Dear Heavenly Father,
Once again we are gathered here to worship you and to learn about you. Once again, we pause to consider the good things you give. Once again, we start out with faltering footsteps and gradually notice more and more goodness.
Thank you first of all for the people who help us to see the glimmers of hope in the seeming darkness. Thank you for those who pray for us, spend time with us, listen to us, feed us, encourage us and point us back towards you.
Thank you for the places of safety and refuge. Thank you for warmth and shelter, for schools, libraries, churches, shopping centres, hospitals, cafes and homes where we can rest and be refuelled.
We pray for our community here at Rowheath Pavilion. We pray that this would be a place of light and hope, where people know they can come and be helped, regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, disability, faith, health or wealth. We pray for those we know who are grieving or anxious, hurt or injured or ill. We pray for families celebrating new life and for families facing life’s end on this earth. We pray for relationships and for jaded couples, for fresh careers and disillusioned workers. May the strong support the weak and may the people who have known your provision over many years encourage the ones who are facing their first trials. Please make this a place where love and hope are tangible and plentiful.
We pray for our country. We pray for the removal of anyone who is misusing power, oppressing the needy or being dishonest. We pray for leaders who are dignified, wise, compassionate and truthful and for a media that encourages and expects respectful, intelligent debate rather than confrontational soundbites. We pray for the forthcoming coronation. Father, may it be safe and peaceful. May it be inclusive rather than divisive. And as we have seen such evidence of human failure in every kind of human administration or system since history began, may we reach out to your holy spirit, and be ruled by you. Lord, may the nations be shaped by your people rather than your people being moulded by their nations.
In the wider world we ask for peace and hope and healing. We pray that guns would be stilled and fighting cease. We pray that ceasefires would hold and that injured and bereaved people would forgive. We pray that cities would be rebuilt, hospitals and schools re-opened and families reunited. We pray for peace in the Ukraine, in Yemen, in Palestine, in Sudan and Nigeria, the Central African Republic and Syria.
And finally, we pray for protection against the greed and short-sightedness that threatens to destroy our whole planet. We pray for vision and innovation, investment and cooperation to find, implement and share ways to feed and shelter the world’s population with justice. We pray that the planet would not reach a fatal tipping point but would be pulled back from the brink of disaster. We pray that the people with resources to invest and with power to make choices would choose renewables, leave fossil fuels in the ground and restrict plastics to where they are genuinely needed. We pray for effective flood defences, for replenished fish supplies, protected rainforests, and for global temperatures this year to be lower than they were last. We pray for the miracle it would be for this beautiful, finely balanced, exquisitely integrated planet to be valued and protected so that it can continue to be a bountiful home for all of humanity for many, many generations to come.
Amen