10.6.24 Prayers of Church & Society, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Pasadena, CA

 Prayers of Church & Community, October 6, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Holy God, Eternal Light … you invite our prayers, you welcome us into your heart … you give ear to what we say, what we ask, what we give.

We give you our hearts, O God … we offer ourselves to Christ … we come to the cross and raise our eyes to behold eternal mercy, Love divine, all loves excelling …joy of heav'n to earth come down …

We pray for the world, O God … those who’ve lost so much in fire and flood … families devastated by loss and grief … lands torn by war.

We pray for the leaders of the world - can people of good heart and mindful spirit staunch the flow of blood? Can the road to peace be chosen over the road to war? Might compassion replace greed and malice? 

We sometimes wonder, O LORD, about the value of prayer … do our petitions and ponderings add to the goodness of things, or is it all meaningless? Do our prayers change anything, dear God? 

Yet, every day, O God, we see the horrible evidence of a world without prayer - people who love but themselves, who tell lies and mislead others … who practice the crafts of hell … 

Remind us, dear God, that a world without prayer is a world of death … remind us, holy God, that our prayers, our love, our faithfulness to Christ, is never a lost cause, never a waste of time, never without value … eternal value for the ages … and a hedge against the evils of the day. 

With your Holy Spirit, O God, make us people of fervent prayer, all the more … people of truth and hope … people who never cease raising our minds to Christ on high, only to find him at our side, on the lowly roads of daily life. 

Cleanse our aspirations and dreams, O God, of selfish ambitions and jealous thoughts, that we might more completely love thee and more worthily serve thy cause.

With hope and courage, with trust and mercy …

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. 

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

 Prayers of Church & Community, September 29, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Creator of the heavens and earth … everything bright and beautiful … mysteries and wonder untold … things far and beyond our understanding … vast and fierce is the universe … billions and billions of stars and galaxies … our home, our place, a place we call earth.

O God our Father, dear God our Mother … give us eyes to see the glory of this earth - to feel its vibrancy, its generosity, its goodness and mercy … give us ears to hear the roar of the ocean deeps and the murmuring of the early morning … give us a heart for your creation, that we might have a heart for one another.

We pray, O God, for those in need …

Who’ve lost homes and loved ones in the winds of a hurricane … in the flames of a fire … those who suffer in lands torn by war and bitterness, beset with terrifying memories forever embedded in the soul.

We pray for the children … shield their souls from the worst of it, so they can grow up with courage and confidence … to make a difference in this world.

We pray for Christians around the world … divided by frivolous ideas and poorly framed doctrines … help us as Christians to center ourselves more fully in Christ … equip us with the knowledge needed to challenge the lies and distortions … give us the courage, we pray, to stand fast for the gospel, to defend the high ideals of the kingdom, to promote generosity and kindness, mercy and compassion … to help the victims of distorted religion, religions of greed, power, and domination.

We pray for our communities and our leaders … we pray for the film industry, those who make us laugh and help us cry … we pray for the preservation of our Democracy … help us, as a nation, to refuse the simple answers, the easy way out … help us, we pray, to be brave and bold, committed to the highest ideals of human aspiration … to be good and kind to one another, we pray … fill our souls with the Spirit of Christ, our minds with his kingdom, that each and of all of us might reflect to the world his eternal love and his everlasting peace.

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. 

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

 Prayers of Church & Community, September 22, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Away in a manger

No crib for a bed

The little Lord Jesus

Laid down His sweet head

The stars in the bright sky

Looked down where He lay

The little Lord Jesus

Asleep on the hay

And so you came to us, eternal God … 

in ways we hardly expected … 

a baby born of Mary, 

a child at play, a young man on his way,

to the Jordan River …

To a baptism of love and fire:

A life of courage, truth, and love … 

to heal the forgotten, to welcome the rejected … 

… with a cross, dear God, and a crown of thorns,

in one dramatic moment of life and death … 

where death thought it had won the day … 

You came to us, dear God … to take up the human condition,

to bear in body and soul the sins of the world,

the darkness and the demons, the lies and the violence,

the loneliness and sorrows …

our frustrations and despair.

And you dared to say to the man on the cross,

Today, you’ll be with me in Paradise.

You remain hard at work, eternal God.

Your Spirit all around the world …

Amplify our dreams, we pray … 

freshen the winds of peace …

broaden our horizons, and reveal to us great possibilities …  

That we can make a difference.

Our voices raised in praise and prayer add to the welfare of the world … our hands outstretched with deeds of justice and peace push back the tides of hate and fear … 

Help us, we pray, to love one another, to be patient in times of trial … to endure the worst of it, to find our way through … help us, we pray, to believe fervently in the goodness that lives in every human heart … to wait faithfully for the sun to rise … to believe in ourselves, to believe in one another … to believe in you, dear God, forever and a day …

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 9.22.24 deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen. 

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

 Prayers of Church & Community, September 15, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Holy God, Eternal Light …

Forgive our erroring ways … guide us, we pray, to the better days … of faith, hope, and love … grace, mercy, and peace.

Remind us, dear God, of that which counts … give us the eyes of Christ to see clearly what is true and good, right and decent, and the courage to reject what is false, hurtful, and wrong.

We pray, O God, for the People of Haiti, their daily struggles and deep sorrows … we pray for the Haitians in our nation, and the lies now being told about them … we pray for their children who bear the brunt of such things … we pray for the schools now closed because of vile threats by misguided people … people seduced by hatred and bigotry, O God … people so small in spirit, they cannot rise above themselves … crippled by fear, they cannot love … broken in soul, they cannot forgive, nor seek forgiveness … uncertain of themselves, they can only damn others … may the grace of your love, dear God, may the stars above and the sunshine of the day, help them find their way, their way to a better life, something bright and good, to build up and create anew, to affirm and to celebrate, to stand tall and not fall, to be good and not rude, to see beyond the lies to the truth that sets us all free.

We pray for churches across the land … we pray for Westminster … we pray your blessing upon our quest for the next minister … we thank you for what has been, we thank you for what is, and we thank you for what shall be … because your hand is upon us, your grace is within us, your love all around us.

We pray for our loved ones … we pray for their physical needs and their spiritual wellbeing … we pray for the lost and the lonely, the fearful and the forgotten … we pray for those in deep sorrow, and those facing the end of their days … 

May the bright light of Christ shine upon them all … may the grace of your kindly hand guide them along the highways and byways of life and death, the beginnings and endings of all things.

Holy God, Eternal Light, we begin our days in your love, and we end our journey in your love … your love brings us forth, your love walks beside us, and in the end, O God, your love takes us by the hand into the eternal realms of glory.

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. 

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

 Prayers of Church & Community, September 8, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Holy God, Eternal Light,

Creator of the heavens and the earth.

Help us, we pray, with your Holy Spirit, to align our hearts with the heart of Christ, our minds to see the world he saves, our feet to walk in his pathways, our hands ready to bless the children of the world.

We are grieved, O God, by the school shootings in Georgia & Maryland … 

LORD God Almighty, we pray for mercy … and we pray for courage … 

The courage to create good laws on the sale of guns and ammunition … health care programs to assist families with troubled children … leaders who will help us face the causes of social violence, who will speak the truth to all of us … 

In your mercy, dear God, do not forgive us … but trouble us all the more, stir the waters of conscience, reveal to us our sins of greed and power, that the death of children is not a fact of life, but a failure of our soul … trouble us, we pray, until we see our responsibility in all of this.

Holy God, in this place of rest and peace, we find find our true selves - daughters and sons of the Most High God, servants of Christ … 

Thank you, dear God, for who we are, for the gifts of life you’ve so generously given … 

Holy God, Eternal Light, remind us that our work here and now is connected to eternity … every earthly good deed adds to the glory and beauty of heaven … our words, our prayers added to the songs of angels and to the high praise of the saints.

Bless Westminster, we pray … bless our loved ones … bless us one and all, that we might leave here revived and restored, ready to face the week ahead, what e’re may come … 

For you, O God, are at our side, your Spirit lives within us … your faithfulness endures to all generations … your steadfast love is our comfort …you are the Good Shepherd, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort 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. 

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

 Prayers of Church & Community, September 1, 2024

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Holy God, Eternal Light … forever present … always kind … 

A present help in the daily grind … you encourage us all along the way … 

In the best moments of life, O God, you strengthen us for the journey … in the best of times, and the worst of times.

When we walk through the valley of the shadow of death … you walk quietly beside us … 

you stop and wait with us, when we cannot walk one step further, 

you sit with us when we cannot rise … 

you lay down with us when we are laid low … 

you hold us when we tremble … 

you do not let us go, dear God … 

even when we want to run away from you, and go and hide somewhere … 

Blessed Redeemer, creator of the heavens and earth … we give thanks for the creative energies you give to our world …

Bless our schools, O God, and all the children … bless their teachers, O LORD, and the administrators, the counselors, lunchroom workers, maintenance and cleaning staff … it takes a village, O God, to raise a child.

We’re mindful, O God, of Gus Walz … and millions of children and young adults who share his world. Protect them, we pray.

Thank you, Dear God, for those who gave us Labor Day … help our nation, O LORD, to not only enjoy its wealth, but to share its wealth … to be as eager in our generosity, as we are in our gain.

Bless our nation in this campaign season … bless Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, bless Donald Trump and J.D. Vance … bless all who seek office … instill within all of us, and each of us, a fresh desire to be the more perfect union … with liberty and justice for all.

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.