First Sunday of Lent: A Prayer

[A prayer for Sunday 21 February 2021
To listen to the sermon and the prayer, click here]

Lord, you know us far too well.
Better than we know ourselves;
Better than we want to know or be known.

We are not proud of our lives.
Oh, yes, there are things we have done
and things we have achieved.
But we have failed some of the more important tests:

We have not been the loving children we could have been;
We have not been the loving parents
or partners we could have been.

We have been chasing dreams instead of creating memories.
Looking for treasure instead of building relationships.
We have lived fearfully, hoarding what we have.
Yet you have called us to live generously
as you have lived with us,
To give, so that we can receive and give again.

You know us so well,
Yet you remain our loving heavenly Father;
Full of love for us, full of joy at the possibilities you see in us;
Delighted to spend time with us.

Jesus, our friend and brother,
Our Saviour and Lord,
We want to walk with you on this Lenten journey.
Help us to turn from our sins
and renounce those things that destroy relationships;
that create barriers among us;
that separate us from you.

Help us find ways to connect with you
and connect with one another in these strange times.
Help us share one another’s burdens,
Share each other’s pain,
and walk with each other towards the light of resurrection
to discover our place within your family.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen

The Greatest Commandment: A prayer for Pentecost 23 (25 October 2020)

See also: The Greatest Commandment: A sermon for Pentecost 23

Let us pray

Lord, your love for us is revealed in so many practical ways.
You touched the leper, welcomed the outcast,
blessed the children and responded to a mother’s cry.
You loved even those who rejected you,
and you gave your life for every one of our sins.
And you call us to love.
You declare that our love for others is your love in action.

Lord, we confess that we limit your love.
We love those we like
And we turn away from those we fear,
those who challenge us, those who oppose us.
We limit our loving to what we think we can cope with,
have time for and can afford and that will not overwhelm us.

Yet we have the grace of God in our hearts
and the resources of heaven at our disposal.
Teach us, Lord, to love bravely, to love more widely
and to love more passionately.

We pray for our Covid-19 world:
For those finding a way forward
and for those caring for the sick and quarantined,
for vaccines and treatment programmes,
for those who have lost loved ones
and those who have lost jobs and homes and their sense of security.

We pray for America as it goes into one of the most challenging of elections on 3 November.
And we pray for South Africa as we look for a way forward from the corruption, anger and conflicts that dominate our lives.

Help us to love so that the world will discover a better way to live.

In Jesus’s name,
Amen

God hears and hearing God: A prayer for 21 June 2020

 

Let us pray

Lord our creator God,
You allow us to call you Father, our parent.
We also claim the title ourselves,
Yet we fall far short of the ideal and practice of parenthood.

Forgive us for our failures,
Forgive us fathers, especially, for the ways in which we have given fatherhood a bad name;
For our abuse of power and our fear of love;
For our criticism, our negativity, our controlling ways.
Forgive us when we have destroyed or contributed to the destruction of a family.

You are the God who hears,
and we live in a world desperate to be heard.
There are cries for lives and for livelihoods lost,
for the violence that has erupted in our homes and across the globe.
There are cries of pain and anguish and fear.

Our loving Father,
As you hear us, your people,
So, help us hear the cries of those around us.
Help us to be wells filled with your compassion, bringing grace and mercy and hope.

In the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray together:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be your name
Your kingdom come, your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory
For ever and ever.

Amen

This prayer follows the sermon for this Sunday, which can be found here

The Great Shepherd and Covid-19: A prayer for 3 May 2020

Let us pray

Great Shepherd, you invite us to know you, to trust you and to obey you.

But, Lord, we confess that we don’t like being sheep.
We don’t like waiting for others to tell us what we are allowed to do.

We confess that we have been irritated by this lockdown.
We are also afraid of this virus, Lord.
We are afraid for our lives and for those of our loved ones.
We are afraid for our jobs and our livelihoods.
We are afraid that there may not be a place for us in the post-lockdown world.

Lord, we confess that we have sometimes let loose our fears and frustration on our families.
We have forgotten that they are experiencing the same fears and uncertainties.
Instead of comforting them, we have added to their burdens.
Yet you do not come as judge, but as shepherd, to love, to heal and to transform.

You invite us to know you and to be transformed by your love.
To marvel at its length, to wonder at its breadth, to be awed by its heights and inspired by its depth.
And to realise that we have experienced only a fraction of the glory you still want to reveal to us.

You invite us to trust you
To trust the one who knows better than anyone just what we are made of and what we are made for.
You invite us to trust you on our journey.
A journey that may involve green pastures but that, just as often, takes us through the darkest valleys.

Great Shepherd, you invite us to obey you,
not by following rules and regulations,
but by learning to love as we have been loved,
by learning to bring love into every relationship, every situation, every day.

Great Shepherd, as we have been loved,
so teach us to love you, to love our neighbours and to love one another.

In your precious name we pray,

Amen.

This prayer follows a sermon for this Sunday, which can be found here

 

Prayer of Welcoming

Prayer following the sermon, What’s Your Story: Forgiveness (2 April 2017)

Father God, Jesus told us about a Father who welcomed his prodigal son back home.
He wouldn’t listen to his son’s confession.
He didn’t lecture him on the need to turn his life around.
He wrapped him in his arms and received him with love and anticipation.

Thank you, Lord, for welcoming us like that.
Thank you for creating space for us to grow.
Thank you for welcoming us, unfinished and unpolished, into your family.
Thank you for the work still to be done in us.
Thank you for your kindness.

Thank you for those in our lives who have simply loved us,
For those who have allowed us the space to discover our own paths,
to walk at our own pace.

Forgive us, Lord.
We so seldom get it.
We prefer to explain what people have to do,
tell them how to change,
push them to do better.

Help us to listen to the stories of others,
to hear their pain,
to carry their burdens.
Help us to love more
and to leave transformation to you and your Holy Spirit.

Lord, teach us to be kind.

In Jesus name,

Amen

Receiving the Kingdom: a prayer

Lord our God,
We cannot begin to understand your love.
You invite us into your kingdom,
You invite us into your home,
Not as servants, or even as guests,
But as children of the King.

As a loving parent
You welcome us with joy and delight,
Celebrating our return
As if we were the most precious jewel in your collection.

Is that the secret? Is that how your love works?
You treat us as a precious pearl
Because that’s how you see us;
That’s how you have made us?
You treat us as your children,
Because that’s how you love us
And why you made us?

Oh wonder of wonders!
That’s why we don’t understand.
You don’t celebrate perfection
As we have taught ourselves to do.
You don’t just celebrate endings, you celebrate beginnings;
You celebrate our smallest victories,
Each little Easter,
Each decision to repent and to believe,
Each step along the way.

Thank you.
Thank you for new beginnings;
Thank you for planting your kingdom in our lives;
For nurturing it in the darkness of our sin and suffering;
For giving us a new way to understand our world,
A new way to relate to ourselves and to our neighbours.

Grow your kingdom in us;
Grow our faith and our understanding;
Grow our love and our caring;
That we might, more and more, reflect the glory of the King.

In the name of Jesus,
Our Lord and Saviour and Friend.
Amen

Used with ‘Receiving the kingdom: a sermon‘