More than enough for us

 

Father of kindness,

You are a God of relationship

Who loves to gather us, to connect us, to reconcile us to you and to each other

Thank you that we are able to gather together today as the body of Christ,

Here in this room and further afield through technology

We pray for those among us, or who we know, who are in particular need of

Your abundance and generosity today

For those who are worried they don’t have enough to get through this week ...

For those people, may there be enough … enough courage, enough strength, enough generosity, enough patience, enough material resources, enough healing, enough wisdom, enough hope, enough love

May there be enough.

We pray for the situations in our world that we hear about on the news that can be troubling to us

For America, for its current state of unrest and for the devastating bushfires, for China and its relations with other nations, for India, and the many other countries, including our own, who are working out how best to  manage covid 19 with all the vast challenges and grief that it brings.

May there be enough … enough courage, enough strength, enough generosity, enough patience, enough healing, enough material resources, enough wisdom, enough hope, enough love

May there be enough.

We are your church and you bid us, over and over, not to fear, but to walk forward, filled with your spirit, enabled to do and to be whatever it is you call us into.

Wherever we are worshipping, wherever we are praying right now

Whatever is happening

You are our marvelous, faithful, gracious, Yes and Amen God

Thank you that you are more than enough for us.

Amen

 

Pete's Ordination prayers for the world

Creator God,

We lift to you our prayers for the world.

We thank you for those places in our world where peace, unity, love, generosity, abundance and purpose abound, signs of your Kingdom bursting through,

And we lift to you tonight the many places where these things are sorely needed and longed for

We pray for those places where lasting peace seems a far off dream. Places where conflict is brewing, or where it rages on, or where it seems to have finished but nothing will ever be the same and there is so much to rebuild. 

We think too of Christchurch and Sri Lanka, places where the human tendency to think in terms of us and them has recently led to violence and grief upon grief. Bring your healing, loving God. Help us to learn how to live together. Help us to see the humanity in each other. Bring your peace.

As the Federal election in our own country fast approaches we pray for genuine leadership. We pray for integrity and justice, for wise stewardship and for decisions based on your values.

And we thank you with great rejoicing for the rain! And we pray for those places where there’s not enough safe drinking water, where there’s not enough rain for the crops.

Refresh the earth with gentle rain, provider God, and help us to steward our resources well.

And Lord, who walked amongst us, we pray for our community, for the people who live in the streets around this church. Whether or not they know it, you see and know each one and love them. You know the ones who are doing well and the ones who are struggling.

You know the broken, the overlooked and the disengaged. You know their every need.

Merciful God, the lifter of heads, may your presence be known in our wider community. May the peace, unity, love, generosity, abundance and purpose that comes from you abound in us and around us and through us, your church,

and may it pour lavishly into the world around about us.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

  

Good Friday prayer for the world

Jesus, our crucified friend, and brother and Lord,

Today we are witnesses to the story of the awful and wonderful events of good Friday,

the story passed from generation to generation; 

the story of your love

giving itself for us, once and for all.

On this day we remember that you know what it is to suffer

And so we lift to you the places of suffering in our world today.

We lift to you places of war and unrest where people fear for their lives and don’t know where to turn.

We lift to you the places where people are hungry, where there isn’t enough to go around.

We lift to you the millions of people who are displaced and longing for a safe place to settle and build a life, to make a home, each one known and beloved to you.

We bring to you those people we know personally who struggle with daily pain – physically or mentally or spiritually -  or those who live with uncertainty about their future because of sickness.

Merciful Saviour, even as you hung from the cross you were urging your disciple and your mother to look after each other. As we remember this we bring to you those in our community who are on the outer, who crave love, who long for a sense of community and safety, a place where they can flourish. 

May we, your church, be a place of welcome and belonging - a place to call home.

The day you handed over your power and let yourself be killed

Was the day that changed the course of history

And still has the power to change everything,

to change everything in our lives, to change everything in our world.

May we, because we know you and love you and follow you, be a part of this change, be a part of the healing that this hungry world longs for.

In your name, Jesus, we pray. Amen

Psalm 23 prayer of praise and confession

Lord, you are our shepherd.
    We have everything we need.
You give us rest in green pastures.
    You lead us to calm water.
 You give us new strength.

For the good of your name,
    You lead us on paths that are right.
Even if we walk
    through the darkest, prickliest, most overgrown valley,
We will not be afraid
    because you are with us.
Your rod and your shepherd’s staff comfort us.

