Humble Prayer

No matter how much we think of God, nor how vividly we proclaim his grandeur, he is always more. More than we can think or imagine. More than we preach and proclaim. And it is often amid the uncontrollable circumstances of daily living where we discover/remember/embrace his “moreness.”

This week’s prayer, adapted from Ernest Campbell, is a prayer from a seat of humility to a Father who is so much more. Let us pray together.

O Father, our maker and our God, the giver and sustainer of life, we bless your name at all times. Your praise continually rises from our grateful hearts.

We thank you that your power extends beyond the prowess and achievements of humankind.

that our towers never do quite touch the sky,

that always you are more than we have thought or preached you to be.

We thank you that a fall of snow can hobble a busy and self-centered city,

that strong headwinds can slow our jets and make us and our “needed items,” late,

that heavy rains can force a cancellation of public events,

that high seas command the respect of our sturdiest ocean-going ships.

In short, we thank you, Father, for everything and anything that humbles us before the mystery of life and keeps us from the folly of worshiping the works of our own hands. You alone are God, and together we bless your holy name.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Breaking Point

We don’t have to looks much further than our network of relationships, and certainly no further than our immediate neighborhood, to see someone nearing a “breaking-point.” Perhaps we don’t have to even look beyond the mirror.

May our prayer this week jog our awareness and draw us into the brokenness and near-breaking of those whom God has allotted that we should live amongst. Remembering, that he is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:26-28). Let us pray these words adapted from Earnest Campbell, for and with one another.

Father, we pray today for those in our network of relationships and in close proximity to us whoa re near the breaking point:

those who are expected to produce more than they can deliver;

those whose inner grief and loneliness have plunged them into the heart of darkness;

those who need work but find the market tight;

those whose every breath is drawn in a struggle against some dread disease;

those who have been repeatedly rebuffed because of color;

those who have await the release of imprisoned loved ones;

those who slowly inched away from you and suffer now the pain of remembered gladness.

O Father who is able to keep what we have committed to you, impart to the sorely pressed the courage to hang on yet one day more. Let your strength be ministered to them according to their need and your boundless grace. Let our feet and hands, head and heart join with you in ministering grace.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Prayer Out of Hunger

Jesus says that a “Bless-ed” life includes desires and longings born from not having something. Specifically, Jesus says that the Blessed “hunger and thirst for righteousness...” The paradox of our longing is that it brings satisfaction: “…for the shall be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6) Our apatite for what we lack—a right relationship with God and with others—is not an endless craving, but one that finds satisfaction in the very pangs. For in our ache we recognize what we lack, and can therefore respond with the very nutrients and delicacies we seek.

Our prayer this week, adapted from John Ballie, is a prayer out of the hunger pains for righteous; desires to relate rightly with our Father, our siblings, and our friends.

Father, all human hearts lie revealed and open before you. Forbid that we should seek to hide from you anything that we have done or thought or imagined this week.

All these things that are hidden from others, let us now openly acknowledge in your presence. Let no false shame keep us from confessing the wrongs that proper shame should have kept us from committing.

Father, whose tender mercies cover us all, humbly and sorrowfully we crave your forgiveness for the sins of this week:

For every weakening and degrading thought towards another and ourselves that we have allowed to dwell in our minds;

For every hasty and thoughtless word spoken to you and neighbor and family and friend;

For every failure of self-control;

For every stumbling block we have put in someone else’s way, binding on others what has been loosed from us;

For every lost opportunity to love as we have been loved;

For lazy feet and procrastinating wills.

Grant that as the days go by, your Spirit may more and more rule in our hearts, bearing His fruit in our lives with you and with one another.

Into your loving care we commit all those who are dear to us. Bless all those with whom we live and work and worship. Grant them a satisfying sense of your reality and power. Be with all those who are in danger or distress this day. Be in every sore heart, every grief-stricken or broken home, and beside every sickbed giving to all the blessing of your peace and warmth of your presence.

In Jesus' name, we pray,

Amen.

Past and Future

Past and future come together in gratitude. That is the assumption of this week’s Collective Prayer. In gratitude for what has been true, we are open to what is becoming true. So, let us join together in gratitude through these words adapted from Earnest Campbell.

Eternal God, our Father, beneath whose rule we live and in whose grace we stand, with all that is within us we bless your holy name. We thank you for the constants in our life:

that the ground is firm beneath our tread;

that day follows night;

that the seasons march in predictable succession;

that the gates of mercy are ever open to us in our need.

