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Prayer for the New Year

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This is a prayer modeled after the ancient New Year prayers or “first-footing” prayers of Scotland and northern England where villagers often went house to house wishing each other a good year.  

It is a reciprocal prayer where the worship leader first models the intention and the congregation offers a blessing.  The roles are then reversed.  If the congregation has a large door through which most of the congregation enters and exits, it would be appropriate and meaningful to have an usher fling the door open near the beginning of the prayer. (Unless, or course, it’s below freezing outside!)
The prayer is followed by a joyful, opening song, hymn, or carol. 
A Common Prayer for the New Year 
One: This day is a new day that has never been before.
This year is a new year, opening the door to transformation.
One: Let us open the door of our hearts.
One: Enter, Lord Christ—
All: that we may feel the joy of your presence.
One: You give us life,
All: and we welcome you with opening hearts.
One: I turn now to face you.
I open my life to you.
Be the light shining on my face, O Beloved;
be the blessing in my eyes,
and the fire in my heart.
All: May the inner eye of your soul 
behold the beauty within you;
may your outer eye behold the beauty around you—
may you see your neighbors, your loved ones,
and those you find difficult to love 
as treasured gifts shaped by God’s good and generous hands.
Silence
One: Enter, Lord Christ—
I feel joy in your presence!
All: I turn now to face you.
I open my life to you.
Be the light shining on my face, O Beloved;
be the blessing in my eyes,
and the fire in my heart.
One: May the inner eye of your soul
behold the beauty within you;
may your outer eye behold the beauty around you—
may you see your neighbors, your loved ones,
and those you find difficult to love
as treasured gifts shaped by God’s good and generous hands.
Silence
All: Enter, Lord Christ—
I feel joy in your presence!
Submitted by Dr. Chris Neufeld-Erdman, Davis Community Church, CA

A Prayer for Back to School

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Back to school time is fast approaching where I live. In churches, this time of year (often) means a return to regular schedules. Any group that takes a break for the summer is getting ready to start again. When I think about the children and youth of the church, I am always aware of our responsibilities to them. We promise in the baptismal covenant with these words.

“Do you, who witness and celebrate this sacrament, promise your love, support and care to the one about to be baptized as he/she lives and grows in Christ?

Congregational Response- We promise our love, support, and care.”

(United Church of Christ Book of Worship, 139).

We promise in our Safe Sanctuary covenant to protect our children and youth as we help them live into the baptismal promises. As the new school and program year begins, I think churches should welcome and celebrate this time of year, and we can do that by sharing this prayer.

One-I’d like to invite all of our children and youth to please come up front. If you would sit or stand facing the congregation. We’d like you to be able to see all those adults out there.

(after the children and youth are up front)

Today, we are going to pray for you as summer ends and a new year of school and church begins. You may have already started back to school or may not be in school yet. You may be changing to a new Sunday School class or starting youth group for the first time this year. As so many things in our lives change, some things do not change. All of those people out there have promised to help you grow and know God loves you.

I invite the teachers to stand. Anyone who teaches here at church, youth group leaders, and teachers in our schools please stand.

Teachers-Dear God, we surround these children and youth with our love and support for the coming year. Give them a spirit of curiosity. Give them time to play and learn outside in your creation. Give them a sense of wonder at how much they know and how much there is to learn. Give all of us who teach a spirit of compassion as we journey with our students. Amen.

One-Teachers remain standing. Parents and guardians please stand.

Parents and Guardians-Loving God, give us patience on hard days. Remind us you love our children even more than we do. Give our kids a spirit of kindness in a world that isn’t always kind. Give our kids strength to stand up for what is right. May they always know how much you love them and we love them. Amen.

One-Parents, guardians, and teachers keep standing. Now, I invite the rest of the congregation and any of our guest to stand.

All-God, remind us of the promises we made to protect and love these children and youth. Help us to live those promises daily. Bless all these children and youth that they may know your love and share it with others. We promise to keep these children safe, give them opportunities to know you, and involve them in the life of the church with God’s help. Amen. 

One-Look out at all those people who love you and have prayed for you. I hope you will remember how much your church family loves you and how much God loves you as we start a new year together.

Submitted by Susannah deBenedetto

prayer–guide me

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Guide me, O my great Redeemer. We seek your guidance, O God, for there are many choices in our lives and many paths we could take. We need your wisdom. We need to know how best to live in your ways. Hear us cry out for help.

Pilgrim through this barren land. God, you know there are days when it seems like no choice is a good choice, days when nothing we say comes out right, and we wonder how to turn back to you. We are wandering and wondering.

I am weak, but you are mighty. Your strength and power amazes us, O God, and we need to feel your presence when we feel like we have no power. Give us the words to speak. Point us in the right direction.

Hold me with your powerful hand. God, we need to be held in your hand, to hold your hand, and to pushed on with your hand. Give us comfort, support, and a nudge in the right direction.

Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more. Loving God, you feed us with your Word, with our communities of support, and with blessings too many to count. We are so thankful for all the ways you reveal yourself to us. We pray for all of your children who need to be fed physically or spiritually. We know what you provide is more than enough to share, so revive our spirits of generosity until everyone has enough.

As we seek out what is next for our lives, may we always begin by saying, Guide me, O my great Redeemer.

 

Submitted by Rev. Susannah DeBenedetto, Salisbury, Maryland
(The words in italics are from The New Century Hymnal #19, Guide Me, O My Great Redeemer.)

litany of affirmation: we have an Advocate

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We are not alone, sliding through a mystery with no guidance.
We have an Advocate who guides us with power and truth.

We do not pray alone, worried about “getting it right” or being heard.
We have an Advocate who prays with us, in deep, wordless sighs.

We do not work alone for the healing of the world.
We have an Advocate who directs our paths and reveals Christ to us.

We are born of water and fire, adopted into the family of God.
We have an Advocate who strengthens our relationship with the Holy.

We are a people of bountiful gifts and many connections.
We have an Advocate who blesses and encourages us.

We are yet coming to know more fully the height and depth and breadth of the love of God.
We have an Advocate who does not rest in revealing that truth to all creation.

 

Submitted by Rev. Julia Seymour, Lutheran Church of Hope, Anchorage AK

affirmation of faith: a litany for justice

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Moses, Nehemiah, Jesus,
and many other leaders in the stories of scripture
brought hope with their courage to speak against injustice
by calling out those responsible, and saying:

“What you are doing isn’t good!”

Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela,
and may other leaders in the history of the world
brought hope with their courage to speak against injustice
by calling out those responsible, and saying:

“What you are doing isn’t good!”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said,
“The church is only the church when it exists for others.”
He wrote those words while he was in a Nazi prison,
because he had to courage to speak against injustice
by calling out those responsible, and saying:

“What you are doing isn’t good!”

We don’t have to write books from prison,
but we ARE the church…
and we ARE a community whose purpose
is to exist for others…

So we MUST have the courage to speak against injustice
by calling out those responsible, and saying,
“What you are doing isn’t good!”

We don’t have to be nailed to a cross,
but we ARE the church…
and we ARE a community whose purpose
is to exist for others…

So we WILL have the courage to speak against injustice
by calling out those responsible, and saying,
“What you are doing isn’t good!”

…and may our words be followed by our actions,
so that God’s light might shine bright in the world.
Amen.

Submitted by Scott Cervas, pastor at Meadowthorpe Presbyterian Church (Lexington, KY)