Worship Prayers for May 28

PRAYER IN PREPARATION-  Great and Loving God, we who come to worship are also persons who sometimes feel that you have abandoned us or left us to fend for ourselves.  Although we rely upon your ever-presence, we suspect your absence.  Encourage us, O God, when we doubt your promise to be with us always.  In our worship, grant us the gifts of discernment and hope.  Enable us to recognize your workings in the commonplace and the everyday.  Open us to faith and help us to perceive not only what is, but also what, by your grace, might be.  We offer this prayer in the name of Jesus.  Amen

CALL TO WORSHIP

Come.  Bring your hands and your feet, your heads and your hearts.

Be present here, alive and authentic.

Come to speak and to hear, to receive and to give.

Come as people of God into the divine presence.

   PRAYER OF CONFESSION

We need forgiveness, God, for we are not the people you would have us be, and we are not the people we would like to be.  Time and again, the life of abundance you call us to live and share remains only a dream.  Forgive us and set us free to be all that we can be.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen

   SCRIPTURE                                                                                                                         Acts 1:1-11, p. 118