We thank you for all that is new and changing in our life:

for startling breakthroughs in the realm of medicine and science;

for the audibility of people too long silent, and the visibility of wrongs too long concealed;

the development and creativity in our ability to connect, in particular the ability to worship together even when not together;

for new people next door or up the street, and the prospect of contributing to each other’s maturation.

O heavenly Father, whose ways are from of old and yet whose works are ever new, make us grateful for the past and open toward the future.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Prayer for Burdens

I don’t know about you, but the burdens that most consume my attention are my own. I don’t want it to be so, but I struggle to be otherwise. I want to worry less, and I want to care more. This week’s prayer is for people like me. It is a prayer for burdens. Will you join with your faith family and me in praying these words adapted from John Ballie.

Most gracious Father, grant that in everything that happens today and this week, that we may carry with us the remembrance of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ our Lord.

For your fatherly love shown in Jesus Christ your beloved Son;

For his readiness to suffer for us;

For the redemptive passion that filled his heart;

We praise and bless your holy name.

For the power of his cross in the history of the world since he cam;

For all who taken up their own crosses and followed him;

For the noble company of martyrs and for all who are willing to die that others may live;

For all those who freely choose to suffer for the sake of others,

for pain bravely endured, for sorrows of this life that have been

used for the building up of eternal joys;

We praise and bless your holy name.

Father, you look at us in unspeakable love and tenderness, compassion and comradery in the sorrows of earth. Give us grace, we pray, to understand the meaning of the pain and disappointments that we are called to endure in your patience permitting. Save us from worrying. Give us strong hearts to bear our burdens. Give us willing hearts to bear the burdens of others. Give us believing hearts to cast all our burdens on you.

Glory be to you, O Father, and to you, O Christ, and to you, O Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

For the Church XI

Jesus, especially through his parables, awakes us to a reality far richer and more certain than what we observe with only our five senses. A reality in which God is with us, God is for us, God is saving, sustaining, staving-off evil, overcoming ill, and bringing forth new and abundant life. It is this reality, God’s kingdom as we call it, which we wake into and go about our daily living each day. Yet it is a reality often overshadowed by, well, shadows, reflections of life as it is and should be, but not life itself. So today, we pray together for open eyes so that we might experience life as it really is and should be.

Let’s join together through these words adapted from Ernest Campbell,

We find your name upon our lips, O Father, for you have placed it in our hearts. However much we twist and turn and run to flee from your great love, we sense in the depth of our being that we have no future save the future that we know in you.

For minds that can think;

For hearts that can feel;

For hands and feet that can do;

We thank you.

For large purposes that call us;

For associations and causes that unite us;

For grace that restores and forgives;

We thank you.

In a day when the problems that confront us seem more than we can handle, open our eyes to the reality of your kingdom come, your will being done, on earth as it is in heaven. Open our eyes to the reality and resources of life as Your children, sisters and brothers of the King.

May we be grateful, courageous, and kind. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Praying with Dr. King

On Monday (January 18th), our nation recognizes the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A life spent well in abiding love of Jesus through which fruit that perseveres was bore. And yet, his was a life taken too quickly by hate and fear. As we reflect on how Dr. King’s life with Jesus calls us as persons and as a nation to live together, let us pray these humbling words of Dr. King. Together, let us repent with sure anticipation our Father’s response.

O thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being. We humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our hearts, souls and minds and we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loved us. We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ. We often give in order to receive, we love our friends and hate our enemies, we go the first mile but dare not travel the second, we forgive but dare not forget.

And so as we look within ourselves we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against thee.

But thou, O God, have mercy upon us.

Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know thy will. Give us the courage to do thy will. Give us the devotion to love thy will. In the name and spirit of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

For "Our" Church X

We end this first week of January 2021, longing for something different that we witnessed and experienced in 2020. We desire something new, to be newness and bring newness in and through our shared lives in Jesus. Today, and for this next week, we pray together to be a witness to what we long for, doing so through these words adapted from Ernest Campbell.

We pray, heavenly Father, for Christ City Church, bearing as individuals and as a faith family the marks of a culture that is too much with us. So…

…tune our responses to human need that we may reflect your Spirit rather than the spirit of the age.

…deliver us from want and hypocrisy that our yes may be yes and our no no.

…free us from the need to justify ourselves that others may be at ease in our presence, and our own hearts at peace.

Bless this faith family with your loving-kindness, that here on this hill that cannot be hid we may continue to raise a consistent, costly, and contagious witness to the truth that sets us free.

