[Picture is one I took in Iceland, it was an unforgettable moment of gratitude and awe that has never left.] Each morning the sun rises We are overwhelmed with what lies ahead We are anxious about what’s left to be done We are feeling inadequate to all of what life brings The hours bleed into […]
Tonight we are here and we are uneasy. We are sad. We mourn the condition of the world. I wrote this prayer with a heavy heart and longing to comfort and show compassion to those with the burden of unbearable pain because of the Orlando shooting and read this at the vigil in Sarnia, Ontario.
We ran a small conference on the weekend as a response to the Act Like Men conference this coming weekend. The group of 200 of us prayed this together to end. You can listen to all the talks here. Look at your people We came here Gathered Sang Watched Listened Found Joy Got Angry Discovered
God Loss isn’t something we like facing into. It’s not something we plan for It’s not something we we want in our future It’s not something we can control or fit into our plans Yet it’s not our plans we are fitting anything into It’s yours Your mysterious, good and all-powerful plan We all scramble
God of heaven and earth. God who sees us. God who hears our cry. We thank-you for creating us and creating this world. We know you are not done, and that this world is far from the good that you intended. Thank-you for being a God who does not give up and who pursues his
Remind us of our smallness Remind us that you are still working, even when we can’t see Remind us that the kingdom exists all around us Remind us that hope is found buried and covered in dirt Transform our desires away from the big and loud Point them to the small and insignificant Remove our
God, we know that we don’t have what it takes We know that we are fallen, sinful people We know that even in our best moments we fail to meet your demands So teach us more about your grace Remind us again of what is at stake Take our lives and accept our death It
God thank-you for sending your son to take our place We know we are sinful and aren’t able to stand up to your standards We accept your grace Help us learn to live in it Help us not hoard it Thank-you for loving us because of who we are and not what we do We
God, thank-you for your blessings Thank-you for our wealth Thank-you for our community Let us not turn your blessings into curses Let us not hoard your wealth as if it’s ours Let us not focus on ourselves but each other God, thank-you for this story Thank-you for the barns we already have Thank-you for our
May we be the kind of community where Wives love their husbands and Husbands love their wives and where Husbands and Wives mutually sacrifice and submit to one another May we be the kind of community where Parents listen to their children Children obey their parents and where Children and Parents seek understanding and not
God, Let us wait well While we wait, we will restore with you While we wait, we will redeem with you While we wait, we are transformed by you Jesus, Let us wait well While we wait, we hope for your presence While we wait, we pray for peace in tension While we wait, we
God, we ask for forgiveness, we repent For complaining about our trivial circumstances For caring about our own needs before others For ceasing to be the church and a sign of your news For depending on ourselves for fulfillment For depending on our purchases for peace For depending on money for security May we seek
May we have perspective And count our accomplishments not May we understand your story And count our failures not May we see your unfolding plan And be found firmly within it May we participate in your redemption And be redeemed ourselves May we rejoice And keep on rejoicing May we embrace you As you embrace
Today we remember when you walked into Jerusalem on a donkey. We get excited because in many ways this means we have won. This is a sign of victory and you are our king. So we yell with the crowds ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ and ‘Blessed is the
Lord forgive us, for we are hypocrites We believe one thing and do another We say one thing and never back it up Our lives are a mess One contradiction after another We believe that you died We believe that you rose We believe that you will save us We believe that you reign We
The revolution confronts us every day Do we want to join in? Will we live as if Jesus is alive and well today? Or will we sit back take in the sites? Will we hope that believing it happened is good enough? God has been orchestrating a story It is so grand that it doesn’t
God forgive us for not truly living in your kingdom. Whether it be through our money, time and relationships We always tend to make it about us We never think twice Before following blindly what we think is normal God forgive us for being dictated by our cashflow For feeling secure when we have money
A prayer on Acts 7 Merciful God, We need a new perspective We need to accept that our perspective might be wrong We need the courage to see live through the eyes and ears of the other Compassionate Father, Give us love for those who aren’t like us Remove our hands from our ears and
Loving God and Father Help us to be the people of the Kingdom Committed to your story and and what it entails Giving it authority in our lives Help us to grasp the intricacies of your grace Help us to think well, live well Form our desires to be from you Let us recognize our
May we remember who we are We are citizens of God’s Kingdom We are God’s children We are disciples of Christ May we remember what our task is Our task is to model citizenship in God’s Kingdom Our task is to love one another and bear each other’s burdens Our task is to give and