September 13, 2009
Offered Alice M. Trowbridge, Associate Pastor

God of the one human family, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, how we praise your holy name. We are grateful this day for waking into another dawn, another beginning, another opportunity to be your faithful people, to serve and honor you in word and deed.

You ask us, who do you say that I am? And with the church throughout the ages, we give answer to that question by telling the greatest story ever told—that you, our Creator, sent your only Son into the world, entrusting him to human hands. And he grew into a man, and by his works and words, he showed us how to live. He suffered for our sake, died on the cross, and we come together to remember the great story that is your story and ours.

You have called us each by name, and we belong to you. We rejoice with these newly baptized this day, and we remember our own baptism, that yours is a love that will never let us go. You have entrusted to us the gift of our lives, that even when we falter from your ways, you believe in us still.

We pray this day for those in harm’s way—where wars rage on, where disease runs rampant, where your people live in isolation or fear. Guide us we pray, guide your church throughout the world, to be an agent of justice and reconciliation, of compassion and peace. Show us new ways we can love and serve you.

In this world of privilege and poverty, keep us on your path, where your light shines upon us all, and where you value us, not by what we have, but by how generously we give of ourselves to the building of your kingdom. May we invest wisely, mindful of all that you have entrusted to our care, and following in the shining example of our Lord, who came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life for us. It is in his name that we pray together saying, Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church