Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have welcomed us into your family with extravagant grace. Though we deserved nothing but condemnation from you, we thank you for lavishing goodness on us in Jesus Christ, who freely gives us forgiveness, life, and a family to belong.

Gracious Father, we are humbled by your humility in seeking us. We stand in awe of your strength and love that you chose to surrender your right to honor and glory to accept suffering and death you did not deserve, all to serve us and save us in love while we were still your enemies. So please help us to lay aside all prejudice and pride so that we can love others in that same humble way that you have loved us. Please give us supernatural sight to see others as you see them, as people who bear your image with sacred dignity whom you love. Continue reading →

Our Redeemer-King, we thank you that you are a God who meets us at our point of greatest need.  Thank you do not ask us to sacrifice anything without the promise of your provision, that what you from us never exceeds what you give to us, and that your work will never lack your supply.

We thank you that in Christ you know the pain of sacrifice more than anyone and that in Christ your accepted the greatest sacrifice for us for the joy of your mission, so that your love and healing power would prevail over our selfish and destructive attempts to save ourselves. Lord, please open our eyes to see that sacrificing everything we have to your service is our greatest honor and purpose and the way of abundant life.  We ask you put to death our pride and fear born of unbelief and fill us such boldness and peace and confidence in your promises that we also can take up our cross and follow you for the joy of finding true life in sacrificing for you and your great purpose for us.  We pray for boldness and peace and confidence even when we don’t understand the path or the process.  When we are full of doubts, please fix our eyes firmly on Jesus, whose resurrection is the living proof that your word and your promises and your good and perfect will for us cannot fail but are all fulfilled in him. Continue reading →

Sovereign Lord, like Abraham, you have called us to follow you into a future world and mission filled with danger and uncertainty. We know that the evils we see so quickly and frequently are not new, but they feel new to us, closer to us, and more overwhelming to us than ever before. Lord, please fill us with your Holy Spirit’s supernatural presence and power that casts out all fear. Fill us with your supernatural life and love that empowers us to live by your promises and to love others boldly as you have loved us. Please make us compassionate and not callous toward those who suffer.

We pray for the cities of Orlando, Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, and Dallas, whose grief is still fresh. Please draw near to all who grieve with your comfort and hope. And we ask you to comfort and protect the people of Nice and the people of Turkey, from those who would do further violence. Use our sister churches in those places to wrap strong arms of support around those who grieve.

But Lord, we are weary with grief and so tired of oppression. You are the Just Judge of all the earth, so how long must the weak and the innocent suffer at the hands of the violent? Please come to deliver the oppressed with mercy and bring justice to your world. We thank you for the violence you have prevented, but we ask boldly for so much more: restrain and break the power of those who do great evil; lead them to repent, and to find forgiveness and eternal life in the Lord Jesus, and to surrender their heart and bow their knee to you as their King.

And in the midst of it all, help the leaders of our nation, state, and city, and above all us, your people, to follow you into hard places and hard relationships as servants of true peace and reconciliation and truth. Please forgive us and keep us from being part of the unending cycles of anger and revenge and accusation, on social media and wherever we engage others with whom we disagree. Please give us courage and care to seek out knowledge and to dispel ignorance and prejudice and delusions with truth that sets us free to see injustice clearly, that considers all sides of a story with empathy, and that moves us to compassion and relentless action toward unity and justice for all people.

Where there are bombs, and shootings, and wars, please help us, your church, our sisters and brothers everywhere, to follow you faithfully in the way of the cross, no matter the cost. Help us to be islands of your safety in an ocean of unrest, to be an oasis of your mercy in places dying with anger, and to be a ray of your hope for people who walk in darkness, to be a people who boldly pursue justice and share freely the good news of Jesus Christ where wickedness prevails. Please give us courage and compassion to weep with those who weep, to provide supplies and work for those in need, and be compassionate witnesses of the only true hope for the world in the empty tomb, the occupied throne, and the return of King Jesus in the flesh. Come, Lord Jesus! Make all things new.

