Prayer Booklet
asburyfirst.org/COC
Scan the QR Code to Register!
The launch of the Asbury First Outreach Center is an exciting moment in the life of our congregation! It is our prayer that the newly renovated and expanded building will become an outpost of the Kingdom of Heaven: a place where the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, and the sick are cared for. We hope that it will become a place of radical hospitality, compassion, peace, love, grace, solidarity, transformation, service, community, and worship — a place where the presence of the Holy Spirit can be felt moving in and around us. As the Outreach Center transitions from a dream to reality, we invite you to join us in a congregation wide prayer vigil for its faithfulness and ministry. We believe in the power of prayer, so for two weeks leading up to the Advent season and surrounding our dedication of the space, we are encouraging a concerted effort to pray for this ministry, for our volunteers, and for our community and neighbors. Perhaps you are able to commit to praying for 5 minutes a day, perhaps you can commit to carving out larger chunks of time less frequently, or perhaps you can simply “take the baton” for one day over the next fourteen. We are happy to have as many people as possible join us in whatever capacity they are able! The pages that follow are not a day by day devotional intended to be worked through from start to finish. Rather, they are a collection of outreach focused prayers, scriptures, poems, and devotions intended to be used to support you in your prayer practices however you find most helpful. We hope that through these words, God might direct our prayer and our hearts in a similar direction. Please let us know that you are participating! You can do so via the QR code below, or by emailing pdupont@asburyfist.org. We would love to be able to announce that 1,010 people are praying for 1010 East Avenue. Let’s see how close we can get! We look forward to finding out together what God will do in our community. In Christ, Rev. Pat Dupont, Minister for Outreach Rev. Susan Shafer, Senior Minister Emerita Bonnie Matthaidess, Spiritual Director Kathryn Woodruff, Summer Pastoral Intern
Introduction
{{page}}
1. Prayer for Others
God of community, we pray for our own congregation; may we be a source of hope for our neighborhood. Help us to discern needs and work to fulfill them. Strengthen and unify our congregation and show us how we can be the disciples you envision us to be. Return the sick to health and well-being and relieve the suffering of those who have lost loved ones, are unable to find meaningful employment and fear the challenges of old age. Guide us, Great Shepherd, into your paths of right relationships. In Jesus’ name we pray; Amen.
God of all humanity, You call us to bring about healing and wholeness for the whole world — for people of all races and cultures and creeds. Help us to respond to a world that is groaning under the weight of injustice and broken relationships. Remind us that differences are a gift, and interdependence a strength from the same creative God. Strengthen us to resist the forces that encourage polarization and competition rather than understanding and cooperation. We know that your reign is not built on injustice and oppression, but on the transformation of hearts — new life, not just reordered life. Teach us forgiveness, O God. Bring us reconciliation. Give us hope for the future. We pray in Jesus’ love. Amen.
2. Prayer for Humankind
3. Prayer
Dear God of Justice, Please help my generation to see the need for justice. It is my dream because we need change; and I know that, with you, it can happen. In Jesus’ name, Amen —Ben (age 11)
4. Prayer
O God, our Heavenly Creator, give us a vision of our world as Your love would make it: a world where the weak are protected and none go hungry or poor; a world where the benefits of civilized life are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a world where different races, nations and cultures live in tolerance and mutual respect, a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love; and give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” — Luke 17:6 Boundless God, help us to see the world differently — not with our own limited vision but with the gaze of love and justice. Give us the foolishness to believe that we can change what the world says is impossible; and when we lose sight of the power of love to change the world increase our faith. Amen.
5. Prayer
6. Prayer
Christ Jesus, you were a victim of injustice, condemned by those who had the power to save you and ignored by those who might have spoken up on your behalf. Embolden us to use the opportunities we have to speak out against the injustices around us, knowing that you desire justice for all God’s people. Amen.
7. Prayer of Hospitality & Compassion
Open my eyes that they may see the deepest needs of people; Move my hands that they may feed the hungry; Touch my heart that it may bring warmth to the despairing; Teach me the generosity that welcomes strangers; Let me share my possessions to clothe the naked; Give me the care that strengthens the sick; Make me share in the quest to set the prisoner free. In sharing our anxieties and our love, our poverty and our prosperity, we partake of your divine presence.
Your love, O God, is an active love: engaged, involved, immersed. Your love, O God, is seen in what you do, not just in what you say: in the blessing of children, in the meals with outcasts, in the touching of the untouchable, in your presence, and your self-giving, in your opening of the way to life to all who will come; And your love, O God, is expressed through people like us: as we share our wealth in simplicity and generosity; as we share wholeness in care and healing of the sick and broken; as we share hospitality by being truly present to the lonely, the imprisoned and the marginalized; as we share peace in kindness, listening and acceptance with those who challenge us, confront us and threaten us. As you have loved us in incarnate action, O God, may we learn to be little incarnations through whom your love is expressed and experienced in action. Amen.
8. Love in Action
9. Prayer
Almighty God, you have given all peoples one common origin, and your will is to gather them as one family in yourself. Fill the hearts of all with the fire of your love and the desire to ensure justice for all our siblings. By sharing the good things you give us, may we secure justice and equality for every human being, and a human society built on love and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
10. Prayer for the Offering
Generous God, through your Son, Jesus Christ, you have shown us what it means to love. And you call us to follow Your example— to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Continue to write your law of love on our hearts. Give us an unwavering passion for justice, and a tenacious faith that will not rest until the hungry are fed, the oppressed find relief, and the outsider finds a welcome. Amen.