Even when we forget you

Even when we wander off and go our own way

Even when we don’t act like people who know and love you

Even if we did these things intentionally

Even then you would still be our shepherd

You always watch over us

You never give up on us

 No, instead you prepare a meal for us
    in front of our enemies.
You pour oil of blessing on our heads.
    You give us more than we can hold.
Surely your goodness and love will be with us
    all the days of our lives.
And we will live in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen

(Heavily borrowing from Psalm 23)

Shepherd call to worship

Come, all you people who know the beautiful and familiar voice of the shepherd,

The voice of the one who knows us, loves us and wants the best for us -

The voice of coming home.

Come, all you who don’t yet know the shepherd’s voice,

but are intrigued by what it might sound like.

Come, whoever you are.

We set aside this time and this space

To draw near and listen.

Show us, loving God, what is it you want us to understand about you today.

Show us, loving God, what is it you want us to understand about ourselves today.

Your people are gathered in your presence.

Amen

Lent prayer

Jesus

Lamb of God

Son of Mary

It’s lent - 

And we make the slow journey with you towards Holy week

We who know who you are

We remember what happened

What you chose to leave behind

What you did for us

Who you enable us now to be

You are our way

You are our truth

You are our life.

You turned your face towards us

You keep your face turned towards us

Help us to keep our eyes on you

  

Help us to keep our eyes on you

When Mad March is here

And we are dazzled by bright lights

And a smorgasbord of distractions

Help us to keep our eyes on you

When we are juggling our priorities

family and study

work life and friendship

our decisions and our ambitions

We long for the world to know who you are

Yet we find ourselves gathering together only with people who know you

We hope that the people in our streets who are isolated and long for connection find community

Yet we spend our time bingeing on Netflix

We yearn for a time when everyone has food to eat and clean water to drink

Yet we fritter our resources away on things we don’t need at all

So easy to leave the building of your kingdom to somebody else.

So easy to close our eyes

Or turn our faces away

Thank you that you never do.

Jesus, who gave everything away for the least of us

We’re sorry.

Thank you that you forgive us,

Welcome us,

Share your plans with us again.

You are our faithful teacher, saviour and friend.

We want to be your faithful people.

Show us your ways.

Amen

Creator of our hearts and minds and hands and feet

Creator of sea and sky

God who spread out the stars in the heavens and whose presence fills every inch of this earth

From the heights of the Himalayas to the depths of the Tonga trench

You formed us, the intricacies of our brains, the complicated structures of our hands and feet, the mechanisms as well as the depths of hearts.

You gifted us our bodies, our abilities, and then you gave us freedom to choose what to do with our lives.

We praise you for your handiwork

We wonder at the mystery of who you are - so like us and yet so different from us

We are grateful for your ever present hopefulness and trust.

And with all that you have given us, we as humankind have done so many beautiful and awe inspiring things …

Some of us have circumnavigated the globe or found ways to travel to the moon

Some have discovered anti biotics or invented cochlear implants or found ways to make paralyzed limbs move

So that the sick might be healed, the deaf might hear and the lame might walk again.

We thank you for the passion and brilliance of those in our world to forge onwards and make progress for the greater good.

Thank you too that though not all of us can do ground breaking things, you have created each of us for community, for love and for purpose.

There has been so much progress in our generations in recent times for great good and for great ill -  and sometimes it’s hard to know which is which…

Ways to make our domestic lives easier

ways to communicate across a city or a country or across the globe

weapons technology to defend or to destroy.

Father, forgive us, for we don’t know what we do.

Forgive us when we use our time for things or ideas that aren’t much good for us or for anybody else

Forgive us for when we saturate our lives with so many images and games and stories and messages that we no longer have space or energy

for rest or simplicity,

for creativity or productivity

or for compassion for those surrounding us…

"To you, O Lord, we lift up our souls.
² O our God, in you we trust;
⁴ Make us to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach us your paths.
⁵ Lead us in your truth, and teach us,
    for you are the God of our salvation."*

Amen

 
*adapted from Psalm 25

Christ the King

Jesus -

You were there at the very beginning

And you’ll be there at the very end

Surely you must be higher than any other

You sit at the right hand of the Father -  the creator of the universe

And every knee shall bow before you

Surely you must be a great King

Yet you came to us as a baby in a dusty stable

And you patiently stand at the door and knock and wait to be invited in to every one of our lives

You don’t throw your weight around

And demand to be obeyed and paid attention to

You don’t want more and more riches

But instead you love it when the wealth of your kingdom is shared and given away

You don’t oppress and make demands and rule with an iron fist

You know and love your people

You dwell amongst them

You want the best for them.

You really are a different kind of ruler

You really are a different kind of King

For the times we haven’t honoured you for who you are

Or lived lives worthy of people dwelling in your Kingdom

For the time we haven’t shared the bounty of what you have poured in our direction

Or even paused in gratitude for what it means to us to be in relationship with you, our just, wise and loving Lord

We are sorry.

