Lent 1, Teach Me to Pray/Give Your Heart to God

Lent 1 Themes: Call to Worship, Being Present with God
Prayer is being particularly present with God, Taking Sabbath is taking stock, and resting in the grace of God

Matthew 12:1-8 or  Mark 2:23-28
Psalm 122

Breath Prayer

Inhale:God is here
Exhale: I am here

Inhale: I am
Exhale: We are

Call to Worship
Praise God for we are bound together
We are present with God when we pray
We are called to be together in this space
We are called to be a Sabbath people
Come let us rest in prayer
Come let us enter the House of Prayer, and take rest

Call to Worship
Our Feet are standing in your gates
We long to be present with you God
We pray for peace
Peace within and peace without, so that we can be present
Help us to be fully present here today
Let us give thanks to God
I was glad when they said, let us go to the house of the Lord
Come let us go, and be present in the house of the Lord

Call to Confession: God invites us in to the house of God with open and welcoming arms, and invites us to lay down our guilt along the way. Let us do that now together.

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that when we hear the Call to worship, we are hesitant. We do not always feel your house as a place of peace, or a sanctuary. Too often it is a duty, a chore, or an item on the checklist. We do not always see it as a place to simply be. Help us to experience the call to worship as an invitation to simply be human in your presence, and to know your belovedness we pray. (Silent Confession) Amen. 

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that we do not always hear the call to prayer. What is this prayer thing anyway? Is it praise? Lament? A conversation with God? We confess that we find the concept confusing. Teach us to pray God, to rest in the knowledge that you accept all offerings, and that any sacrifice of prayer is acceptable to you, and allow us to find prayer as a form of sanctuary we pray. (Silent) Amen. 

Assurance of Pardon: God loves us and forgives us, embracing us and calling us beloved no matter what state we are in, therefore we can be assured of the truth In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. 

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: Let us remember that God is calling us to worship, because God loves to spend time with us. God gives us an open invitation. Let us go into the world, bolstered by God’s invitation to spend time with the Divine, knowing we can rest in God’s bosom, no matter what, and let us tell other’s of God’s extravagant hospitality as we go. Amen. 

Prayer Activity: Meditation is being present and letting thing go: Ways to practice meditation: Coloring as Prayer: https://prayingincolor.com/ways-to-pray-in-color Particularly, Spending Time with God in Prayer

Click to access holy-thursday-2021.pdf

Click to access lent-calendar-2018-cross.pdf

Click to access lent-calendar-2018-lily.pdf

Teach Taize singing as Prayer “Bless the Lord My Soul” information about prayer https://mcgrathblog.nd.edu/how-to-pray-with-taizé-music

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Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. 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.

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