a community creating for the relentless return of Sunday
One: God calls old and young, tall and short, insider and outsider.
All: God calls beautiful and plain, beginner and expert, silly and serious.
One: God calls rich and poor, left right and center, faithful and doubting.
All: God calls into the heart, not based on appearance or circumstance.
One: God calls…listen, can you hear?
Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, the Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL
Call to Confession
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation—the old has gone, and the new has come. Yet we often have difficulty living in that new reality, clinging to the old ways that have passed. When we confess our sin, we make room for God’s truth to dwell in us, clearing the path for a new way of life. Before God, with the people of God, let us confess our faults and our failings. Let us pray.
Prayer of Confession
God, your faithfulness is for all generations, yet we often have a hard time living with you in this generation.
We love to look back, idolizing the past while forgetting we wear rose-colored glasses. We love our anxiety about the future, fretting about our individual long term security. We love our ideas about you, our lofty words and abstract concepts that do not affect our everyday lives.
We confess that it is rare for us to trust, to love, to follow with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Forgive us when we trap you in our memories or our intellects. Forgive us when we forget that you are also right here, right now, with a calling and a promise for us in this time and this place.
~silence~
Gracious God,
speak into our wilderness again, that we may learn to be your people. Amen.
Assurance of Forgiveness
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. From before the beginning until long beyond our imagination, God’s love endures. Know that you are forgiven, loved and free. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, the Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL.
You, O Lord, are our strong tower, our refuge and help in every trouble. Forgive us when we hide away from the challenges of following your call, using your word to build walls that insulate us from your world.
You, O Lord, are everywhere present. Forgive us when we want you to walk alongside us, when we ought to ask for the grace to walk alongside you wherever you are going.
You, O Lord, are the one who hears and answers our cries. Forgive us when our prayer is only self-serving, asking your stamp of approval or your help for our desires, and not for your glory.
You, O Lord, are our counselor and comforter. Forgive us when we seek only comfort, ignoring what we have done wrong and refusing to be confronted or challenged.
You, O Lord, are the one who calls us to come and follow. Forgive our blindness to your people in need, our deafness to your creation groaning for relief, our hearts hardened against the new thing you are doing. Teach us to pray, teach us to listen, teach us to serve, teach us to follow you wherever you are going.
~silence~
One: Help us, O God,
All: to know you so well that we cannot help but love you, and to love you so much we cannot help but serve you, sharing your good news in every place, for it is in doing your will that we find perfect freedom. Amen.
Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, The Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL.
God, you call us not only to believe with our minds, but to love with all our being. We confess that we do not serve you fully. We go our own way, serving our desires before heeding your voice. We look away from your people in need, and we create requirements for our help and our love. Forgive our hardened hearts and closed minds. Forgive us when we trap you in our intellect, forgetting to live as your people of good news outside the church building. Guide us to be doers of your word, not only hearers.
Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, The Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL
Call to Confession
It is tempting to gloss over our sin and focus on our strengths, but God calls us to focus on the strength of Christ, not ourselves. God, who is faithful and just, offers us a new way to live, and so we join together to confess our faults and failings. Let us pray.
Prayer of Confession
All: God, we are prone to think too highly of ourselves. We forget that it is you who are good, you who are the greatest. We forget that you call us to do your will, not the other way around. When we have fallen into arrogance, forgive us. When we have allowed our good intentions to stand in the way of your grace, forgive us. When we have directed attention away from you, forgive us. Empty us of all things that do not give glory to you, so we are ready to be filled with your love.
~silence~
One: We pray in the name of the One who emptied himself in order to live your will. Amen.
Assurance of Forgiveness
Hear and live this good news: Love could not be contained in the tomb and will not be constrained by our understanding! Christ is risen, bringing forgiveness and hope to all people. Alleluia! Amen!
Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, the Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL.
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