leadinginworship

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement - For Children

Our church, First Mennonite, wants to tell you something about the land we live on…
the land where our church, our homes, our towns and cities and farms are.
We aren’t the first people to live here,
 there were people here for thousands of years before we got here.
They are called indigenous people, and they still live here;
they have beautiful names:  Anishinaabe, Haudenosauneee, Attawandaron.
Let’s say those names:  Can you repeat after me? Anishinaabe.  Haudenosauneee, Attawandaron.
We didn’t live up to the promises we made with them on how to share the land,
and it’s not been fair to them.
We have hurt the people with these beautiful names, the indigenous peoples.
We are trying to figure out how to make things right,
and to talk about it with them in ways that are helpful and not hurtful.
Jesus wants us to do this, and Jesus is going to help us do this.
We’re going to try hard;  we want to live in peace with our neighbours,
the Anishinaabe, Haudenosauneee, Attawandaron peoples.
That’s why we do this land acknowledgement once a month to remind ourselves
to think about this, and figure out ways to do this.

[Note:  We do a land acknowledgement once a month in our worship service--the language of that statement is carefully crafted, and also difficult for children to understand. I wrote this one as a way of communicating to children why we do this land acknowledgement every month.]

Justice Rolling Offering Prayer

God of grace,
we know you want justice rolling down like water.
Accept these gifts from our hands,
which we cast upon the waters of your love,
a generous ever-flowing stream 
feeding the hungry and
helping those in need.
Accept these gifts for the work of your church.  Amen.

Windy Day Congregational Prayer

Thank you for the wind!
Thank you for the way it sweeps across our great country,
over the Pacific ocean, up the mountains,
flying across the plains and the great lakes
till it arrives in Ontario in great gusts, [adjust to fit your geography]
making everything alive and lively,
blowing our hair and clothes into tangles,
filling our lungs and then blowing away
all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
Fill us with your Spirit this morning like this wind,
blow across our country and into our congregation,
enlivening us, moving us, stirring us.

Thank you for our congregation, for every person;
thank you for the differences of age and varieties of experience,
thank you even that we don’t always get along.
Thank you for the challenges you give us to live as your church,
giving us exercise in breaking down dividing walls
exercises in forgiveness and tolerance,
learning to love each other truly.
Your spirit blowing us in loving directions!
Today we pray for those we know who feel storm-tossed,
who feel they have lost a solid foundation.
Unsettled because of family arguments,
shaky because of financial insecurity,
rattled because of depression,  or a crisis of faith or meaning;
help us to be people who can reach out a hand of solidarity,
a steadying hand that points to you.

There is a wind blowing today in our country
and people are discontent with many things;
we pray for Canada,  and for our government leaders.
Help us to be a country that cares for all its citizens,
a country that listens to the people on the edge,
a country that is fair and just.
We especially pray that racist thoughts,
even our own, would be exposed and challenged.
Give us courage to speak loving words to each other,
to both live and give the love you've shown us 
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blow into our lives with your freshening spirit,
the Breath of Life for all the world.
Amen

Prayer for the Homeless in Our City

The sun rises and people head out from the shelter
to spend the day on the streets.
We pray for kindness in an unfair world,
safety from harm and aid for those who are sick.
Every person has their story.
Jesus, you too were a wanderer,
travelling far from family:
be with those who feel lonely today.
We ask for basic things:
food to sustain,
 comfortable dry places to rest,
and for the compassion of strangers.
It can be a long day till the shelter opens again.
We pray for politicians
who make choices in high office towers.
Life is made possible or impossible,
affordable housing is built or not built,
jobs are created or not created,
the vulnerable are supported or not supported,
all with signatures of the well-to-do.
Let there be humanity in their choices:
protect politicians from greed 
and from the influence of those 
who only want to get richer.
We need your Spirit trickling up,
taking us by surprise,
showing us a better path,
moving us to be people who see people
and who respond in human ways
even to those who live in inhuman conditions.
There are better ways to help each other,
help us find them.
This we pray to you, Creator of us all.  Amen

White Settler Advent Peace Prayer

Creator God
thank you for indigenous and Inuit communities,
strong after centuries of persecution.
Families with deep bonds of love,
wise with elders, rich in culture, lovers of the land,
speaking with powerful voices that cannot be silenced.