Thank you that you forgive us over and over

And call us on to try again.

Name above all names.

We honour you in this time together. Amen.

Prayer of praise - outer eyes and inner eyes

How extraordinary is your creation O God

How miraculous are your ways

At night if we step outside and train our eyes to a spot far far away

we see stars that burn and burn over lengths of time we can hardly imagine

all created by your hand

The stars are there for all to see and wonder at

But how different it feels when we know

we are loved and known

by the one who spread out the heavens

And much closer to home

what a strange thing that we all began from almost nothing

and grew within our mothers in the dark.

Tiny blood vessels forming,

intricate finger bones appearing,

brains and hearts and lungs developing

individual personalities and giftings coming into being

even before we were born and took our first breath for ourselves.

The creation of a human being from nothing into something

can be contemplated with awe by anyone

But how extraordinary it is when we know that we were loved and known by you even before our families met us face to face.

God our creator,

God of love,

in this world there is so much to gaze upon and wonder at.

Open the eyes of our hearts as well as our outer eyes

So that we might know deep within us

How wide, how deep and how close your love is to each of us and to all who dwell on our earth.

Amen

Steadfast God in a tricky world call to worship

Our God is good

And worthy to be praised.

The world can be a tricky place to live

One minute people showing their best

The next minute people showing their worst

But our God was there at the beginning

And God will be there at the end

and in every moment in between:

The source of life and love and an ever present help in times of trouble

Blessed be our God

God of life

Living God

All of life pours out of you.

It was you who said the word and creation came into being;

every living plant and every imaginable living creature.

you formed the first person out of the dust, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became alive.

we hear you are the bread of life

we sing you are the resurrection and the life

You read you are the way, the truth and the life

You are all about life.

If we wanted life in all its fullness, where else would be go but to you.

When we choose ways of being that stifle life, may your life burst through anyway

When we fill our lives with junk instead of those things that make us strong and fit and full of life, help us instead to crave those things that enliven us

When we are intent on sitting by the lifeless remains of a dream or an idea or a beloved something or someone and don’t notice the shoots of new life bursting forth in a new place - in time heal our hearts and draw our eyes and our energies to life anew

God of life,

Not even the darkness and hopelessness of death can withstand your irrepressible Spirit of life

God who against all the laws of physics that we understand

Called Lazarus from his tomb and raised your Son to life after three days.

And God who invites us to life everlasting 

God of zest and zing

Vivacious, eternal, God of immeasurable oomph

And God of just enough strength to make it through another day

Take us as we are

And breathe your life into our being

That your life may be known in us.

Amen

(Belated) Christmas prayer ...

Light of the world you stepped down into darkness*

All of these years ago

Born in a humble place

To humble people

At a time of struggle

the time of Herod and of Roman rule

And your light shone out and spread wider and wider

And showed the world a new and radical way

The way of love.

A path of peace.

Freedom and healing and purpose.

We praise you God of love

We thank you Prince of peace

And here we find ourselves today

Ordinary people

In a stunning world

Overflowing with abundance

Full of potential

But where struggle is still with  us

In a world where tiny children flee Aleppo, not so far from Bethlehem

And we wonder what a world influenced by Trump and Putin might bring

But we trust in you.

God of light you were there at the very beginning

Bringer of light you were born on Christmas day

And nothing can put that light out

Your faithful love hovers over us

Your peace lives within us and shows us where to put our feet

Your hope reminds us that with you there is always a bigger picture

Your joy can find its home in us even when things get hard 

We praise you God of love

We thank you Prince of peace

We thank you for the gift of Christmas

Amen.

* with gratitude to Tim Hughes for this line from "Here I am to worship"

May your love and truth be made manifest in our ordinary lives.

Awesome God 

On our dusty bedside cupboards

the Word of God

rests

Full of stories

of your love and truth

made manifest

In ordinary lives

May your love and truth

be made manifest

in our ordinary lives.

We human beings

Are made in your image

And by some strange unimaginable miracle

You choose to be involved in our lives

You dwell within us

You invite us into your plans

for the wholeness and healing of our world

Yet as we live and work together

There are times when

In contrast to the

perfect complimentary

dance

of the Trinity

we grate against

and vy with each other

like unsettled tectonic plates

or wounded animals

Forgive us.

Help us to watch carefully and listen deeply

And learn the steps of your dance.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Be our peace.

Be made known in us

Be seen in us

May the world find your unmistakable fingerprint in our hands

May the world encounter your merciful face in our faces

And may the world experience your radical, outrageous  love

through us

As we go about our ordinary lives

made extraordinary because of your love.

Amen