Prayer – REACH SA - Synod 2016 

Our loving and heavenly Father

We come to you today and we confess our weakness.

We are often loaded with sorrow,

Perplexed and uncertain at what to do,

Wracked with doubt,

Consumed by fear,

Hard pressed and discouraged.

We pray for ourselves as we gather this synod.

Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

We pray that Christ might be honoured.

We pray that your name might be proclaimed in every nook and cranny of our country.

We pray for the rural villages of our land, forgotten, scorned and often trapped in desperate poverty.

We pray for the urban centres fiercely pursuing the God’s of money, independence and pleasure.

We pray for our townships with their apartheid pain and their legacy of political neglect.

We pray for the aspirational suburbs, wealthy in money, poor in love.

We pray for the gospel to penetrate every corner of our nation.

We pray for churches to be planted and ways to be found to fund ministries amongst the poor and marginalised.

We pray for leaders to be raised up with servant hearts, sacrificial spirits and a missional mindset.

Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

We pray for our witness as a denomination that wherever our communities gather we may be communities of love - deeply in love with you.

May our love gush out of us in expressions of compassion, grace, generosity and forgiveness to the people around us.

We pray for our churches to grow in maturity and in number…

We confess that we are timid in our prayers and doubting of your promises.

We pray for the energy and motivation to plant churches and ministries in difficult places.

Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

We pray for your will to be done in our lives and in our churches

We pray for your Holy Spirit to give us such a deep sense of sin that we are revolted at our hearts and constantly seek your grace.

We pray that you would change us, grow us to maturity as you make us like your son.

May holiness not be the experience of the monastery but the desire of our hearts.

We pray for your Holy Spirit to radically transform us so that it might be gossiped of us that we are like Christ

Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

We pray for our Synod.

We pray that we might not be consumed with the business of keeping the institution running but rather consumed with the business of advancing and preaching the gospel.

We pray for courage to take risks for the kingdom.

Compassion to well up in us for the poor and marginalised.

Love to drive our actions, our words and our plans.

Benevolence to be our hearts desire as we consider the orphan and the abandoned. 

Unity of mind so that your glory might be seen in our diversity.

Unity of heart that the divisions of apartheid might not dog our comradeship.

A fear of hell to grip our hearts and to motivate our actions.

And the hope of heaven to embolden us for mission.

Lord in your mercy hear our prayer

We pray for ourselves today.

We do not crouch at your feet as slaves.

But exalt in our sonship, our forgiveness, our justification and our welcome.

We pray that those downhearted might be encouraged.

Those that are despondent be revived.

Those that have become lazy be challenged.

Those that have slipped into the mundane treadmill of maintenance ministry be re-enthused.

We pray for ideas to be shared and new ministries to take fruit as a result of our gathering.

But most of all we pray for your glory alone, for your fame to spread and for your church to show that she is the bride for whom you died.

In Jesus Christ name we pray

Amen