God of justice, God of love,
hear our prayer of lament for crimes committed:
for land taken, for children stolen.
for laws that hobbled culture,
for languages legislated out of existence,
for racist policies of every kind
that produced a wicked harvest of poverty.
You know how this toxic power dynamic
has warped the minds of oppressors
and left deep and lasting scars in the oppressed.
We live in uneasy times,
where hatred and prejudice are rampant,
and important decisions are being made
about the occupied  traditional territories
where we live together.

Into this world, send the Prince of Peace,
who managed to balance justice and love
through his death on the cross.
Christ is the one who will help us find the way,
giving us ears to hear every voice,
and mouths to speak repentance,
and eyes to see paths we should walk,
and hands that reach out in friendship,
and shoulders willing to take on the burden
of our shared past.
From this place of brokenness give all of us
a vision of the future, peace-bright,
where children of every colour
have a place to stand, and a place to grow.

Prayer Against Patriarchy

God, you see our world.
The girl baby told she is sweet and lovely,
the boy baby praised for strength and power.
The little girl told to be quiet and sit still,
the boy allowed to run and play because boys will be boys.
The adolescent girl not giving the answer in school,
because the boys make fun if she stands out.
The teenage girl crossing her arms over her breasts,
after the boys comment and reach out to touch.
The young woman watching where she walks,
noticing in every room if there is a threat,
gauging when the catcalls become more menacing.
The working woman getting 70% on the dollar
compared to her male colleague.
The mother working a double shift,
working all day and coming home to housework
while her husband rests in the evening.
The woman scared and bruised
after her partner backhands her across the face.
The single mom at the foodbank for her children,
because her partner won’t pay child support..
Creator God, you made us,
you know how gender shapes us,
how expectations cramp our dreams.
Hear our prayer for those who cannot see
how gender roles chain us,
how sexism values men over women.
Help us shape our world,
changing laws and attitudes,
challenging churches and political systems,
supporting those who don’t conform,
encouraging each one to chart their own course.
Help us create a world where we can live,
valued and cherished for who we are.

 

Prayer for Those Seeking Shelter

Today we pray for those among us
who seek shelter every day.
Home is gone for them, for many reasons;
addiction, mental illness, violence,
or they just couldn't pay the rent.
Evicted or just drifting, they wander.
Some live in their vehicle,
holding on to suitcases of possessions.
Others have left it all behind,
and with a bag or two 
go to shelters for a meal or a bed.
Others sleep rough, under bridges,
or in the hedges around the city.
People of no address,
they are forgotten by every social safety net.
No healthcare, no safety, few options.
These are the ones who are precious and loved in your sight.
You don't lose track.
We see them sitting on the park benches,
or avoiding the cold in stairwells or subway cars.
God of miracles, can you change this “us and them”?
Can we call each other by name;
Jason, Mike, Emma, Rick, Carol?
As your children, can we meet and hear stories?
Instead of only a handout, can we sit together, 
lamenting what is lost, acknowledging resourcefulness.
From those with homes,
take away smugness and superiority,
and every hero complex of wanting to rescue those
we objectify into "the homeless".
Open those who have plenty, to share it.
For those who are seeking shelter,
give courage and stamina.
When hope is hard to find,
help them find it.
For safety, for friends,
for community on the way,
we give thanks.
You identify with all who have
nowhere to lay their head.
You are with them this night,
you are with them every night. Amen.

Social Fabric Prayer

The transgender man beaten,
and the woman harassed on the bus.
The disabled student not accommodated,
and the bomb threat at the Jewish child-care centre.
Racial profiling at the border
and another refugee told to go home.
A million tiny teeth
ripping at the webs that connect us,
fissures fracturing the social fabric.
Reading the news my heart feels tattered,
and all that’s good seems lost
and left behind.

Can we defend, say, “Not here!" to hatred,
hold firm to every last strand of civility?
We are not over and done with.
Threads of mercy shuttle between us
and even when we feel like running,
we are being woven, a work in progress.
For every breaking thread,
a new wisp, strong as spider web.

