Holy and Loving God, You are the keeper of our home and the mender of our hearts. You are the One who gathers us in, feeds us with grace, and sends us back into a world hungry for love. For the gift of this community, where we learn again what it means to belong — to You and to one another — we give You thanks.
Thank You for the beauty of shared life, for tables set and stories told, for laughter that rings out across the sanctuary, for tears that are noticed and held. We give thanks for the ways You teach us, through one another, what steadfast love looks like in practice — that love is patient, love is persistent, and love keeps showing up.
God of our dwelling and our doing, as the early church devoted themselves to teaching, fellowship, and prayer, help us to do the same. Keep our hearts rooted in Your Word and our lives open to Your Spirit’s leading. Let our faith not grow comfortable but courageous. Let our worship not end with a hymn but continue in the way we live — sharing what we have, breaking bread with glad and generous hearts, so that all may have enough.
We pray for the world You so love — for peace where there is war, for justice where there is oppression, for healing where there is harm. We lift before You the people of every place where homes have been lost — to flood or fire, to violence or neglect.
Make us mindful of those whose tables are empty, whose doors are closed by fear,
whose belonging has been broken. Show us how to be keepers of one another’s homes — repairers of the breaches, restorers of the streets.
We pray for those in our own community who need Your tender care: for the sick and the sorrowing, for the lonely and the weary, for those who are waiting — on a diagnosis, on forgiveness, on hope. May Your Spirit flood every heart with presence and peace, just as our choir sang — Come, Flood this Heart of Mine, O God — with mercy wide enough to hold the whole world.
And for all the goodness that fills our days — for the turning of the seasons, for the warmth of friendship, for the call to serve, we give You thanks. Help us to live as grateful people — faithful homekeepers of the world You love, devoted to prayer,
anchored in hope, and guided always by love.
We ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, the One who teaches us to pray, saying:
Our Creator, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.