All of this we pray in faith and with thanksgiving through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Prayer for the New Year

Today is the first day of a new year. A day to take stock of what has been and to begin afresh into what could be. Today we pray in both directions, praising our Father for what has been (and will continue), and committing expectantly to keeping to what we can be together in Jesus.

Join your faith family today in praying these words adapted from John Ballie,

Eternal Father of our souls, let our first thought this first day of this new year be of you. Let our first impulse be to worship you, let our first word your Name, let our first action be to kneel before you in prayer.

For your perfect wisdom and perfect goodness often seen most clearly when looking back;

For the love you have for all people of all colors and political convictions;

For the love you have for us who are no better in ourselves than them;

For the great and mysterious opportunity of life with you right here and right now;

For your Spirit, who dwells in our hearts;

For the gifts of your Spirit by which life is full and a blessing to others;

We praise and worship you, O Father.

Still, when this new year’s prayer is finished, do let us think that our worship is ended and spend the rest of of this day and this coming year forgetting you most of the time and remembering only occasionally. Instead, from this quite transition from chaos to craving, let light and oy and power pour out and remain with us through each hour of each day in 2021.

May that light and joy and power:

Keep our thoughts pure;

Keep us gentle and truthful in all that we say;

Keep us discerning good, true, and beautiful;

Keep us speaking for those without a voice and caring for those who are forgotten;

Keep us faithful and diligent in our daily work;

Keep us humble in our opinions of ourselves;

Keep us honorable and generous in our dealing with one another and neighbors;

Keep us loyal to every cherished memory of the past;

Keep us mindful of our eternal destiny as your children.

O Father, you have been the refuge of your people through many generations; be our refuge in 2021, in every moment and every need that we face. Be our guide through all uncertainty and darkness. Be our guard against all that threatens our spiritual well-being. Be our strength in times of testing. Chee our hearts this new day of this new year—and everyday that follows—with your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

God With Us!

Today we celebrate God in flesh and blood. God on our side of history and hope. God with us, Emmanuel. Today, wherever and with whomever you find yourself, we can pray this poem by Malcolm Guite, knowing that our Father has answered! Let us pray together,

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us

O long-sought With-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.

Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name,

Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame.

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,

To touch a dying world with new-made hands

And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

Christmas Prayers: Three

We have prayed with, and for another, for the kind of Christmas we need and a life that lives up to the Christmas we have received. Today and this week, we pray together for Christmas to endure in our shared lives.

Blessed Father, who has chosen the weak things to confound the mighty:

Give us, your people—so susceptible to size, so easily impressed

by worldly rank and scope—give us, O Father, an eye for mangers tucked away in stables, and an ear for truth whose only fanfare is the rippled intuitions of the heart.

Visit our sick with quiet assurance of your care.

Encircle our bereaved with your warming, healing presence.

Point out markers on the trail for those of us who have lost our way.

And douse with the cold waters of common sense any among us who

might this very day be on the verge of some destructive action or decision.

The race is short, Father, even at its longest, and we desire to run it well, together, and to your glory.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Christmas Prayers: Two

Let us pick up where we ended our last Collective Prayer, “Let it be enough that you are for us, with us, and within us, through Jesus Christ,” praying together that our celebrations this season will be with more than words.

O Father who sent your Son among us that the Word might be made flesh, bless with your favor and encouragement those in our time who would ‘flesh out’ the Scriptures and make credible the gospel to an unbelieving age:

all who earnestly work for peace;

all who deliberately live on less than they might in order to

share with those who have less than they need;

all who make it their business to plead the cause of the orphan,

the prisoner, and the oppressed;

all who stand up in any company to challenge racial slurs and

expose prejudice;

all who have trained themselves to listen with genuine concern

to those who need an outlet for their grievances and cares;

all who have gone to the trouble of learning the gospel well

enough to be able to share it with others.

O Father who has told us clearly in the drama of Bethlehem that words alone won’t do, help us productively to couple what we say with what we are to do, lest our rhetoric outrun our deeds,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

Christmas Prayers: One

Ernest Campbell offers a set of three “Christmas prayers,” written to help us move our attention from all this festive season brings, to the reason for the season, as they say. Let us join with Campbell and one another in the days leading to Christmas morning to pray our way to life in Jesus’ name.

O God, our Father, whom we trust but do not fully understand; whom we love, but surely not with all our hearts; give us, we pray, not the kind of Christmas we want, but the kind we need.

We live with a sense of busyness and anxiousness;

remind us of the providence that marks a sparrow’s fall.

We live with a shrinking and shriveled sense of personal worth;

remind us of a love to which each soul is precious.