On a night like this,
when darkness looms
and every light seems small,
I stitch a prayer into the night sky.
God of all graces, rip every seam
I’ve sown in hatred.
I want to be stranded in love,
reaching out to touch,
in this material world,
the hem of your garment. 

A prayer for times like these

For a world where lies are accepted at face value;

hear our prayer, God of truth.

For a world where racism in high places is tolerated;

hear our prayer, God of the oppressed.

For a world where people with disabilities are mocked;

hear our prayer, God of the disadvantaged.

For a world where the rich hold the reins of power;

hear our prayer, God of the poor.

For a world where men violate women with impunity;

hear our prayer, God of the downtrodden.

For a world where the earth is ignored and neglected;

hear our prayer, God of the voiceless.

For a world where nations interfere in enemies’ elections;

hear our prayer, God of the disenfranchised.

For a world where the church is charmed by false gods;

hear our prayer, God of the lost.

For a world where free speech is threatened;

hear our prayer, God of the silenced.

For a world where hatred is growing by leaps and bounds;

hear our prayer, God of the vulnerable.

For a world where dissent is dangerous and necessary,

hear our prayer, God of those who suffer for righteousness’ sake.

God of hope, we turn to you for vision and courage

as we strive to be faithful in word and deed,

followers of Christ in times like these.

Message from the Manger

We love you in the manger, Jesus.

Your little hands and feet,

your soft breathing,

your eyes closed in sleep.

You may be a revolutionary,

but we like our revolutionaries in diapers.

Forgive us, Lord,

for preferring a Saviour that doesn’t talk;

a Saviour that has no words of judgement

for our callousness to the suffering of others,

whose arms aren’t tossing over tables,

whose feet aren’t leading us to Jerusalem.

 

In this advent season,

where the world around us

is convulsing with violence and bigotry,

give us ears to hear

the unspoken message from the manger.

A Middle Eastern baby with dark skin

is threatened with violence

and becomes a refugee.

God with us,

now and forevermore.

A prayer for a thousand tongues

God of every tongue and nation:
thank you for the multiplicity and beauty of languages,
each one a treasure, each one unmatched and irreplaceable.
Thank you for their slow growth over time,
their plasticity and adaptability,
their ability to convey and carry culture,
the heart of a people.
As a white Canadian, I mourn the colonial decision
to declare only two languages official,
the languages of white people.
We waged war on First Nations and Inuit,
doing everything we could to eradicate their mother tongues,
kidnapping and torturing children,
trying to deafen them to the voice of their people.
For the peoples and languages that are no more,
God of memory, preserve them in your heart.
I give thanks for the resilience and strength
of indigenous people who refused to forget.
Strengthen them, and give them ingenuity
as they work to resuscitate ways of speaking
known only to small communities.
Show us our part in supporting their work.
When newcomers to Canada
feel they must shed their languages
like coats that no longer fit,
help us to be welcoming of diversity,
celebrating the plural voice.
Open our ears to the virtues of the vernacular.
Set us the multilingual task of learning our own
and each other’s languages by heart,
taking seriously the challenge of
a thousand tongues to sing your praise.

Prayer for Reporters

Hear our prayers for reporters, Lord.
In this surroundsound world
with information and lies
mixed on every platform,
raise up truth-tellers
who want to get the story right.
People who are not content with face value,
who smell a rat at any distance,
who are not intimidated by intimidators.
Reporters who care about those
who others abuse and discard.
Reporters who seek out sources,
work diligently to get the whole picture,
and who write with passion and integrity.
Protect them from those who would
kill the story, or even kill the writer of the story.
Help them find ways to share their work,
and even make a living doing it.
In a world where truth is sometimes in short supply,
remind us that we need to support reporters
whose craft is research,
whose gift is clear communication,
and whose product is the bedrock of democracy.

A Settler Prayer for Peace

Creator God
hear our prayer for settlers everywhere,
for people living on land stolen
and traded unfairly from indigenous peoples.
You know our cruelties,
our disregard for cultures and histories,
our cavalier dismissal of treaty rights,
our personal prejudices, our institutional racism.
We are part of a colonial system so insidious,
those who benefit don’t even see it, even when it’s in front of our faces.

