8.27.23 Prayers of Church & Community, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Prayers of Church & Community, August 27, 2023

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Eternal God, Father of all mercies, Mother of all hope and comfort, we gather here in this place with prayer and praise, praise for your goodness, and the goodness of our world … goodness at every turn, and goodness in our hearts.

And with prayer, O God, because evil is real … in war and famine, in greed and violence … and evil in our own hearts, O LORD … we can love, and then not so much … our sympathies can be great, and then we turn a harsh corner in thought and sensibility … we get on with our lives, keeping Christ at a distance, lest he disturb us … we, too, O God, can be the hypocrites who mouth the words of faith, but our hearts are far from you.

Forgive us, we pray … dampen the energies of evil, and arouse the courage of faith, hope, and love … strengthen our resolve to life lives worthy of Christ, consistent with Christ, lives that reflect his goodness and purpose, the power of his sacrifice, and the glory of his empty tomb.

We pray, O God, for our schools and teachers … for school boards and administrators … and for all our students, and their families. Help us, we pray, as nation, to take education seriously, to fund our schools liberally, to honor those who teach, to respect our librarians, and to cherish our youth, with the best we can provide.

We pray for those who have given their lives to hate and violence … we pray for those who suffer at their hands … we pray that our nation will continue to face and confess honestly the racial hatreds that have ruined so many lives … crippling our schools, churches, and communities, O God, and destroying hearts and minds.

We give thanks for good people everywhere, O God, they hold the light of truth high, they read and learn, they think and pray, they help those in need, they love their communities, they build bridges of understanding and compassion. Bless them, one and all.

We pray for our families, O God … our parents who care for us, our children and their wellbeing, our sisters and brothers … families, large and small, families, near and far, families of varying arrangement and relationship, families of love and goodness, families struggling and seeking … and the great family of faith that is ours in Christ … Sarah and Abraham, Lydia, the seller of purple, Paul the Apostle, all who have gone before us in the great procession of life and faith … help us, we pray, to be your family, here and now, devoted in prayer and praise, seeking justice and peace, with the light of Christ in our hearts, and the deeds of Christ in our hands and feet.

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, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

8.20.23 Prayers of Church & Community, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Prayers of Church & Community, August 20, 2023

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Eternal God, forever and a day, your glory, your goodness, your grace, sustains the world, the universe, and our souls …  

your love for us is without question, 

and still and always a great and wonderful mystery - 

that you, O God, the God of heaven and earth, 

the God of all time and eternity, 

should be so committed to us, 

so involved with our affairs and our fancies, 

and so kindly disposed to our raging faults and dismal failures.

We pray this day for the efforts of politicians around the world to forge new alliances of peace, cooperation, and good will, for the sake of the earth, and all its creatures, great and small.

We pray for scientists engaged in the work of discovery … those who search the heavens, and those who probe the atom … to better understand what it means to be human, to be alive, to live in a vast and wondrous universe, and to find new ways of healing the body, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and relieving the distress and anxieties that plague the soul and disrupt our lives. 

We pray for the writers and actors who give us a mirror wherein we can find ourselves: for Gerta Gerwig and “Barbie” … for Christopher Nolan and “Oppenheimer” … and for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; for Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses and David - and for Jesus and the Canaanite Woman.

We pray for our families and friends … we pray for our church … we pray for our nation … we pray that democracy will grow stronger, and the forces of fear will diminish …  

we give thanks for the wisdom of our Constitution, 

and we pray all the more for school boards, 

library associations, city councils,

those who teach, those who govern, 

those who point the way forward, 

who lift up the best of our ideals and the best of our dreams.

Deliver us, we pray, from the deep anxieties that take our hand, deny us rest, and foster the sins of the world. 

Help us, we pray, to find the inner peace of faith, the peace that comes when we trust your word, that you goodness is at work in all things … that in all things, in the worst of it, in the best of it, and in all the in-between times, we belong to you, a most faithful savior, a kindly LORD, a loving God … though our days are numbered, they are numbered by you, O God, and we need not fear evil, for thou art with us.

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, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

8.13.23 Prayers of Church & Community, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena

 No written prayer this week ... one given extemporaneously ...

8.6.23 Prayers of Church & Community, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Prayers of Church & Community, August 6, 2023

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Our world trembles, O LORD … climate change and political instability, war and rumors of war … bombs and bullets, and too little butter … news, 24/7, hammers away at us … pundits and politicians, saints and sinners, ghouls and goblins, the glib and the gullible, crooks and grifters, voices of fear and alarm … we are weary to the bone, O LORD … our hearts are heavy … we cry out for the truth, Dear God, we look for hope, for a way forward, a way to peace.

We give thanks for the church, O God … the message of faith, the love of Christ … all who have travelled this way long before we were here … and all who shall follow in our footsteps.

We pray for ourselves, like Solomon prayed - for a clear mind, good judgment, to know something of the truth, that we might govern our lives well, and set before our friends and family an example of wisdom and kindness.

Impress upon us, we pray, the gift of your forgiveness …because we’re not all put together … far from it …

Remind us, Dear God: there is room at this Table for each of us … just as we are … when we’re like Peter, slow to faith and quick to deny;  when we’re like Judas, selling his soul for quick money. Remind us, O God, that we belong to you; you will never turn us away.

If the Evil One, O God, should whisper into our ear that we are unworthy, that we are not good enough, that our sins are too many, our failings too great, come Holy Spirit come quickly to our aid, to quiet the lies of Satan, to calm our fears … to assure us, there is a place for us at this Table, a place in your family, a place in your heart, for each of us.

Bless, we pray, the work and life of Westminster … bless our families and our friends … help us all along the way …  

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, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.