CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Wondrous and loving God, grateful for this day, grateful for your presence and most grateful for your love and mercy, we humbly offer our thanks and praise. If not for you, we could not take a single breath. If not for you, we could not sing our songs of praise. If not for you, we could not love. We confess our worry, our angst, and our days of going about our business oblivious to your guardian, guiding presence. When we look into the eyes of a friend, or find ourselves mirroring the innocent, trusting smile of a child, or feel the reassuring embrace of a loved one, let us see you; let us mirror you, and let us so embrace one another. Keep us from carrying our regrets and lamentations like so much baggage on our backs. Teach us to carry the Christ instead, the embodiment of forgiveness, in whose name we pray. Amen.
PREPARING FOR THE OFFERING
Stephen King wrote a book which was made into a movie starring Ed Harris and Max von Sydow called Needful Things. The story delves into the lives of unremarkable folks in an unremarkable town in Maine. A mysterious new shop opens in town, which always seems to stock the deepest desires of each shopper who enters it. The much needed object is dangled by the shop-owner like a carrot before a hungry donkey. The price to own it — their soul. As we journey toward Jerusalem with Jesus, let us pay close attention to the not-so-remarkable biblical characters, their deepest desires and the needful things that will motivate their actions.
UNISON OFFERTORY PRAYER
Lord, Bless the gifts we bring. We offer them, always, with grateful hearts. We give not from our surplus, rather we give this tithe as our first and most important gift. Pour out your Spirit of all things possible upon this offering that it may serve those in need, build up your church, and keep it ever relevant in this complex world. Let what we are fortunate enough to share be an instrument of transformation, restoring the souls of the lost and forgotten. In the name of the Christ, we pray. Amen.
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