We live with a sense of the years going by too quickly or longing them to do so;

remind us of abiding purpose in which all that comes to

pass partakes of the eternal.

We live with a sense of wrongs committed and goods undone or

unattempted;

remind us that for such the Shepherd seeks, the Father waits.

Our souls take their rest, O Father, in the joy of what you are. Let it be enough that you are for us, with us, and within us,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Amen.

An Isle of Thanksgiving

The headmaster of the twin’s school recently described 2020 as a chaotic sea of anger, uncertainty, bitterness, and despair. Many of us can attest to the accuracy of this description of 2020’s voyage.

We have come to understand that traversing such seas is daunting and requires no small measure of courage and strength, as well as inlets of rest. We cannot live in chaos without reprieve. And while it may seem counterintuitive, the harbors that offer us restorative peace we need are isles of thanksgiving. These ports of confessed peace pepper the map of even our lamentable odyssey to ensure that we ‘lack in nothing’ (James 1:2-4). It is in giving thanks that the water filling our hull is poured back into the churning sea, our provisions are re-stalked, and our sails battered by the tempest are repaired, ready to be filled with the spirit as we continue our crossing.

So, while 2020 has truly been a year on turbulent waters, let us today, and often along our pilgrimage, dock on an isle of thanksgiving together, wherever we may be. We’ll do so through this prayer adapted from The Book of Common Prayer. Pray with your faith family today as they pray for you…

Accept, O Father, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, for our family of faith, and for
the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks and relationships which demand our best
efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

We thank you for strength to endure and compassion in struggle and for hope that imprisons our everyday.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.

For the Church IX

In the practice of lament, we share in one another’s suffering and toils. This prayer for the church is not a lament, but a prayer that proceeds from the revelation that there are those lamenting amongst us. Let us pray with and for another these words, adapted from Ernest Campbell.

Play the light of your truth and love upon our less-than-perfect hearts, O Father; for, left to our own understanding, we have a way of befriending sin and opposing righteousness.

Help those of us who are passing through heavy seas to ride out the storm with faith that Jesus is aboard.

By your providence lead those of us who are down on themselves into some life experience in which their worth will be affirmed.

Call back to your side those of us who can recall a day when they loved you more.

And for those of us who weep the tears of the bereaved, renew the vision of earth’s first Easter morning, that they may conceive of death henceforth as one of the ‘all things’ that work together for our good.

Keep us faithful to each other and to you, whatever comes, until on your strong arms we fall, and our work is done.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Seeing All Things

There are so many places and things designed to help us see, and so much to see in our world. We see a nation divided and people spent with inequality. We see too, small acts of kindness and generosity, the changing of the seasons, and hope in what can be bought and what can be won. And yet, for all that we see, we often miss so much. So, together, let us pray with and for one another a prayer to see the unseen, adapted from John Ballie. Pray with us…

Glory to you, O Lord my King! In love and awe we greet you this day which you have gifted! We give you praise and love and loyalty, O Lord most high!

Help us, Father, not to let our thoughts today be wholly occupied by the world’s passing show. In your loving kindness you have given us the power to lift our minds to contemplate the unseen and eternal; help us not to remain content only with what we see and feel, here and now. Instead grant that each day may do something to strengthen our grasp on the unseen world and our sense of the reality of that world. And so, as the end of our earthly life draws ever nearer, bind our hearts to the holy interests of that unseen world, so that we may not grow to be a part of these fleeting surroundings, but instead grow more and more ready for the life of the world to come.

O Father, you see and know all things. Give us grace, we pray, to know you so well and to see you so clearly that in knowing you we may know ourselves completely as you know us; and in seeing you we may see ourselves as we really are before you. Give us today a clear vision of our lives in time as it appears in your eternity. Show us our own smallness and your infinite greatness. Show us our own sin and your perfect righteousness. Show us our own lack of love and your exceeding love. Yet in your mercy show us also how, small as we are, we can take refuge in your greatness; how, sinful as we are, we may lean upon your righteousness; and how, loveless as we are, we may hide ourselves in your forgiving love. Help us today to keep our thoughts centered on the life and death of Jesus Christ our Lord, so that we may see all things in the light of the redemption which you have granted to us in his name. Amen.

For the Church VIII

This week, as we lament in preparation for peace, we pray for our city in a prayer for the church. Let us join together through these words adapted from Ernest Campbell.

Hear us now, O Father, as we pray for Dallas, Texas; praying for it, not from without, as though its dust and noise and pain were beneath us or beyond us, but from within, as your church, as those who know its squeeze and take to heart its burned-out hopes and embedded divisions.

