Sunday Pastoral Prayer (Oct. 6) Athens First UMC

[Next Sunday, October 13, Logan Waldie, one of our church members who serves on our Leadership Board, will be sharing his testimony at both worship services. It’s a Sunday you won’t want to miss which is the theme of this week’s focus on the importance of weekly worship. Click here for the sermon.]

O God, like the Psalmist said, “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”

 

We are glad to be in your house today, O God, especially on this World Communion Sunday in which we are mindful of the common bond that we share with churches all around the world in our worship of you. And we are especially grateful for our neighboring churches, their pastors, their congregations and the work they do to bring about your kingdom here on earth. Thank you for their ministries and service to our community.

 

We are glad to be here today, O God. We are glad to worship you, to hear your Word, to experience your beauty through music, to reconnect with brothers and sisters in Christ, to offer our prayers for one another and for the needs of our community and world, to draw closer to you, and to receive a blessing at the end of the service reminding us that we are each a beloved child of God, created in your image.

 

Hear our prayers, O God as we lift up to you the concerns of our community…

 

Hear our prayers, O God as we lift up to you the concerns of our nation and our world…

 

O God, forgive us for where we fail to be your church, and for those times when we have made the church more about us than about you. May everything that we do and say be in gratitude of your saving, transforming, and redeeming love made know to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To him be all honor, glory, power, and authority, now and forevermore.

 

It is in his name that we pray the prayer that Jesus taught us to say together, “Our Father, who art in heaven…”