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

 Prayers of Church & Community, March 9, 2025

Westminster Presbyterian Church

God of our Mothers and Fathers, their stay in trouble, their strength in conflict, their guide and deepest resource, we worship thee. Be thou to us what our Mothers and Fathers have said thou wert to them, a fortress, a high tower, a refuge in the day of trouble. We, too, are tossed about by the vicissitudes of life and the uncertainties of fate. We need security, we long for peace. We would find the things that endure. We need strength greater than our own.

Holy God, Eternal Light, you have reached into the course of human affairs, to call unto yourself a people, endowing them with the gifts of your Holy Spirit, calling them to follow Christ.

Such as those who gather here this day, O God … frail and tender as we all are, you have claimed us as your own … you forgive the sins of our flesh, and the terrible thoughts of our minds … you enfold us in the great love of Christ, and fill us with love’s delight and love’s hope and peace.

You have blessed us beyond reason … for reasons alone rooted in your great heart … your boundless love for creation, and your own hopes and dreams that humanity would awaken to its true and lasting purpose, to care for this good earth, to love one another, to raise the banners of truth and liberty, to light the candles of prayer and praise.

Holy God, Eternal Light, help us to rise to the needs of the hour, to have less of ourselves, and more of Christ, to shift our gaze away from the cheap promises of the Golden Calf to the glory and grace of our LORD Jesus Christ.

With confidence and peace, we pray for our loved ones … we pray for family and friends, some of whom are in great distress, having lost so much in the consuming fires … who struggle now to recreate a home, a place of safety and rest.

We pray for those who fear for their lives in the changed political landscape … who fear the violence of the wicked, the wrath of religion turned upside down … peace shoved aside by power, lies trump the truth, and hope dies in the iron grip of chaos.

We pray for the nations of the world … far and beyond our own grasp of the tides and turns of politics and war … but we pay attention, dear God, for this is your world, and you strive with the wayward spirit of humanity, to help this world regain its balance, to become the garden you originally created and gave unto our care.

Thank you, O God, for entrusting us with such a grand project, such a lofty purpose … thank you for your boundless mercies, and ceaseless regard for all that we are, and all that we hope to be.

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.

3.2.25 Prayers of Church and Community, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Prayers of Church & Community, March 2, 2025

Westminster Presbyterian Church

LORD Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, forever and always the apostle and high priest of our confession … you come to us in the night of our despair, in the wilderness of our sin and sorrow, to deliver us unto to the Creator of the heavens and the earth, to return us to the life for which we are created, and the faith that makes all things new … you are here, O LORD, to redeem us, and save us … that we might be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

LORD Jesus Christ, son of the Living God, stand by us in these days of uncertainty, lest we stumble in our arrogance and fall into fear … lest we lose our bearings and lose our way …

By your Holy Spirit, weave into our souls your great love for all your sisters and brothers, that we, too, might look upon the world as your family, our family … where there are boundaries, we would cross them … where some are excluded, we would welcome them … where there is fear and anger, we would be faithful and kind … where there is selfishness, we would be generous, where there is greed, we would be wise in the things of your heavenly Father … to care for your creation … this precious planet, this little blue marble in the vast expanse of space, and all its creatures, great and small.

We pray, O LORD, for our loved ones … guide and guard them with legions of angels … come to their aid we pray …  

We pray for those who have lost so very much in the fires … hold them, we pray, in your kindly hands … 

When they are weary, O LORD, give them your rest … when they are confused, give them your counsel … when they are discouraged, be at their side … when they can’t take one more step, surround them with mercy … and see them through the days of grief.

We pray for our leaders, O LORD, and the women and men of the United Nations … we pray for those who protect our democratic freedoms … we pray for those who sit upon the Benches of Law … we pray for the captains of industry and for those who gather in board rooms around the world. Save them, one and all, we mostly earnestly pray, from malice and greed, from thinking too small, that they might fulfill the great commandments of life and love.

We pray for Westminster … grant us, we pray, a blessed future, full of joy and courage. May our Tower be the light of welcome and a beacon of hope.

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.