Thursday, June 4, 2020

For June 7, 2020 -- Pride Sunday and Church Union Sunday

PRAYER OF CONFESSION ASSURANCE OF PARDON
God, you call us to be the church:
To live with respect in creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil.
Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we miss the target by several miles.
We confess that we have failed to listen for your voice calling us to move out of our comfort zones.
We know that sometimes we miss your wisdom because it comes from an unfamiliar source.
We admit that loving others, seeking justice, and resisting evil are challenging,
that sometimes they take more energy than we feel we can give
and so we would rather share our prayers but not get too involved.
We admit that sometimes we who have privilege because of our skin colour,
or our sexual orientation, or our social class, or our gender identity or some other criterion
fail to, or choose not to, recognize the benefits of that privilege.
Help us use our privilege in the work of seeking justice, resisting evil, loving and serving others.
God, you call us to be the church, a testing ground for the Kingdom,
a place where different priorities and values are raised up.
For the times we fail to be the church, the times we miss the target, forgive us.
For the missed opportunities to change the world so it too lives by Kingdom values, forgive us.
Help us repent, to change direction, so that we make different choices in the future.
...time of silent prayer...
Here is Good News!
God is at work in this broken, flawed, imperfect world. God is at work in us.
God offers us forgiveness, for our poor choices, our missed opportunities, our failures.
God calls us to lament and repent and to step back into the fray of living and loving as we have been loved.
We are a forgiven and redeemed people! Thanks be to God! Amen.

Prayers of the People
God who calls us to be the church,
God made known in Jesus of Nazareth, in the presence of the Holy Spirit, in the wonders of creation,
in you we live, we move, we exist.
Today we remember those who have gone before us, those who built the church we have today.
We remember and we thank you for their vision, their determination, their generosity.
Today we give thanks for those who work to build the church today.
As they find new ways to share the old message, as they balance tradition with innovation,
we hold them in prayer, we thank them for their labour, we commit to support them.
Today we pause to listen for your voice calling us forward,
giving us a dream and a vision for what the church will be.
Help us to hear. Help us to dream.
Help us to continue to sing of a church that embodies Christ’s presence in the world, to sing your mission.
God who calls us to be the church, a loving and supportive community,
today and every day we lift up those in our communities who are struggling:
LGBTQ+ folk wanting to be accepted for who they are...
people of colour wanting to be seen and treated as equal...
those who have bodies or minds that no longer do what they once did...
those who find themselves isolated and lonely...
those who are grieving....
those who are anxious because of pandemic, or economics, or just because they read the news...
may all who struggle know that they are not alone, that they are loved.
God who calls us to be the church,
today and everyday we sing songs of praise and shout words of thanksgiving
for the many gifts we encounter along life’s highway:
for family and friends and loved ones...
for food on our plates and in our bellies...
for bright spring flowers, for new life springing from the earth...
for these, and so many other, gifts we share our thanks.
God of life and love, we offer these prayers, and all the other prayers of our hearts and souls, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, our Teacher and Guide, our Rock and Redeemer, in whose life, death and resurrection we find the promise of Abundant Life.
And we continue to pray as we sing words he once taught his closest friends...

BLESSING
As our worship draws to a close, we remember.
We are loved. We are challenged. We are called to serve. And most importantly, we are loved.
In the week ahead, may you know the love of God each and every second.
And may you share that love with all you meet – in person, by phone, or through a computer screen.

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