I always like to include these first prayers. I think
the people who can't attend church gain great benefit from these words which
are shared during the service.
Readings:
The First Reading: Romans 8:12-17
The Gospel Reading: John 3:1-17
Gathering
God’s People
Call to Worship
(Abingdon Worship Annual 2015)
Greetings, divine beings! Give glory and power to the
Lord!
Let heaven bow down to the Lord’s holy splendour.
Greetings, human beings! Give glory and power to the
Lord!
Let earth bow down to the Lord’s holy splendour.
The Lord will give strength to God’s
people.
The Lord will bless God’s people with peace!
The voice of God created the universe. The voice of
God calls us to worship, and we cry:
Glory!
The voice of Christ names us as sisters and brothers.
The voice of Christ calls us to worship, and we cry: Glory! Glory!
The voice of the Spirit claims us as children of God.
The voice of the Spirit calls us to worship, and we cry:
Glory! Glory! Glory!
Opening Prayer
Holy and awesome God, you are too amazing for us to
comprehend! We thank you for the majesty, the power, and the glory of your
divine presence. We are grateful that you came to us in the person of a tiny,
human baby. You sent your own Son to enter fully into our lives. Our connection
with Christ continues through the power of your Holy Spirit— the life-giving
Spirit that transforms us into brothers and sisters of Christ, full partners in
the glory of your divine love. With hearts overflowing, we thank you! Amen and
amen.
Prayer of Confession
God, you come to us in a blaze of glory, but feeling
unworthy of your presence, we cower and hide.
You invite us to become one with Christ, but in our
fear of the demand to take up our cross, we pull back from you.
You offer us the gift of new life, but we roll our
eyes, convinced of our knowledge of human biology and the impossibility of
resurrection.
You manifest yourself to us in so many ways, but we
have become experts at dodging, avoiding, and rationalising our refusal to
follow your ways. Forgive us, Holy
One.
Come to us once again, we pray. Open our eyes to your
glory. Open our hearts to your love. Open our minds to your divine presence in our
lives. Amen.
Declaration of Forgiveness
God’s own child was born on earth, in our midst, as a sign
of God’s deep and abiding love for each one of us. Through
the witness of the Holy Spirit, we claim this love for our own. We are the
forgiven and loved children of God.
Thanks, be to God.
Rev. John talked
today about whether we, as a church, function as an organization or an
organism. He introduced this idea by referring to the individualistic way
Australians operate, even to the extent of
local congregations not being able to think of themselves as part of a
worldwide “organism”.
He went on to say that many people take on or are
given jobs in the church which reflect their daily occupations.
This leads to people fulfilling “functions” rather
than building the kingdom. We fail to open ourselves to welcome all into the
kingdom because we stay in our little “world”.
This has been something I have been
considering for
some time. The Christian
Church is unbelievably diverse in its
expression. If
we travelled from country to
country, especially outside the European
world, we
would see churches which seem
unrecognizable to us as a church, that is
because
our idea of what a church is, is so
culturally bound.
That's not such a problem if we are only confining
ourselves to think about Christians from different lands but if we look into
that type of “classifying” more closely, we would resound that we exclude
certain people from those we would consider being part of our congregation
because of trivial differences. What does it matter what a person wears? What
does it matter whether a person speaks grammatically (or softly or loudly).
What does it matter whether someone is a bit gauche and bursts out at inappropriate
times.
Jesus opened his arms to us all. When we are thinking
that someone is not quite right for our congregation, put Jesus in our place
and think what he would do.
I really worry that in our attempts to be “Christian” sometimes
we are being most unChristlike.
No comments:
Post a Comment