You are a God who names, a God who hears.
You know the name of every missing and murdered indigenous woman.
You heard the cries of every child in every residential school.
You know the original names of every landmark,
in languages that no one living knows.
You hear the earth groaning as it is torn and broken,
its holy balance polluted and poisoned.
Send us a chinook peace to melt our permafrosted hearts,
a Great Spirit of hope that blows through our land,
rearranging landscapes, upsetting tables where money is counted.
A wind that changes our hearts and gives us courage
to seek justice, love kindness
and walk humbly together,
settler and First Nations, Inuit and Metis,
for we are all God's children.

Summer Congregational Prayer

Our souls magnify the Lord.
Our souls amplify the goodness of God--
we take a good close-up look at all our blessings.

Thank you for plants.
For the deliciousness of fresh lettuce
and the sharp tang of dill,
but also for their beauty, their leafy wonder,
their greenness,their fragrance.
Thank you for the miracle of growth,
for sun and rain which has made them grow
and for the mysteries of photosynthesis.
Creation at work at a molecular level,
converting energy from the sun and carbon dioxide
into organic compounds that we call food,
that we eat, that sustains our life.
Thank you God for plants!

We magnify your goodness,
and take a good close-up look at all our blessings.
Thank you for our families,
for the companionship of people who have known us over time.
Thank you for old uncles, for young grandchildren, for siblings and in-laws.
Thank you for the variety of personalities in our life,
the way they challenge us, change us, endear themselves to us.
Love at work at the everyday level,
converting our everyday world into an ordered world,
filled with harmonies and disharmonies,
a symphony of relationship.

We magnify the Lord, and proclaim your lordship over our broken world.
Give us eyes to see how you are tending to that brokenness,
how you would use us to address poverty in our own community,
how you would use us to address loneliness in our own community,
how you would use us to address racism in our own community.
We proclaim you Lord over our lives,
forgive us for the times where we have gone our own way,
narrowing our vision to only our own interests.
We have neglected the work that you have for us.

Help us as a church to be clear about our mission here,
faithful followers of Jesus, together,
working to bring your peace.
Show us how to magnify, amplify, glorify your name
in all we say and do this week.
We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.

 

A Confessional Prayer

Gracious God,
we confess before you our complicity in the sins of this world,
sins which Jesus felt in his own body and soul.
Our hands are not clean.
We confess that we have desired power and status,
and have neglected our duty as your servants.
We have allowed ourselves to become preoccupied
with things we own or want to own,
freely putting on the chains of consumerism.
Open our eyes to the way our lifestyles
affect and shape the suffering of those here and far away.
We confess that we have turned away
from the hungry and the homeless in our own cities and towns,
thinking that they were someone else’s problem.
We fail even in our most intimate relationships with those we love,
showing our worst side to those who care for us most.
Forgive us for sour faces, for cold shoulders,
for clenched fists, and icy stares. 
Forgive us for the sins we know and remember,
and which weigh heavily upon us,
as well as the sins which we have forgotten,
which meant almost nothing to us,
but which have resulted in pain for others.
You called us to carry a cross,
and yet we complain as soon as the way is hard,
forgetting how much we have received,
and how little we have sacrificed.
Take away our hearts of stone,
and give us hearts of flesh,
which beat to the rhythm of love,
of faith, of hope,
and love, always love.
Amen.

Heard and Freed Call to Worship

Our call to worship this morning is from Psalm 102:18-22 (NRSV)

Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
   so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord: 
that he looked down from his holy height,
   from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, 
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
   to set free those who were doomed to die; 
so that the name of the Lord may be declared in Zion,
   and his praise in Jerusalem, 
when peoples gather together,
   and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. 

Let’s pray:
God of grace,
we are a people gathered together in your name.
In your name we pray, we sing,
in your company we find peace.
Bless each person who has come today
with the knowledge that they are heard.
Help us to hear your call to freedom
ringing out over all the earth.  Amen.

