Prayers of the People - October 10, 2010

We thank you, O God, for a time and place to gather …
To gather our thoughts and lift our hearts toward you, Creator of the heavens and the earth.
We thank you for those who have gone this way long before we were born.
For women and men of faith and vision.
Who looked upon Christ with gladness and joined the brave procession that has made this world better …
They plowed the good earth and planted the seed to feed millions.
Built schools and hospitals.
Saw the horrors of slavery and called for its abolition.
Watched children labor in dark and dangerous mines and factories and came to their defense.
They labored and lobbied for shorter workweeks and the 8-hour day, for a minimum wage … for health care, pension benefits and safe working conditions, to honor the dignity of work and to preserve the wellbeing of our families.
They organized and marched to give women the vote, to insure for all life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, free of gender constraints and prejudice.
For all of who have gone the way of faith, hope and love, we join our voices with choirs of angels, giving thanks, and praising you, O God, for your grace poured out upon humankind, a grace that still stirs the conscience to see the world with the eyes of Christ, a grace that yet calls young and old to follow him, the Christ who bore upon his back the cross of our condemnation and was raised on the third day in the glory of your divine confirmation.

We pray today for those in the banking industry: guide them, dear God, to sort out their priorities, because every mortgage is a family, every paper they sign is someone’s life.
Deliver them, and deliver all of us, we pray.
We pray for schools and teachers – who work in crowded classrooms, in buildings too often ill-kept, with meager supplies and the pressures of the day: with too many children poorly nourished who cannot concentrate; children who are anxious, because family life is hard … and frustrated families caught in the machinery of too much work, not enough time, and the economic turmoil that troubles all of us.
Deliver them, and deliver all of us we pray.
We pray for our President and his family, those who counsel and protect them.
Our legislators and our judges.
Our governors and our mayors.
Firefighters and police officers.
A host of folks who sit at computers keeping track of 310 million people.
Watch over them all, dear LORD, and keep them in your care.

We pray now for Covenant on the Corner:
And all who gather here in worship.
Our shut-ins and those who live far away.
Elders and Deacons, and all who serve.
Youth leaders and the youth under their care.
And the impact we have on the city around us.
Give us, we pray, a lively sense of mission.
The ability to choose our priorities.
The grace to love one another in our differences and distinctions.
The faith to trust you in all times and places.
And the hope of the Gospel.

In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done …