Prayer for the Centennial of the United Church of Canada

 

God who calls us to be the church,

we celebrate the many faces and guises your church has worn over the centuries

each one with its own gifts, each one with its own challenges

yet all linked together in Christ.

This year we celebrate 100 years of a particular part of the larger Body,

this experiment we call the United Church of Canada.

We give thanks for the dreamers and visionaries of over a century ago,

people who saw a possibility and then gave years of their lives

working to make the possible real,

bringing together multiple churches in the hopes “that all may be one”.

God who has whispered, and still whispers, in our ears,

pushing us forward, opening our eyes to new understandings of what it means to be faithful.

We celebrate the times when we listened.

We give thanks for those who spoke boldly both to church and nation,

for bold discipleship and leadership over the years,

calling us to daring justice work.

We pray that we can follow in their footsteps.

God who is with us in out triumphs and glory, you are also with us when we stumble.

We admit that we have not always been the church we could be.

We have hurt each other,

we remember our mixed history with our First Nations, Mètis, and Inuit siblings,

we remember the times we could have spoken louder but chose the safer route,

we acknowledge that at time people have been made to feel unwelcome or unworthy

even in this United Church of ours.

And as we remember we repent, we lament, and we pray that we can learn a better path.

God of our present, we know that all is not well with the church.

There are so many stories of faith communities struggling.

Too often anxiety and dis-ease mark the ways we describe ourselves,

making it hard to hear the continued whispering of the Holy Spirit

urging us forward, showing us Good News, giving us hope.

God of abundant life, in the midst of our dis-ease help us see the new life in our midst.

God of our future, that undiscovered country,

we don’t know where this experiment called the United Church will be in 10, 15, 20 years.

How will we be the same? How will we be changed?

As we live with the uncertainty and unknown, help us be faithful.

Open our eyes and ears that we might see and hear you leading us forward.

Give us a vision, a hope, a promise.

Help us be a church that embodies Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, and Daring Justice.

God who calls us to sing the songs of faith in a new key or with different words,

God who challenges us to grow and evolve as individuals and as a church,

we pray for this church that we love, this church that sometimes frustrates us,

sometimes infuriates us, and often holds us together as the world crumbles.

We give thanks for those who have gone before,

we celebrate with those who walk with us today,

we pledge to pass on the songs, the stories, and the hope to those who will follow us.

We offer these prayers in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Risen Christ, the head of the Church Universal as we share words that he once shared with his closest friends:

Our Father...