Worship Prayers for Jan. 14

CENTERING PRAYER:  As I rise this day, O God, I give you thanks for breath and life, for the people I will see today, for family, neighbors, and friends, and for those whose ways are challenging to my serenity.  Help me to give thanks especially for the people who pull me to new understandings and show me sides of life that I have not known or do not welcome.  Urge me to follow you today; in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

  

CALL TO WORSHIP (from Psalm 139)

O LORD, you have searched us and known us.

        You know when we sit down and when we rise up;

        you discern our thoughts from far away.

You search out our paths and our lying down, and are acquainted with all our ways.

        How weighty to us are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

We try to count them - they are more than the sand;

        We come to the end - we are still with you.

Come, let us worship the God who formed us and is reforming the world.

   PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Holy God, you see into each of us and know us fully as creatures in need of your constant care.  We confess we have neither heard your word nor followed your will.  We have failed our nation, neighbors, families, friends, and ourselves.  Give us ears to hear your wisdom and lives to follow your call.  Lead us to honesty and faith so that we may begin again with renewed strength; We continue to pray in Jesus’ name.  (Silent Confession)

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

…God of grace, hear our prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.  Amen.

[Prayer requests may be given to one of the pastors before the service.]

† AFFIRMATION OF FAITH – Confession of 1967 – 9.07

In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.  Jesus Christ is God with humankind.  He is the eternal Son of the Father, who became human and lived among us to fulfill the work of reconciliation.  He is present in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit to continue and complete his mission.  This work of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the foundation of all confessional statements about God, humanity, and the world. Therefore, the church calls all people to be reconciled to God and to one another.

  

SCRIPTURE READING                                                        1 Samuel 3:1-10

For the sermon, click here.