God of Gardens Congregational Prayer

God of gardens,
thank you for the garden of [name your area]
for tree peonies and white lilacs,
for graceful yellow tulips, and sweet honeysuckle [name the flowers that bloom in your area]
For fields showing green, for vegetables growing, for fruit setting,
for the whole wide earth waking up and exploding into life before our very eyes,
slow fireworks of green trees and blossoms everywhere we look.

The kingdom of God is like this;
beautiful and rich and many faceted,
blooming in hearts around the world for those who have eyes to see.
The news tells us every horrible thing that happens,
but you bring good news:
that people do love each other, that people do help each other,
that you care for us, that we can make a difference.
Help us to be your messengers of good news,
help us to be good news.

We need this assurance because we are sometimes overwhelmed with bad news,
in our families and our communities.
Forgive us for the times this week that we have been short and angry with those we love,
callous and uncaring towards our neighbours or the people we work with.
Give us open hearts, that grow in love towards every place where love is not.
Give us compassion especially today for those who are grieving,
who feel the ache of loved ones who are no longer here.
Give us compassion especially today for those who struggle with illness
who are undergoing tests, or taking medication
or are afraid to take medication for physical or mental illnesses.

This morning we also pray for our government, our Prime Minister, our Premier,
for the many people who work in public service.
Thank you for their contributions to growing good communities.
At this time where public corruption is so prevalent in the news,
help us as a country to cultivate justice and honesty.
God of gardens, be with us this week,
wherever we grow,
in your name, Amen. 

Design conscious: a prayer about our clothes

Consider the clothes of our congregation,
how they glow!
Clothes of every color, light and dark, bright and muted,
a rainbow of raiment as varied as the lilies of the field.
Thank you, Lord, for clothing us;
we all have something to wear.
This despite the fact
that some of us have stood at our closets
lamenting, “I have nothing to wear.”

We come to worship with expensive Italian shoes
and twenty-year-old Birkenstocks
and running shoes from the thrift store.
We come to church with ironed pants,
skirts and dresses, short and long;
we even come with holey jeans. 
Few of us toil and spin to make our clothes,
and we confess, Lord, that we give hardly a thought
to those who clothe us with their labor.
In a world where disconnection breeds contempt,
where ignorance leads to neglect,
and apathy can mean the difference between life and death,
clothe us, Lord, with wisdom.
Show us the connections between:
what we wear and what we believe,
who we are and who we affect,
how we love and how we spend our money.
Help us to read the labels and to know our origins.
You are our Designer, we are fashioned by you.
Your garment of love, tailor-made,
a design lovely in every season.

Confession and Assurance from Isaiah 58:6-7

Open our eyes, Lord, to the modern yoke;     
the burden of our consumer culture,
the debt that holds people fast,
the myth of success which has us by the throat.
We confess that we are trapped.

You offer the possibility of release;
you loose the shackles of greed,
freeing us from the urge to acquire at any cost,
relieving us from the treadmill of busyness.

We are your new releases,
telling a story for this generation.
Feeding the hungry. we whisper peace,
clothing the naked, we murmur hope,
sheltering the homeless, we declare your faithfulness.

An Advent Prayer for 35,000 People in Prison

Jesus, you know the 35,000 people in jail in Canada

by name, not number.

You know each holding cell, each regional detention centre,

each provincial institution and federal prison.

You were a captive, you too wore chains.

No one falls through the cracks in your kingdom,

you witness every tear shed in the night.

Where there is loneliness, bring companionship.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is fear, courage.

Where there is confinement, your freedom.

We pray for every imprisoned person who misses their family,

who cannot hold their children, or visit their parents,

who will this Christmas be surrounded not by loved ones

but by inmates who have no way out.

These are people whose special holiday dinner

is served on cafeteria trays

by people who are paid to be there.

We give thanks that the gift of the Christ-child on Christmas morning

is not controlled by human hands, not stopped by locks or bars.

As we wait for Christmas, open our hearts to remember

those who wait for court dates and parole hearings,

who wait for the end of each day and the end of their sentence.

Give us strength to refuse to be part of a society

that would shut doors forever and throw keys away.

We would meet you, Immanuel, God with us,

in the eyes of every person in prison.