Grant us, God, a vision of your world as your love would have it: a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can enjoy them; a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect; a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. Give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
11. Prayer
May we honor your name not by paying it lip service, Lord Jesus but by trusting the vision it speaks of and the way it calls for May we honor it by following you speaking into the word with our actions and showing whom we are chosen to follow May we love in your name speak in your name care in your name that willingness to touch the outcast feed the hungry remember the sick visit the imprisoned clothe the naked give water to the thirsty in your name.
12. In Your Name
Hear our prayers, Holy God. Breathe your Spirit over us and all the earth, that barriers would crumble and divisions cease. Make us more fully your co-healers of the broken world. Unite us with all people in bonds of love, that the whole earth and all its peoples may be at peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
13. Prayer
God of freedom and peace, who sees your children through all circumstances: help us walk hand in hand with one another, that together we may overcome all evil forces which attempt to divide us from each other; in the name of the One whose Body is made of many members, Jesus Christ. Amen.
14. Prayer
15. Advent Sending
Advent is our season of waiting for the coming of Jesus, our Lord. But long ago he came already. So, what are we waiting for, then? For his real coming to you, to me, to our world. Where is his kingdom among us? How can people see whether he is here? Can they see him in us, in our communities? This is what we are waiting for, or rather, what the Lord is waiting for. The Lord is waiting for our active preparing of his love and justice among people. But he will do it with us. Let the Lord come and activate us, with the blessing of almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us go with one another the way of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
16. A Prayer of Love
Holy of holies- Fill us with your Love. From the wombs that birthed each one of us into the world, and the channels of hope that we embody as individuals, midwifing your realm on earth, as it is in Heaven: Let love be the guiding force for our relationship to our bodies, our selves, our neighbors, our world. Let love flow forth in reckless abundance, and let it begin with me. Amen.
Sources
Art: All artwork by Sarah Fuller https://sarahfullerart.com Printed with permission Prayer: Posted on the Presbyterian Church in Canada website. http://presbyterian.ca/worship/ Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, from Race and Prayer: Collected Voices Many Dreams edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester L. Talton (Morehouse Publishing, 2003, p.76) Accessed via https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/ archive-praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/ archive-praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism Geoffrey Brown and John Pridmore, St Martin-in-the-Fields’ Prayer for the World. Posted on The Church of Scotland’s Weekly Worship website. https://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/worship Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ Posted on the Christian Aid website. http://www.christianaid.org.uk/ Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ From Stations of the Cross: Overcoming Racism, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta. https://www.stlukesatlanta.org/uploads/images/ stations-of-the-cross--overcoming-racism-final_652.pdf, Accessed via https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/ praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism-july-september-2022 Canaan Banana, Zimbabwe, in With All God’s People: The New Ecumenical Prayer Cycle (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1989), 344. Posted on Prayers and Creeds. http://prayersandcreeds.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/ prayer-of-hospitality-compassion/. Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ Written by John van de Laar, and posted on his excellent website, Sacredise.com. Visit his site for other good lectionary-based prayers and worship resources. Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ United Church of Christ. Accessed via https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/ archive-praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism Christine Longhurst, in Hunger for Justice: World Food Day 2016, posted on the Canadian Foodgrains Bank website. http://foodgrainsbank.ca/product/world-food-day-2016-hunger-for-justice/. Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/ archive-praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism Excerpted from a longer piece by Roddy Hamilton, and posted on Listening to the Stones. http://newkilpatrickblog.typepad.com/nk-blogging/mucky-paws/ Used by permission. Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ Concluding Collect, Prayers of the People for Racial Reconciliation, Episcopal Diocese of Indianapolis. https://indydio.org/2019/02/prayers-of-the-people-for-racial-reconciliation- created-by-standing-commission-on-liturgy-and- music-subcommittee-on-racial-reconciliation/. Accessed via https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/ praying-for-change-daily-prayers-for-anti-racism-july-september-2022 https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ From Liturgies Alive, Models of Celebration. Accessed via https://re-worship.blogspot.com/ Written by Rev. Dr. Chris S. Davies. Accessed via https://www.ucc.org/advent2021/
Sources Cont.
Notes, Prayers, and Meditations
asburyfirst.org/coc
Help us Move! Construction is nearing completion and now our empty building is ready to be filled! Volunteer your time to prepare the space for ministry. VOLUNTEER! Visit asburyfirst.org/coc to learn about our programs and sign up to volunteer. In the new year, attend a volunteer orientation. PRAY! Sign up at asburyfirst.org/coc to participate in our Virtual Vigil by praying for our center, volunteers, neighbors, and ministries for two weeks surrounding the dedication of the new space. CELEBRATE! Attend the special worship and building Dedication Ceremony on Sunday, November 20 at 12 pm. GIVE! Monetary and other donations are essential for our programs to continue to serve our neighborhood and community. You can give monetarily at asburyfirst.org/give and see a list of needed items at asburyfirst.org/coc. You can also participate in the Thanksgiving In-Gathering donation drive. SHARE! Help us spread the word about all we are doing. Invite a friend or neighbor to any of the events listed above!
Support the Launch of the New Community Outreach Center!