Tomorrow's Offering

Aaahhh .... it has been a nice week. I hope yours was good as well. Tomorrow's sermon is on the church at Antioch. Hope to see you there (if you're in the area!).

Here's the prayer:

Prayers of the Church for Grandview
20 April 2008

O God, I’m out of adjectives. They are all too limited anyway. What sound can we make with our lips that could carry a gratitude so deep that it begins and ends in you? What utterance sums our collective thanks for existing, for even being able to be grateful?

And so, with our limited vocabulary, with our limited abilities, with our limited understanding, we come before you, the limitless and eternal God, and we offer words, but more than words, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, poured out before your throne.

All the while we are aware that you, too, found the limit of words in the mouths of prophets, priests, and kings, and so you made your Word into flesh and poured your nature onto the earth for all to see.

Thank you for those first eye witnesses and their willingness to suffer for the sake of that Word, for those first ones who risked and gave their lives so that the Word could pass from your lips, to theirs, to their spiritual and physical descendants, and to ours. Let us, with clarion, proclaim that Word this morning, in this service, to your Glory.

Forgive us for making pour petty fears and dislikes the boundary of our faith, for being afraid of losing our own agendas in the presence of your great news that you love all people. Forgive us for being more attracted and attached to our wants than to needs of people who do not know you. Forgive us for keeping your Word, your character, your essence, to ourselves—and by sabotaging you mission in the process.

Our prayers, as every week, are for the sick, the dying, the discouraged, and for those in harm’s way. Give them healing, peace, fresh strength, and safety.

Lord, please bless the work of our hands. May the service we offer you be exaggerated by the power of your Spirit. Amplify the efforts of the missionaries we are honored to support, the Coleys, Freelands, Headens, McDades, Nyadors, Veals, Orths and to the Jacksons and Colemans as they prepare to serve you in places where the people are so dear to you.

We pray with Christians every where the prayer that you have taught us to pray: