Sunday, July 11, 2010
Offered by Donna Gray, Minister for Children and Families

God for all days and for all seasons: how important it is, God that we have come together on a summer morning to acknowledge our need of you and of one another. How do you see us this morning gathered in a church building, in beautiful surroundings? If these walls could talk, they would tell many stories about the people who have come through these doors and still do today.

Women, men, children, youth—young and old alike your children, adopted by you. We thank you for the ways our lives have been enriched by men and women, children and youth from every walk of life, every culture, language, gender, and stature. We thank you for our dependence on each other’s skills, work, love, and gifts. We praise you for the development and unfolding of human character. Here, O God, in your house and in your world people have served and are serving you with energy, intelligence, and imagination and love relying on your mercy and rejoicing in your promises.

In every age you have chosen servants to speak your words and lead your people. We thank you for great men and women of history whose love for your church made it a willing instrument of your care and mercy and who placed you first in their lives and held to their faith in good and bad times.

Today we lift up with thanks and gratitude for twenty-five years of service to this church and the church worldwide, John Buchanan—faithful minister, proclaiming the good news in Word and Sacrament, teaching faith and caring for people. We thank you for his wife, Sue, for sons and daughters and grandchildren. Their love, support, and care have nurtured and sustained John’s capacity to love and serve.

We give thanks for all that has made today possible and all that makes tomorrow promising. O God, we are your church, called, adopted, built up, blessed, and formed to Jesus Christ.

Help us to know who we are and in all we do to be your faithful servants; give us the courage to care and the power to act. For your sake, help us be kind. Hear us as we pray together: Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church