O Lord God, you have given us the privilege of telling your good works, and they are many.
How dark this world would be were it not for your continuing work of creation
all around us and within us.
For in the current darkness you still speak, “Let there be light.”
Just as you brought order out of chaos in the beginning days of creation
You have given to us this same work of bringing order as stewards of this world.
Yet, Lord, we confess that sometimes we are overwhelmed by the chaos around us.
But you have called us to be the church – the very witness to your presence
in this chaotic world.
Everywhere there is division and fighting and war, you call us to be peacemakers.
Everywhere there is suffering and sickness, you call us to bring healing.
Everywhere there is sin, you call us to share the good news of forgiveness.
Everywhere there is death, you charge us to preach and teach and live resurrection.
We pray that you would protect your church throughout the world,
for this world-wide communion is under constant assault from without and from within.
Faith leaders are lectured by politicians attempting to silence their prophetic witness.
In parts of our world Christians live in fear for their very lives,
while in this country we too often practice a religion of convenience:
choosing political agendas over your holy purposes,
coveting political power over holy weakness.
There are many who claim to be followers of Jesus, yet ignore his teachings.
Protect your church for there are those who are teaching a counterfeit gospel
that knows not Jesus the Christ.
May this church remain ever faithful.
Teach us to measure our work and our witness by the simple teachings of Jesus,
a gospel that cannot and must not be separated from our individual lives
and life together in this Beloved Community.
We thank you for your promise that the gates of Hell
will not prevail against that which you have established,
this church that you have built on Peter’s confession
that the Messiah has come, and Jesus has taught us a new way,
So teach us a new vocabulary, O God, for we have forgotten how to talk to one another.
For even as so many are speaking hatred and violence,
you have called us to speak compassion, mercy, love,
kindness, gentleness, and even self control.
Teach us a quietness of heart.
Teach us to measure the work we do by the love with which it is done.
Help us never to grow weary in doing good.
Remind us that you have called not the proud, but the humble for just such a time as this.
You have called, not the strong, but the weak.
For it is through your power and yours alone that nothing will stand against your church,
not even the gates of Hell.
We pray in the name of the One who is the Messiah, the son of the Living God,
the One who established this church on the confession of Peter,
the One who taught us to pray, saying:
Our Father, 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.