Courage for Community

May we have the courage for community,

the full unvarnished

messy, unruly beauty of difference and diversity;

the annoying and the delightful,

the hurt, the heartbroken and the healing

the vulnerable and the powerful all sacred sparks of light.

May we have the courage to choose people over profit,

relationship over victory and abundance for all over sacristy.

May we have the courage to speak up for what might be,

even if the room is ruff, fear is threatening the data,

and the truth is dying in broad daylight.

May we have the courage to choose a different way,

set a new course and bring everyone along.

May we take heart and hands to weave and re-weave

the fabric of society into one that saves us all.

(Please share and reflect on your prayers for our nation, world, city and state.)

Sung Prayer Refrain (Choose a song that works well for your context, that folks like to sing)

Courage for Being,

May we have the courage to be,

just be,

more than the sum of our doing and producing,

measuring and making.

May we have the courage to rest and renew,

center and sabbath,

awake to the wonder of who we are;

the embodiment of a life-giving, All-Loving God,

created bit-by-bit of the tuff stuff that survived the death of stars,

capable of the hard things, deep love and tender touch.

May we have the courage to live, fully alive

loved into growth and nurtured into change,

bold enough to be who we are.

(Please share and reflect on your prayers for your being.)

Sung Prayer Refrain (Choose a song that works well for your context, that folks like to sing)

Courage for Grief and Gratitude

May we have the courage for grief and for gratitude,

the fullness of life’s unvarnished stories alive in honest hearts,

memories felt in laughter and tears,

for the heavy and aching,

the lonely hearts breaking,

for the gift of love in the mists of it all,

for the presence that surpasses absence and the resilience seeded within,

may we have the courage to love with unguarded hearts.

(Please share and reflect on your prayers naming the grief and gratitude you carry this day.)

Sung Prayer Refrain (Choose a song that works well for your context, that folks like to sing)

Courage for the Future of our church

May we have the courage to transform the church, like yeast in the bread dough,

rising from the prison of empire,

healing the toxins, tending the wounds and restoring our faith,

vulnerable and durable, simple and just.

May we have the courage to show up and

love the weird and wild and wonderful,

the awkward and inconvenient,

the anxious and blundering fullness of our humanity.

May we have the courage to love in more than words,

invest in each other and build this work year upon year that all may be free.

May we have the courage to the church of Mary’s first Easter sermon

and the Holy Mother’s willful Magnificat,

the church of grace and generosity,

of cup and bread, basin and towel,

making earth as it is in heaven with each breath.

(Please share and reflect on your prayers for our church and the church universal.)

Sung Prayer Refrain (Choose a song that works well for your context, that folks like to sing)

Join with me in praying the prayer that Jesus taught his followers to pray, use what ever language means the most to you…

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom

come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.