Service Prayers
Help Us To Be There
Holy, life-giving Spirit,
infuse in us your ability to remain present to your people.
Help us to be there,
to be right there,
for the people who need us.
There for young people,
there for the elderly,
there for the brokenhearted;
fire our hearts with your life-changing presence.
Even though we know you to be everywhere
and in everything,
give us the ability to be fully in one place at a time,
open and ready to love.
Help Us To Use Our Gifts
God of love,
help us to use the gifts you give us
for the people who need us.
Help us to see their need and, inspired by your Son,
reach beyond ourselves,
beyond our institutions,
to the very margins and bring all to you, the center.
May all we do be in preparation to serve more fully,
seeking you in the world that we are invited to create with you.
Send your Spirit to keep us aglow with the desire of justice.
- Author Unknown
A Step Closer
God without borders,
help us to take a step closer to our brothers and sisters.
Wherever they originally are from,
we are all headed towards You,
help us travel this one road together.
Give us the ability to welcome and to serve as you would today,
even if out steps are local
let our hearts be filled with a love of the global.
Today we choose you, we choose life,
we choose to be with others and to be for others,
thanking you for the chance to serve.
- Author Unknown
Being Present
Always-present God,
help me to be present to all who need me.
Help me be present
to those I know too well to actually see
and to those who are unseen strangers to me.
Give me the ability to model your attentive, loving gaze
when I view my world,
my family
and my friends,
who are seen and loved by you first.
Finally, may my availability be marked by a desire
to be like your Son:
open to being sent,
open to being loved,
open to becoming love in the world.
- Author Unknown
All-loving God
All-loving God,
awaken in us the patience to be incomplete,
to be in the process of becoming closer to you and to your people.
Help us to know that slow is real,
that gradual is divine
and keep gently asking for our participation in the work of salvation.
Give us ways to respond;
give us the energy to be actively engaged
in the lives around us
and the world you have given us.
- Author Unknown
Break My Heart
God,
I know you are out there,
waiting to break my heart open
through service to your people.
Show me how to find you in them,
to open my heart and hands to feel and to touch,
to laugh and to cry with your chosen ones, the poor,
who carry with them direct pathways to your loving heart.
Give me a taste for service
so that I too might desire more
and more.
The Work of Christmas Begins
When the carols have been stilled,
When the star-topped tree is taken down,
When family and friends are gone home,
When we are back to our schedules
The work of Christmas begins:
To welcome the refugee,
To heal a broken planet,
To feed the hungry,
To build bridges of trust, not walls of fear,
To share our gifts,
To seek justice and peace for all people,
To bring Christ’s light to the world.
- by Michael Dougherty, a variation on Howard Thurman’s ‘When the Song of the Angels is Stilled’
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