Grant that fences that keep potential friends apart may be fashioned into bridges so that the hurts of any may concern all.

Help us to look for you and find you in the lives we live and the work we do.

O God, for whom all time and place are your habitation, be our God for we would be your people.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Personal Lament

Knowing that life is not all it can be, recognizing our contribution to the shortcomings, and inviting our Father who desires more for us (and says it is ours already), is the foundation of lament. This week, in light of the Sermon on the Mount and our nation's anxious state and our ruptured and juvenile relationships, let us personally lament together. Pray with your faith family; these words adapted from John Baillie.

Holy Father, we have dedicated our souls and lives to you, yet we lament before you that we are still so inclined to sin and so reluctant to obey:

So attached to what makes us feel good, so neglectful of spiritual things;

So quick to gratify our bodies, so slow to nourish our souls;

So greedy to present delight, so indifferent to lasting blessing;

So fond of being lazy, so unprepared for work;

So soon to play, so delayed at prayer;

So quick to look after ourselves, so slow to look after others;

So eager to get, so reluctant to give;

So confident in our claims, so low in our performances;

So full of good intentions, so unwilling to fulfill them;

So harsh with those around us, so indulgent with ourselves;

So eager to find fault, so resentful when others find fault with us;

So unfit for great tasks, so unhappy with small ones;

So helpless without you, and yet so unwilling to be tied to you.

O merciful Father, forgive us yet again. Hear this sad account of our failings and in your great mercy blot it out of your memory. Give us faith to lay hold of your perfect holiness and to rejoice in the righteousness of Christ our Savior. Grant that resting on his goodness and not our own we may become more like him, so that our will may be united with his, in obedience to yours. All this we ask for Jesus’ holy name’s sake. Amen.

Heaven Cares

We’ve talked quite a bit about ‘saltiness’ and being ‘light’ these last couple of months. And while too much repetition can dull the senses, let us risk one more prayerful reflection for the sake of the church. This week, we join together in praying that whatever might dilute the tanginess of a life lived out of love and whatever might press us to hide away the lamp of good works would be overcome by heaven’s care. Let us pray together these words adapted from Ernest Campbell.

As we look to the world within we are prompted to lay our many needs before you Father. In the brilliance of our Savior’s birth, his entrance into our dim world, we ask for power to overcome whatever in us runs counter to his love, and for courage to be loyal to the light he came to share.

May his lowliness curb our status-seeking,

his humility melt away our pride,

his purity condemn our lust,

his love for people shame the love we waste on things and ideas,

his sense of mission challenger our aimlessness and steady our passions.

Give us feeling for those whose lot in life is harder than our own, and a particular concern for those who live and dies as though Christ has not come, who do not know at the heart of things love reigns, and heaven cares.

All this we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Prayer for Heart

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus goes directly to the heart of what keeps us from experiencing the fullness of the realities inherent in our Father’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, namely, our heart. So this week, we join together in prayer for a heart in-beat with our Father’s through these words adapted from John Bailie.

Let’s pray.

O Father, you are the only origin of all that is good and fair and true; to you we lift up our souls.

O Father, send your Spirit now to enter our hearts.

Now as we pray this prayer for ourselves and one another, do not let any room within us be secretly closed to keep you out.

O Father, give us the power to pursue only what is good.

Now as we pray this prayer for ourselves and one another, banish any evil purpose or plan that lurks in our hearts waiting for an opportunity to be fulfilled.

O Father, bless all our plans and work, and help them to prosper according to your will.

Now as we pray this prayer for ourselves and one another, do not let us hold on to any plan that we dare not ask you to bless.

O Father, give us purity of heart, a single-mindedness, and meekness.

Now as we pray this prayer for ourselves and one another, do not let us say to ourselves secretly, ‘But not yet’ or ‘But not too much.’

O Father, bless every member of this faith family.

Now as we pray for ourselves and one another, do not let us harbor in our hearts any jealousy, bitterness, or anger toward one another.

O Father, bless our enemies and all those who have done us wrong.

Now as we pray for ourselves and one another, do not let us cherish in our hearts the intention to pay the back as soon as we get an opportunity.

O Father, let your Kingdom come on earth.

Now as we pray for ourselves and one another, do not let us still intend in our hearts to devote our best hours and years to the service of lesser goals.

O Holy Spirit of our Father, as we finish this time of prayer for ourselves and one another, do not let us return to evil thoughts and the ways of the world, but let the same heart be in us that was in Christ Jesus, our LORD. Amen.