Prayers 6 1 2014
*Welcome
*Reception Ministry later this afternoon; come and participate
*Thank your teachers today; teachers appreciation luncheon by the CE Board today
*Golf Tournament; final call; Pastor Visal and Iwill be playing; come and laugh! See Joel Jang or Butch Chan
Prayer Concerns
*Pastor Visal’s mother will be having breast cancer surgery this Tuesday; Visal, Lindsay and Talitha will be visiting Portland next week.
*Rev. Veronica Lanier, 95 passed on Wednesday, May 28th; spoke at Youth Camp, home missionary to the Chinese in Locke, CA, received the Doctor of Divinity degree from ABSW in 2012; I have known her for 50 years; Memorial service in Boston will be on June 15th; Mike Socia of Redwood Glen will come to preach for me.
Prayer of God’s People
On this day, O God, help us to surrender ourselves anew to your ongoing transformation as individuals and as a church commissioned to be agents to recreate our world.
We confess that when we forget the cross of Christ and the empty tomb, our thinking can become cynical and our hearts hardened in self-protection. We begin to fear both life and death. And we confess that we who have heard the truth of the resurrection can still have doubts. Forgive us for allowing our minds to be tainted by reasoned perception, and our hearts by fear. Forgive the weakness of faith and lack of trust that rob life of vibrancy and hope. And forgive our failure to be the mind and heart of Christ, witnessing to Easter hope in a nervous and uncertain society.
In Christ, God has shown us the reality of resurrection life and calls us to become the fullness of who we are intended to be. We lift up in prayer Pastor Visal’s mother as she has cancer surgery this Tuesday with the hope that all is well. Grant her strength and faith to endure and the reassurance that God wants us to live our lives in fullness. Thank you Lord for the long and faithful life of Ronny Lanier who became your ambassador of love and good will. She touched countless lives with her blessings of happy faces and saying, “Be of good cheer!”
We thank you, God for the covenant relationship we have with you, and for the truth of your promises. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who teaches us to love one another. We pray that you hear our prayers and lead our minds and hearts to be attentive to your continuing revelation. We pray in the name of Christ who taught us to pray together, “Our Father…”
The Lord’s Supper
Before Jesus ascended, he promised to send us an advocate, his Holy Spirit, to guide us and to empower us to walk his way. The primary gift brought by the Holy Spirit is the gift of love, particularly the gift of being able to love one another in the church. When the church becomes the community of love, in the name of Christ, the world sees our life together as our corporate witness, a testimony to what the gift of the Holy Spirit is able to produce among ordinary folk like us.
Jesus taught us that when we love one another in the church, people would say, “See how these Christians love one another!” This is one of the oldest and still today most powerful instigators of evangelism and church growth in the life of Christ in the world.
When we gather to break bread and drink the cup of Christ at the Lord’s table, we are acting in love for one another.
Benediction
God the Creator, blesses you with love;
Jesus, the Christ, gifts you with the Holy Spirit to inspire you;
And the Holy Spirit invites you to conscious and faithful discipleship in the world.
Amen.