A United Methodist Pastor's Theological Reflections

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory (nikos) through our Lord Jesus Christ." - I Corinthians 15:57


Monday, August 20, 2018

Sunday Pastoral Prayer (August 19) Athens First UMC



[Yesterday’s sermon focused on David’s son, Solomon who asked God to give him the gift of wisdom in order to govern the people of Israel. It was a great topic to consider for our backpack blessing Sunday. The picture above is the blessing time during the 10:30 service. See picture below of how our acolyte came prepared! During our worship services, we also blessed water bottles for our annual water bottle give away for college students which will be this Friday in front of our church building from 11 am to 2 pm.]

O God, help us to be like Solomon who chose wisdom as the greatest gift he could ever receive from you. In this new school year, give us a hunger to learn and grow in our understanding of who you are and who you are calling us to be. 

Help us to be up for the challenge this year of reading, studying, and growing in our understanding of you and the world around us. Give us open minds to see things from new perspectives. Remind us that you want us to be life-long learners.

We ask your blessings to be upon students, teachers, professors, administrators, and support staff in our surrounding local schools and college campuses. We pray that this would truly be a place where we can learn and grow together.

We also give you thanks for the many learning faith ministries of our church which will be in few swing next month; ministries like Sunday School classes, bible studies, and our Growing Tree pre-school. Thank you for the many opportunities that you give us to have a learning faith. 

O God, you have placed our church in this location of this university community on purpose. We are here to be a haven of blessing and peace for all who live in this community as well as the many students who will be arriving this week to begin a new academic year.

As we get ready to give away water bottles to those who walk by our church building this week, may this simple gesture of welcome be a blessing to those who receive them. 

And so, we pray your blessings upon these water bottles, and upon the servants who will be volunteering this Friday to give them away, that all would know that we are a church with open hearts, open minds, and open doors. We pray that the welcome baskets that we will be delivering to our neighboring fraternities and sororities would be a blessing to them as well.

Like Solomon, grant us your wisdom and may this be another great year of learning together. We pray this in the name of Christ who taught us to pray….  “Our Father, who art in heaven…”



[Even our acolyte went all out for blessing of the backpack Sunday!]

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