward, wise discernment for those making decisions, peace for those who are uneasy. God, you know all our struggles and needs as human beings in this complex world.

As those who are largely privileged and secure, teach us to live toward your ways in all we say and do. Protect those who are vulnerable and lead us all toward greater love and lasting peace.

We pray for all who are caregivers for aging parents and loved ones.

Surround and keep safe our loved ones in long-term care.

We pray for our Households of Faith: May love abound in each home and in each heart. May each home be filled with joy and may God grant health, strength, and meaningful relationships.

We pray as followers of Jesus, whose disciples learned to pray saying simply: Our Father, who art in heaven…

This morning as we gather to worship, we give thanks oh God for the gift of your presence and leading in our lives, both as individuals and corporately. We praise you for your love; your faithfulness and for your grace, demonstrated by the fact that you call us your children. We come to you this morning to worship, to give praise, and to ask for your faithful work in our lives.

Today as we celebrate Fathers Day, Holy God, creator and sustainer, we thank you for nurturing us as a father, a mother. We praise you that your care and protection surrounds us. We remember all the people who have nurtured us, especially the important men in our lives. We praise you for those who birthed us, who mentored us, those who have seen us, not just with their eyes, but with their heart. God, we give thanks for them. [to share the remainder of this Fathers Day prayer, please see the attachment]

We also pray the words of David in Psalm 139

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God! How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you……..

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Thank you God for hearing our prayer. We come as a child to a Father; hold us in your love. Strengthen our faith, give us wisdom and courage to live lives of obedience and faithfulness to you. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus.

We pray for all who are caregivers for aging parents and loved ones. For all who are caring for elderly parents, God, may your love flow abundantly and the gift of your grace and patience be sufficient.

We pray for our Households of Faith that God’s peace and presence would be evident in and through the lives of these families and individuals. May God’s love fill them and flow through them to others. God, grant them strength for each day and may Your will be done in their lives. Grant strength and grace we pray.

Amen

Good and gracious God,

You created with a word and declared “it is good.”

We bask in the beauty of your creation…

We hear the bird’s song… the rustling of leaves

We feel the warmth of the sun…

We are grateful for the refreshment of rain.

Thank you for growing seasons

Long daylight hours,

Seeds sprouting, lawns lush

Water ways, lakes, streams

Creeks and rivers.

We are grateful for the laughter of children,

Playfulness and spontaneity

We are grateful for our teens,

Growing, wings stretching

We celebrate these special milestones

Markers of new beginnings, growth, adventure

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We are grateful for the bright celebrations of life

Birthdays, and special anniversaries,

Graduations, and more

We are grateful to be together,

To Worship, praise, care deeply,

To walk with one another….

Through the grief, through the pain,

Through uncertainties

We also pray for peace where war rages on.

May world leaders respond to

Russia and the Ukraine with wisdom, integrity.

We pray for those you hold especially close

Those who are living with illness,

Those dealing with change,

Those who are lonely, or heartbroken.

Hold their hearts secure within your own and help us to be generous with your love.

For needs named and for those we hold deep in our heart, we offer our prayers in the strong name of Jesus the risen Christ. Amen

We pray for all who are caregivers for aging parents and loved ones.

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We pray for our Households of Faith. May energy abound as the school year wraps up. May each experience joy, peace and the love of God. Amen

Today’s prayer is an adaptation of a prayer written by Carol Penner

Lord, you are the giver of life.
From the beginning of time, your Spirit brooded over the deep,
your wind rushing, your breath filling.
As creatures of the earth, we inhale your grace
rejoicing in life abundant.
We use our breath, our being
to raise this hymn of praise:
for Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
and for the mission you give us
to spread your love to the world.

Our Pentecost petitions are many—
you know the prayers of our hearts.
Some of us are sick and tired, some of us are worried,
we fear for those we love, we fear the future.
Some of us are grieving, we don’t know how to go on.
We need your help!
We pray for the places in our world
where poverty has an iron grip…
whether that is close to home, or across the oceans.
We need your Spirit to confront powers and principalities,
tyrants and governments and corporations
that feed off of and perpetuate poverty.

This week, enliven us as your disciples of healing and hope

Empower us by your Holy Spirit

That we may breathe out the harmonies of your song,

Melodies of the Holy Spirit,

Unending, ageless, eternal and ever new. Amen

We pray for students and teachers as end quickly approaches. Grant each the stamina they need to see this challenging school year through.

We pray for our Households of Faith from this week and last. May God’s peace and presence be evident in and through their lives. May each one know God’s love and grace each day. May days be filled with joy, meaningful tasks, and healthy connections.