We live in a world of common and conflicting cultural values. Christians agree with the world on many issues, and we disagree on other issues. Nevertheless, all people are God’s people, and we who are Christians celebrate that truth which has persisted as long as there have been people on the earth. Each Sunday we gather together, seeking God’s guidance on how to be His people in a cosmopolitan and complex world. Therefore let us, with confidence, worship God.
Pastoral Prayer
We give Thee thanks, O loving God, for placing us in one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse nations. We thank Thee for all the people who comprise the American public, and for all our varied backgrounds. We do not all think alike, nor act alike, nor look alike, yet we are united as participants in a single and an amazingly assorted citizenry. Help all of us to live together in harmony, even when we strongly disagree with one another on certain key issues or concerns. Keep any of us from trying to impose our values on all of us, and help all of us to seek to understand and appreciate the differences that exist in each of us.
We pray for people who live in minorities in our nation, whether racial, political, cultural, or religious, and who feel oppressed by their position within that minority. Teach all of us how better to live with all of us. Give us a deeper understanding of those who have values at odds with our own values. Enable us to be more tolerant of others than perhaps is our inclination, and to appreciate the humanity of those whose humanity seems so different from our own.
We pray also for all who on this particular day are losing heart because of the extension of the social isolation necessitated by the pandemic all of us are facing. Particularly we remember those who live alone who had a very active social life before the epidemic struck, and who now are desperate to see friends and relatives once again. We pray Thy blessings to surround the courageous souls who minister many long hours every day on behalf of the sick and dying. Once again we pray for those whose positions of governmental authority require them to speak out regarding the virus, and who are pulled in many directions by many people in what they ought to say. These things we ask in the name of him who brought Thy healing touch with him into his years of life on this earth, Jesus Christ, Thy Son. Now we pray as Jesus taught his disciples, saying, Our Father….