Eternal God, we lift up our thoughts to you in prayer and praise, grateful for this time and place, to be here in worship with one another, under the tutelage of your Holy Spirit, guided by the words of Scripture, to learn more of Christ and be further formed in his image.
That we might be your people here and now.
Bearing witness on behalf of Christ.
To a world of need … a world of many hurts and much sorrow, dear God …
A world often lost amid its own fears and greed … a world severely injured by the arrogance of its own power, driven by economic devices riddled with injustice, and political aspirations distorted by a callous disregard for the truth.
O LORD, we do not pretend about the world in which we live.
But it’s the world you love.
The world for which Christ was born.
The world to which you call us, to make known to the world your great love.
We give thanks for Jesus Christ, O God.
Because he is the way, the truth and the life.
His way makes sense, though it often seems strange to us.
His truth is clear, though we doubt it more than we care to admit.
His life is good, dear God, though we turn to our own versions of goodness with a bizarre willfulness that never gives us what we want, and takes away what we love.
O LORD, have mercy, we pray.
In the light of Christ, O God, we see light.
Light, pure and good.
And by that light, we know our sin, dear God.
It pains us greatly, and we are not proud
So with much relief, we confess our sins to you:
We have not loved as we could.
We have been selfish far too often.
We have been enamored of ourselves.
We have spoken when we should have listened.
We’ve given into fear when we could have been faithful.
We’re turned inward when we should have turned outward.
We have prayed without commitment.
We have worshiped with our lips and not our hearts.
These are the sins of our life, O God.
And we lay them at the foot of the cross.
For sin is a burden we cannot carry.
The weight of sin is greater than our strength, we humbly confess.
To Christ we flee, O God.
To the cross we hurriedly go.
To give unto Christ the burdens we cannot carry.
The sins of our life and the sins of the world, for Christ takes them all into his great heart.
And gives us all a second chance.
O LORD our God, thank you for Christ.
For the grace that heals.
For the mercy that transforms.
For the peace that gives us strength to march onward.
To stay the course and keep on keepin’ on, because of Jesus Christ our LORD and our Savior.
Who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven …
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