Prayers for a Regional Council Meeting

 

Opening Prayer/Prayer of Confession

God who calls us to be the church,
you call us to form a community shaped by the values of the Kingdom,
a place where we celebrate Your presence, seek justice and resist evil, love and serve each other.
This evening we gather as people who have been called into leadership in this part of the church in this place and time.
As we meet tonight move through and within us, flow through the bits and bytes that connect us across the miles, awaken in us a vision for what the church, this testing ground of the Kingdom, could be.
We know that this community of communities that we call the United Church has not always lived up to what it could be, what we tell ourselves we are.
We admit that the church is prone to the same prejudices and biases as the wider community around us.
God you call us to be the church,
a community of broken but hopeful believers, trying to embody Christ’s presence in the world.
Help us celebrate where we get it right, help us admit where we have missed the mark.
And then, through the Grace and Mercy proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, help us sing of the church.
Empower us to live out the mission to which you have called us, move us to live as citizens of the Kingdom.
We pray in the name of Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope, who we proclaim as Christ, Messiah, Saviour, and Friend.
Amen.

Prayer to share In Memoriams and Celebrate Ministry Transitions

Source of life, God who shares every aspect of our lives as individuals and as communities.
You are there in the beginnings and you are there at the endings, and you are there in all the changes.
As we gather together tonight as the Northern Spirit Regional Council we mark beginnings and endings and changes since the last time we gathered together.
Tonight we pause to remember those in our communities who have taken their final breath in this life, who have moved to that which follows. We name them and we give thanks for the leadership they offered to their communities [read names]
May they rest in peace. May light eternal shine upon them.

God who calls us to be the church.
Tonight we pause to celebrate the beginning of a new Community of Faith, Living Spirit United Church in Drayton Valley. We welcome them into the larger Community known as Northern Spirit Regional Council and the even larger community known as the United Church of Canada.

Gift-giver, who calls us to use our gifts for the enrichment of community,
you have called us all into leadership in some form or another.
You have called some of us into paid ministry within the church.
Some are called first into one part of the global, church and are later led to exercise their leadership within the United Church of Canada. Tonight we celebrate [name] who has followed that leading to share his ministry in our midst.

As time goes by, the seasons of life move us into different places and we may choose to retire from one role to explore other ways of living, leading and serving.
So tonight, God of the turning seasons, we celebrate those who have lived out their call and now move into the new adventure of retired ministry [read names]
We thank them all for their years of service and wish blessings on them as they discover what new challenges you might have in store for them God of Grace.

God of beginnings and endings and transition we lift all these people in prayer in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Amen.