We are a people who are blessed. We are blessed by one another, by our community, our nation, and the world. Most of all, we are blessed by God, who is the ultimate source of all our blessings. In gratitude to God for all His gifts to us, we gather to sing His praises, to listen for His word, and to seek to go out as renewed beings into the world for whose stewardship God has given us the primary responsibility. Therefore let us with growing confidence worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
Loving and gracious God, we praise Thee for the continuous bounty of Thy grace. We observe Thy creative purposes in the world around us: in the changing of the seasons, the productive nature of the earth itself, and in advancements made possible by Thy wisdom working within people of unusual intellect and insight. Teach us how always to live in gratitude for everything we have, and never to take any of it for granted, as though we earned all of it or deserve all of it.
We thank Thee for all the people throughout our lives who have added richly to our well being, for all of them are Thy daughters and sons. We remember those from the distant past who helped form us into the people we eventually became, and for the good influences they brought into our lives. We thank Thee for teachers and professors and mentors who assisted us in preparing for our vocations, giving us inspiration and encouragement. We thank Thee for everyone who has been a part of our families, our family of origin or the families we ourselves created in adulthood. O God, we freely acknowledge that one of the greatest blessings for people are people, and we also acknowledge that such blessings are possible only because Thou art our creator. Help us to treasure one another, even as we also may be tried or vexed or mystified by one another.
We pray for children whose lives are compromised by illness, danger, or abuse. We pray for young adults who cannot find work, and who fall victim to anxiety or despair. We pray for elderly people who feel that life has passed them by, and who slip ever deeper into chasms of sadness or depression. We ask Thee, Lord God, to make us instruments of healing and wholeness to those who are ill or broken. May the hope represented by Jesus Christ uplift those who most need a renewal of hope, and may the trust in Thee Jesus exhibited find a place in all of our hearts. We pray that Thy word, brought to us most fully by Jesus, may take deep root in our hearts, and that we may become Thy produce for a spiritually undernourished and needy world. We ask it all in Jesus’ name. Now we pray together as he long ago taught his original disciples, saying, Our Father….