Sunday, October 21, 2012
Offered by Adam H. Fronczek, Associate Pastor

Gracious God, thank you for this day you have given us. For our friends and our family. For a place to worship you in peace. For this your church, which we are invited to claim as our home. Here we spend time because in this place we can bring our concerns and lay our prayers at your feet.

We are aware of the fragility of our bodies and our minds. We are aware of the loneliness that so often separates us one from another. We take this time today, O God, time we have set aside for you, to remember situations in our own lives and in the lives of others where our human weakness and the divisions it causes have been the source of suffering.

We pray for people in the midst of relationship trouble or divorce and for children and parents who are estranged from one another. We pray for people struggling with addiction or anxiety or depression, for people who are hospitalized, for those grieving the loss of a loved one. We pray for people who have lost hope and are contemplating suicide. And we ask that you would remind each of these people, and all of us, gathered in your house, that we are all here in the midst of our brokenness because Christ came into the world to seek and save the lost. And so here we find a home together.

We give you thanks that Christ came into the world also to work not just for individual concerns, but for the ones we share as a human family. And so we pray today for people who are poor or hungry, people who live in the midst of war or whose homes and lives have been turned upside down by a natural disaster, an unjust government, or the greed of a criminal.

As we gather here to praise you, Lord, remind us that these people whose names we may not know are just like us; they worry about their own relationships and personal struggles; they rejoice in the successes of their children and the gift of love where it may be found. So whether we remember strangers in this room, on our street, or around the globe, make us mindful that we are all sisters and brothers, that we bear responsibility for one another, and that through your love, we have it within our power to change the lives of others for the better. And help us to do just that, through the generosity of our hearts and hands, the gift of our time, and the best use we can make of the blessings you have given us.

Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church