Tomorrow's Offering

Another week with no posts ... this time, though, it's because I've been dissertating at Asbury. My family (at home and at church) allowed me to get away this week. I picked a bad week to leave home because we had a sick one and that put an extra burden on Cindy (Sorry, Cindy!). She was sweet about it even though it put her in a bind at work.

Tomorrow we continue our series on taking a stand, with Daniel and his three friends who refused the fat of the king's table when taken into exile in Babylon.The prayers of the church are based, as some of you will doubtlessly know, upon the prayer of General Thanksgiving in the Book of Common Prayer. I've fiddled with it some, but it provides such a beautiful framework for the prayer.

Prayers of the Church for Grandview
10 August 2008

Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks for all your goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all whom you have made. You are God to Jew and Gentile, to man and woman, to the poor and the rich. There is no person who cannot look to you and be saved. There is no language who cannot hear. There is no heart impenetrable.

We bless you our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for your immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ; for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. We bless you for the sure knowledge that you, indeed, are God and that we can trust your ways. We bless you for the knowledge of how of how to be in this world according to your will.

And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise not only with our lips, but in our lives by giving up ourselves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days.

We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have been mousy when we should have been bold. We have been afraid to stand strong according to your will. We have fallen for the spirit of the age. We’re truly sorry and we humbly repent.

As always, O God, we lovingly hold before you those who are on our prayer list. Be an ever-present blessing to those who grieve, to the sick, those in harm’s way, to those struggling with depression or addiction.

Lord, for the people and the concerns we have not listed, we pray in the silence:

silence

Lord, bless those who curse us. Bless the ones who hate us and speak ill of us, either as individuals or as a church. Help us to be a blessing to them in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray: