Prayers for Narrative Lectionary

Philippians 1:1-18a and Luke 9:46-48 or Psalm 133

Call to Worship

Grace and Peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
How good and pleasant it is when we live together in unity
Let us thank God, every time we think of one another.
For God’s blessings overflow. Come let us worship God together today.

Prayer of Confession: (unison) God, we confess that sometimes we forget to share God’s love. We keep God to ourselves, or we talk about God our of envy or rivalry, using religion as a tool for judgment. Teach us to share God out of love, we pray, fill us with rejoicing so we might be able to truly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Silent Confession). Amen

Assurance of Pardon: (1Philippians 1:6) We are each, and every one of us are assured that the good work that God began in each of us, will be brought into completion, because of this we know the truth that we can tell one another: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen

Prayer of Dedication: Let us go into the world remembering to pray and rejoice in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Communion Prayer:
Heavenly God, you call us together, into communion, into church. You created us to live in unity with one another so that we might anoint one another, sealing your love with our very baptism. You teach us, over and over again, what this meal is. It is the foretaste of the kingdom banquet, the beginning of the meal we shall have where no one will be forgotten, where love will abound, where the kingdom of justice will become incarnate. Send your Holy Spirit onto these elements, we pray, transforming the bread and the liquid into your body and blood. Nourish us with this communion with you and one another, we pray, help us to taste and see the kingdom of God, so that when we leave the table, we might carry your kingdom out into the world we pray. Amen.

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword