Sharing two Prayers for Worship

Two weeks ago I enjoyed the rare privilege of helping to lead worship at Wake Forest Presbyterian Church. I wrote about this in “Happy Monday, it’s going to be a great week!” – but I didn’t post my prayers.

Here, then, for the people who asked, are both the opening prayer (“praise and adoration”) and the Offertory prayer.

If you do pray then I’d like to suggest that you voice the prayers out loud. I’m not sure exactly why, but when we speak our prayers aloud something transpires that takes everything up another level.

Regardless of where you are this morning (and I pray that you will be in church) take this opportunity to spend a moment or two with God and celebrate the presence of the divine. And be grateful, always, for the amazing grace of God’s generous love.

Prayer of Praise and Adoration:

Amazing awesome God, who was Imaginative enough to come to us as an infant child and who is Glorious enough to fill this space with light and joy, please meet us here today and fill us with hope, grace, wonder and promise.

Great God of Creation, who is both impossible to grasp and impossible to let go of, please support and guide us in our intention to live each day as grateful people who hold the word of life with gravity and purpose.

May your Spirit seep through our consciousness and into the bedrock of our souls. May your light and life so fill us that you spill out of us and get loose all over this world! May our lives tell the truth about the Good News with an eloquence born in faithfulness and expressed via humility.

May we not only receive your Grace but live it out loud too. In the name of Jesus, who makes everything possible – Amen!

Prayer of Dedication (for the offering):

Generous Lord, we stand before you this morning – sometimes with heads bowed and hands folded because we are overwhelmed by our own failings… and sometimes with our heads lifted up and hands raised because we embrace your glory and grasp our acceptance into love as children and heirs.

Sometimes we feel both emotions simultaneously. But what we cannot feel, Lord, is indifference. So we offer our tithes, our offerings, our faithfulness and ourselves, happy to participate in this small way in your ongoing work through the ministries of this church.

Thank you, Lord God, we are humble, we are grateful, and we are privileged to serve.

And all God’s people said…… “AMEN”