Lord, we pray for the coming of your kingdom in all its fullness using the words that you taught us, saying, “Our Father…

Liturgist:           I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever.
All:                      Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.  (Psalm 86:11-12)

Father, we never want to hear you say these terrifying words to us: “I never knew you.” Please help us to know you truly and to love you deeply as you designed us to do, because you have poured your love into our hearts by your Holy Spirit. Break down every wall and every barrier that we put in the way of knowing you. Seize the attention of our hearts from the distractions that we allow to seduce us away from knowing you. We long for your truth to set us free from every hindrance so that our hearts would be united and whole to know and honor you.

Liturgist:           I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, . . .

Lord, please help us be doers, and not just hearers, of your word. When we stand before you as our Judge, we pray that our lives will show the fruit of truly knowing you, the fruit of love that is more than merely being sentimental or doing thing that are convenient, but rather real love that sacrifices when it isn’t convenient or pleasant, the fruit of your character expressed in us as we do our jobs for your glory with skill and devotion, as we welcome strangers generously, as we care for the sick, as we forgive and bless those who hate us, as we visit those who are prisoners, as we care for and adopt children, as we serve a friend who suffers.

Liturgist:           I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, . . .

Father, please be our rock that holds firm when life’s storms put our faith to the rest: when marriage is hard, when friends disappoint, when children wander and won’t listen, when parents and leaders fail, when everything in us wants to give up and surrender to bitter anger, we pray for your strong, patient love to hold us fast, to calm us and give us courage to trust you and to love as we have been loved by you.

Liturgist:           I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, . . .

We pray for those who do not know you, for family and friends, for co-workers and neighbors, some of whom have attended a church and who think they know you but do not. Please open their eyes and hearts to think, to see, to understand, and to embrace you as their true Creator and Savior. Please make us your loving ambassadors in their lives. Help us adorn that good news with humble love. Help us to listen and share and discuss the truth for the sake of love and with a manner of love and a motive of love.

Lord, pray for the coming of your kingdom in all its fullness using the words that you taught us, saying, “Our Father…

Lord of love, we thank you for grace unmeasured, vast and free. We pray for your resurrection life in us that awakens hearts that have grown cold, and minds that have grown dull, and hope that has grown distracted and weak.

God of truth, we do thank you for a legacy of faithfulness in our church in proclaiming and teaching the truth of the good news that you have entrusted to you in your word. We pray that you would not allow us to lose our first love, but to show our commitment to the gospel in word and deed. We pray that Central would be known in our city for showing the truth in love as much as teaching the truth in words, for our giving as much as our resources, for reaching out to share the gospel with others as much as we delight to lift up our hearts together in worship.

And so we pray that you would enable us to love in the way that you have first loved us. Please help us move beyond good intentions to love you, to remember you are present with us every moment of every day, to choose to live a praying life and an obeying life in every situation.

We ask that you would help us beyond our good intentions in loving the people in our lives. We lift up to you now the people in our lives that we want to love and need to love, but find it very hard to love, the people that we need to forgive, people that we have avoided or insulted or pushed away in fear or anger. Please make us faithful to bless and to pray for your richest blessing these people that you have brought to mind. Help us forgive as you have forgiven us in Christ.

Sovereign Lord, we ask that you would help us move beyond good intentions in loving our city and the people in your world who are in great need. We pray for

– for partnership and unity with other Christians and other churches

– for friendships in our neighborhoods and work places and schools

– for new avenues to serve others in

We pray for your help through your church for refugees and those oppressed by the horrors of war in Syria and Iraq, for sisters and brothers suffering threats and pressure but still walking with courage and integrity in China, India, the Philippines, Nigeria, and elsewhere.

Father, in all these things we pray for the power of Christ to make us faithful ambassadors of your glorious gospel, so we pray in the words that you taught us: Our Father…”